Watch a HUGE chunk of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica Break Off: Ongoing In this video tutorial, I explain how I heard on social media about huge cracks developing from day to day on a large section of Thwaites Glacier, the so-called "Doomsday Glacier". I show you how to use some of the basic websites like NASA Worldview to measure the length of the crack, the area of the glacier liable to break up over the next few weeks and months, and what the crack looked like as it was forming and widening. I think that it is very probable that this crack and region experiences a rapid loss of significant size and impact over the next month or two. With this Worldview link, you can follow on a day to day basis what is happening. Note that some days are clouded out, but there are many clear days where you can see for yourself what is really happening around Antarctica. Please provide updates in the comments section when something significant happens, and I will monitor things and report on them as they progress. Thanks... Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and video joining the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem. Antarctic, Arctic Ice, and Climate Discussion x.com/messages/1623645091029024768 x.com/KrVaSt NASA Worldview Data centered on Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-1724960.7552282487,-550991.8058865978,-1479200.7552282487,-430031.8058865979&p=antarctic&l=Reference_Labels_15m(hidden),Reference_Features_15m(hidden),Coastlines_15m,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor&lg=false&t=2025-01-21-T00%3A00%3A00Z Wikipedia background on Thwaites Glacier en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thwaites_Glacier Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and video joining the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.
What it looks like is trivial in itself. Crucial is where the submarine ridge is located, the one holding back the glacier. The bay behind that ridge is far deeper, allowing the glacier to flow over it freely . If this crack and the breakup front at the ocean side of the ridge, it is still keepen the glacier in place. If the glacier front is breaking over the ridge, the braking effect is lost, and Thwaites can pick up speed and flow out faster. Anyone know the location of that ridge, with map data?
So after seeing this, I spent all night and I made a time lapse of the last 25 years of satellite footage. Pretty incredible (and sobering) seeing the ice flow out into the ocean over the decades
Just Google thwaites glacier and set uploaded in last week. Wasn't hard to find. Not sure I learned anything from watching it, but I appreciate your effort.
Good morning from germany Paul. I appreciate your videos a lot, even if the facts are as frightening as they obviously are. It looks like a dam in a river breaking in slow motion.
This is very unnerving. When I was completing my undergrad degree (in enviro manage) the collapse of this glacier was speculative and not in my lifetime... and yet here we are. I'd say big oil has won the battle, but hopefully "not the war". We need to make the oil industry irrelevant asap. I've been reflecting: I'm busy eating my breakfast toast surrounded by a pack of hounds watching me eat, waiting for their section of the crusts. This got me thinking about how many thousands of years this scenario has been playing out... humans sitting around (a fire) eating their dinner with a pack of hounds watching them do it, waiting for their share of the left overs. Humans spent thousands of years adapting to new environs as they migrated out of Africa to the rest of the globe. Then we spent thousands of years adapting the environ to suit our needs. We have come full circle, humans will now spend hundreds / thousands of years adapting to a new world we created... not as intelligent a species as we thought! On another note: lots of speculation on the role of climate change on the strength of the recent Santa Ana winds relating to the 2025 round of LA fires. My question: since global warming is happening faster at the poles relative to the equator and the associated impacts on the polar vortex(s) & jet stream(s), perhaps the answer is a cautious "most likely" (although it's probably too early to see a strong trend)?
@CitiesForTheFuture2030 you compared minor changes of a degree to the future of several? This is a false comparison as it compares climate allowing human life to a climate outside of the window of life for humans and large biological lifeforms. Unless you consider a few humans living under ground eating? worms for thousands of years is adapting!
you do realize that everything you used to get your degree and make this post is made possible by big oil and that without it we would lose 80% of the population in 3 months?
@wakkosick6525 that is false. 14 countries run completely on renewables and you can't say if renewables or not produced something specific. That's why I know you are not a scientist, or energy specialist and I guess you don't even bother fact checking. PS, solar power powers the production of solar panels and wind energy powers manufacturing of fossil fuel systems every day! Also, there are numerous places in my country where the wind NEVER stops blowing.
I don't understand your point. So the fact that burning fossil fuels among many other cataclysms to life as we know it may soon destabilize thwaits glacier and cause sea level rise and soon But that's okay because burning fossil fuels helped you get an education? What?
Anthropomorphic global warming is bs. We have a pole flip in progress, also we are entering a grand solar minimum. These 2 things alone are/will create havoc with the climate and is far more powerful then the amount of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere. The eruption of tonga put 10% more water vapor into the atmosphere and water vapor is a more powerful greenhouse gas then co2. We are seeing massive floods and record snow in places due to that huge increase of water vapor.More CO2 greens the planet and that in turn increases the amount of co2 taken in by plants and the biggest sink of co2 the oceans. At one point there were far fewer glaciers then there is now. I dont know why everyone gets all bent out of shape because the glaciers are melting. Is it because people are clueless to the cycles the planet goes through??? Were are in an interglacial period where temps go up and ice retreats.. guess what comes after the interglacial period.... cold..very fkn cold... more people die from the cold then from the heat.. a thousand years ago vikings had hundreds of farms on Greenland with thousands of animals so tell me how Greenland is doing now...
I fear 1. water scarcity due to heat or unspeakables 2. lack of pollinators. I asked google how long we have if we lose pollinators and the answer was surprisingly specific - 4 years.
Thank you for this video, sir. I have been fascinated by this glacier since I first heard of it. Not many people are covering it, especially not old legacy media, so I am grateful for you using this wider way of reaching people around the globe.
Glaciers are not static. They grow through snowfall in higher elevations and then this precipitation flows as glacier-ice to lower elevations. The size of the glacier is determined by the balance between the amount of snowfall and the amount of ice-calving. With thwaits glacier there is a speciality. Underneath of it there is a huge magma plume which seems to become more active. This could cause and explain a kind of disbalance of more calving than growing and in this way a continious retraction of the glaciers front on the sea. It seems, that global warming is not the only cause to what we see with thwaites glacier.
Thanks Paul, was good of you to update us late into the evening. We had massive electrical storms on the East coast of Australia on the 18th Jan with cold south air crashing into hot inland air across from the west. A spectacular event unfolded as the two air streams collided. There was a massive break up of ice on the 16th and 17th Jan on NASA wordview......so I expect we will see more whiplash events from extreme heat to cold weather on the East Coast of Australia. And even when it's a cool change the UV index reading alert is very extreme 12+. So, now we know.
Thwaites is mounted on a mountain incline along with the two glaciers to each side of it. Add the continued melt & sea level rise from other worldly melt sites. This is a canary in the coal mine for worldly sea level rise. A ten fold increase in the rise rate that will continue to accelerate over time.
More like an Eagle in a coalmine. Makes me wonder, as insurance firms are already pulling out of Florida flood prone sites and fire sensitive area, at what point will big finance double / quadruple their rates on insurance and investments in port facilities? These essential financial backing products often have running periods of 20 plus years, a time frame in which you cannot guarantee the security of those million dollar seaside investmets. These firms arent in it to throw away money on preductable risks, so rates will go up, and affect all of us, as import goods will get a price hike, long before actual danger arrives to our ports. Trumps new tariffs will be a laugh comparison, and the next president cannot bring m down again. Its a serious threat to world ecnomy
Ever since the French Scientist gave his lecture on this very subject. I have kept an eye this glacier. It will be a massive wake-up call to all of them, especially in Australia. Anyway, love is the only way. 🇦🇺🇦🇺
@@coralcometas far as im concerned and Im not an expert is that if Antarctica melts it affects the northern hemisphere more than the southern hemisphere, although Australia would be screwed too ....
@@EdwardM-t8p And what did you learn from that? Hopefully that U live on a dynamic planet, situation NORMAL Gore predicted end of Artic Sea ice to happen a decade ago in 2004. Nothing much has changed, climate catastrophism still sells and Artic ice still there.
This is indeed the year. Way to many runaway feedback loops have been triggered. The ridiculous weather in North America right now is caused by the main thermohaline current AMOCC being nearly stopped. Europe is gonna get very nasty weather too.
I live in New Zealand. This summer has been colder and windier than usual. We already have a coastal erosion problem which will get worse once the glacier chunk goes……
Thanks Paul. Interesting and alarming. The ocean part of the glacier, the plug so to speak, is deteriorating faster then thought, which supposedly will allow the land part to slide more rapidly into the ocean. Amazing that we can watch it unfold like this.
Wow that's not good. I expected it but I was hoping against it. The cascade has begun. It's getting closer to land and the permanent ice. I might avoid buying the beachfront house. Thanks for the news. You do an amazing job mate
The insurance companies know what's up. Insurance rates for houses within 100 miles of the ocean has gone up between 300% and 600% over the last 20 years.
How much of the cracking off is seasonal sea ice retreat as opposed to ice-sheet collapse? There doesn't seem to be images from previous years to compare. The sea ice will continue to break away until mid to end February.
I just looked up the area of South Carolina ( where I live) right at 90,000 sq km. Similar to the “round” part that broke off … wow…definitely helps grasp the size!
Hi Paul, thanks for showing this. It’s amazing to be able to see this in real time. However, it does need to be put in context with previous years. Is this just a seasonal thing which breaks off and refreezes every year or is this genuine retreat of the glacier front? I checked the current view with previous years. If you compare today with the previous 5 years on the same date then there is a retreat of the ice shelf. However, if you look at mid March 2024, so end of Antarctic summer last year, the edge of the ice shelf is further back. So the ice shelf being lost now has only grown since last year. It would be interesting to compare during March this year to see if the ice is being lost in areas which were previously permanent year round. Edit: just checked back further years. Look at 2019 on this date, it’s way back from where it is today!
If you compare Jan-21-2019 to Jan-21-2025 on worldview, you can see that there is actually significantly less sea ice cover in 2019 than this year in the same spot. Similarly, you can check other years where sea ice extent was low such as 2016 to get a sense of what the natural cycle in this region is like during austral summer. According to climate reanalyzer, sea ice extent across Antarctica is trending average - slightly below average. I would wait for a paper to come out discussing this!
@@TadaGanIarracht Exactly ... volume is much more important than extent. And the north polar region is of significant concern, with record low sea ice volume by a substantial margin.
I have checked the pictures from the last years. Whats the difference between today and 2019 or 2013? There where similar big parts of ice gone at this time.
Paul, I saw this info on-line, that the A.M.O.C. isn't changing. The info was from the following: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Are they financed by the PetroChemical Industry? And if not? What is the right info?
@@donaldduck830 What's even more fascinating is how idiots like you think they are clever, might be a great idea to go and learn something on the subject...
Many thanks Paul thanks for sharing this informative view of Antarctica Thwaites glacier with us and we can constantly observe this and see that's going on..Very alarming to say the least..Time for another swig of that chalice!!👍👍
Giving an idea of size, the small piece that rotated is about 1/3rd the size of the city of Atlanta. The entire large area is about twice the size of Fulton county where Atlanta exists.
Australia has been in the midst of rolling heat waves since mid December. Paul is there a calculator that will give an idea of how much sea level rise will result 2000km2 of ice?
I was going to make a quip about Nero in the White House but Nero didn't go out and throw gasoline on the fires burning Rome to the ground, he simply did nothing.
TWIT isn't pinned and provides little back pressure. TEIS is the side that is pinned. It's under a lot of pressure, and is gradually losing chunks over the last few years, but the crack you're pointing at is in very loose stuff.
Also, it's very difficult to distinguish fast sea ice from ice shelves just using the visual data. Radar does a much better job, for example www.polarview.aq/images/106_S1jpgsmall/202408/S1A_EW_GRDM_1SDH_20240808T042014_6C48_S_1.jpg
@paintingtracey Yes, I think Paul jumped on an unreliable source without doing the background reading to be able to properly interpret the satellite images. An overview paper from 2021 can provide some context: "Two decades of dynamic change and progressive destabilization on the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf"
Theres a submarine ridge holding back the glacier. I suppose that ridge is still on the right side of this crack, at the land side, keeping the main body of Thwaites in place. at least, alandpost seems to point to that. Got any solid map data showing the location of that ridge, alandpost?
These just appear to be part of the floating shelves that are braking off in summer. I think the gray demarcation lines show the boundaries of the floating shelves.
Calving: referring to a cow birthing a calf, also to the breaking of off ice from a glacier.. Calf rhymes with staff. Calving rhymes with having. For the love of all that's holy, please Dr. Beckwith, you can pronounce 'archipelago' any way you want, but calving rhymes with having! 😃 Thanks for all your dedicated work.
Paul, Western Europe is already at 2.7 and has been for over a year. The Antarctic must be a bigger number. Irrespective it's not about a particular number. The last 5 years have seen big differences in w-euro. Humidity increases doubled around the med. Feels almost like new zealand which is very humide (80% auckland to the north) all the time. The weather in west euro has become unstable and unreliable. It's hunting for equilibrium. Northern hemisphere west euro has likely tipped. I see no reason to think America and Asia have not tipped. It only takes continuous acute climate events for a short while to understand it's chronic breakdown. We're not going back to stability and predictability. I'm sure you understand that situation.
@@donaldduck830 The biggest liars are the Deniers. You have no trouble teaching kids history, about war, the endless criminal movies and TV shows, the Cowboys and Indians travesty, school shootings etc. A bit of science about the damage we are doing to the planet isn't going to be their biggest problem.
Most coastal shorelines along with the lower course of rivers around the world have porous soils. This type of ground should allow accessive ocean water to be absorbed into the water table.
Hardly any. I found a site that has the calculations say the 2000 km2 was 1 klm thick, so 2000 cubic klms. Online calculator says thats 2,000,000 Gigalitres, but only half of that would be above sea level to contribute to SL Rise Say 1,000,000 Gigalitres, = 1+e9 Kilos, = .001 Gigaton 458.30 Gigaton of ice (as calculated above), then we could calculate the global sea level equivalent by: SLE (mm) = mass of ice (Gt) x (1 / 361.8) SLE = 458.30 x (1 / 361.8) SLE = 1.27 mm
This watch of the Thwaites Glacier calving looks a lot like the Mount Everest start of the climb. Where the glaciers there are continuously changing the trail to access the mountain. It too, is moving faster than years ago.
Could you show some images of how other areas of ice eg. European glaciers have receeded over the last 50 years, (assuming that they have). It strikes me that this would be one of the most compelling pieces of evidence to confirm global warming but no one seems to be doing it. Chat GPT says that glaciers in The Alps, South America, Himylayas, Northern Europe, New Zealand and Russia have all retreated substancially over the last 100 years. Written testimony is one thing but a picture is worth a thousand words and to show a thing is far more convincing than to talk about it. If people want to convince us that global warming is taking place then why don't they just show us the evidence, lots of it!
258,000 cubic km of that ice is above sea level, for now. That's a lot of liquid refreshment, but the ocean is 1.3 billion cubic km, so there probably won't be flooding in Denver.
When the whole antarctic ice sheet melts, sea level will rise 58 meters or 190 feet, which puts me under water. I should move, but then my property taxes will go up and I'll have to find new doctors... forget it.
When you look at the size of the crack, and the mass of ice breaking off, is it not telling us the sea is already holding it up? The ice that is being held up by the sea, has already displaced the quantity of water equal to the mass of the ice it's holding up. It's only water in the form of ice on land, that isn't already displacing the water that can have the effect of rising sea levels when it melts. Is it possible there is a combination of the ice hanging on to the mass of ice, and partially being held up by the sea? Sea level rise would be immediate, when the ice breaks off, not progressive as the broken off ice melts.
@@user-ci2fd8vc2f i can see people treating one another this way. They use nets. I'm talking about die off. How far till then? Evil man destroys everything he touches.
So we could see a 2000 sq km sheet of ice enter the ocean. Underneath it, how much is in the ocean vs the mass above that might cause ocean displacement (sea level rise). Furthermore, loss of this sheet in February could unlock calving of a larger area behind it? How large?
Minute 19:13, Paul, the cloud cover to the upper left of your cursor has a somewhat of a spiral appearance, possibly some high winds are pulling that glacier apart, as it appears to be pulling the 93 1/2 sq. kilometers as seen at minute 18:50. Maybe there were some nasty winds that helped break up the party.
Been waiting for this to happen since the crack first appeared and all the science about whats been happening underneath. I try to imagine the sounds it was making as it ‘calved’ having heard calving thunder in AK years ago. Still,its shocking. Its happening ..
This part of the ice shelf grows and ebbs every year around this time. Check and compare the view from Mar 14 2024 and there is the same erosion and calving. WORLDVIEW allows an on screen comparison of different dates.
On the Worldview site given by the link, you can choose the year. To my untrained eye, 2025 is among the worst years looking at Jan. 21, but not clearly worse than 21/1/2013 or 21/1/2019.
Look at worldview and see the difference between Dec 24 and Jan 22. And 2003, 2013, 2019 and 2025 are years that something is happening. Will it be 4 years to next time and then fewer and fewer? Seems like that is the way things are going all around, so I think it is OK to be a bit worried.
@@melusine826 Same as this one " this feedback accelerated melting by 30%, or as much as what was expected from a whole century of a high emission climate change scenario "
Watch a HUGE chunk of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica Break Off: Ongoing
In this video tutorial, I explain how I heard on social media about huge cracks developing from day to day on a large section of Thwaites Glacier, the so-called "Doomsday Glacier". I show you how to use some of the basic websites like NASA Worldview to measure the length of the crack, the area of the glacier liable to break up over the next few weeks and months, and what the crack looked like as it was forming and widening. I think that it is very probable that this crack and region experiences a rapid loss of significant size and impact over the next month or two.
With this Worldview link, you can follow on a day to day basis what is happening. Note that some days are clouded out, but there are many clear days where you can see for yourself what is really happening around Antarctica. Please provide updates in the comments section when something significant happens, and I will monitor things and report on them as they progress.
Thanks...
Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and video joining the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.
Antarctic, Arctic Ice, and Climate Discussion
x.com/messages/1623645091029024768
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NASA Worldview Data centered on Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica
worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-1724960.7552282487,-550991.8058865978,-1479200.7552282487,-430031.8058865979&p=antarctic&l=Reference_Labels_15m(hidden),Reference_Features_15m(hidden),Coastlines_15m,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor&lg=false&t=2025-01-21-T00%3A00%3A00Z
Wikipedia background on Thwaites Glacier
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thwaites_Glacier
Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and video joining the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.
I can read wikipedia myself if necessary.
The noted breakup looks trivial compared to the breakup to the right and left.
What it looks like is trivial in itself.
Crucial is where the submarine ridge is located, the one holding back the glacier. The bay behind that ridge is far deeper, allowing the glacier to flow over it freely .
If this crack and the breakup front at the ocean side of the ridge, it is still keepen the glacier in place. If the glacier front is breaking over the ridge, the braking effect is lost, and Thwaites can pick up speed and flow out faster.
Anyone know the location of that ridge, with map data?
Update the day after I filmed and posted this video. It broke off.
So after seeing this, I spent all night and I made a time lapse of the last 25 years of satellite footage.
Pretty incredible (and sobering) seeing the ice flow out into the ocean over the decades
Where can we watch?
Just Google thwaites glacier and set uploaded in last week. Wasn't hard to find. Not sure I learned anything from watching it, but I appreciate your effort.
In hard times for us scientists, paul has been a consistent comfort of truth. Thankyou for still trying amongst the imbeciles
@donaldduck830 it's a plug for ice on land person who seems to have an anger issue and obviously has done no homework 🙄
Yes. Well said.
@donaldduck830 Looks like you didn't do well in school and know nothing about the glacier in question. Best to sit down and be quiet.
@ A "plug".
And projection.
Typical for morons.
@@donaldduck830 Antarctica is a landmass. If the temperature increase melts off the ice in the water guess what comes next
Scientists need to stop using X and create a new science chat.
Or at least BlueSky
Not only scientists, but all people of conscience, critical thinking and respect for science.
Especially after Musks' Hitler salute!
An X is a sans serif swastika 🫣
@@DuncanAtkinson interesting observation
Good morning from germany Paul. I appreciate your videos a lot, even if the facts are as frightening as they obviously are. It looks like a dam in a river breaking in slow motion.
Thank you for the homework, Paul. This is shocking
It is, but it comes as no surprise
This is very unnerving. When I was completing my undergrad degree (in enviro manage) the collapse of this glacier was speculative and not in my lifetime... and yet here we are. I'd say big oil has won the battle, but hopefully "not the war". We need to make the oil industry irrelevant asap.
I've been reflecting: I'm busy eating my breakfast toast surrounded by a pack of hounds watching me eat, waiting for their section of the crusts. This got me thinking about how many thousands of years this scenario has been playing out... humans sitting around (a fire) eating their dinner with a pack of hounds watching them do it, waiting for their share of the left overs. Humans spent thousands of years adapting to new environs as they migrated out of Africa to the rest of the globe. Then we spent thousands of years adapting the environ to suit our needs. We have come full circle, humans will now spend hundreds / thousands of years adapting to a new world we created... not as intelligent a species as we thought!
On another note: lots of speculation on the role of climate change on the strength of the recent Santa Ana winds relating to the 2025 round of LA fires. My question: since global warming is happening faster at the poles relative to the equator and the associated impacts on the polar vortex(s) & jet stream(s), perhaps the answer is a cautious "most likely" (although it's probably too early to see a strong trend)?
@CitiesForTheFuture2030 you compared minor changes of a degree to the future of several? This is a false comparison as it compares climate allowing human life to a climate outside of the window of life for humans and large biological lifeforms. Unless you consider a few humans living under ground eating? worms for thousands of years is adapting!
you do realize that everything you used to get your degree and make this post is made possible by big oil and that without it we would lose 80% of the population in 3 months?
@wakkosick6525 that is false. 14 countries run completely on renewables and you can't say if renewables or not produced something specific. That's why I know you are not a scientist, or energy specialist and I guess you don't even bother fact checking. PS, solar power powers the production of solar panels and wind energy powers manufacturing of fossil fuel systems every day! Also, there are numerous places in my country where the wind NEVER stops blowing.
I don't understand your point. So the fact that burning fossil fuels among many other cataclysms to life as we know it may soon destabilize thwaits glacier and cause sea level rise and soon
But that's okay because burning fossil fuels helped you get an education? What?
Anthropomorphic global warming is bs. We have a pole flip in progress, also we are entering a grand solar minimum. These 2 things alone are/will create havoc with the climate and is far more powerful then the amount of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere. The eruption of tonga put 10% more water vapor into the atmosphere and water vapor is a more powerful greenhouse gas then co2. We are seeing massive floods and record snow in places due to that huge increase of water vapor.More CO2 greens the planet and that in turn increases the amount of co2 taken in by plants and the biggest sink of co2 the oceans. At one point there were far fewer glaciers then there is now. I dont know why everyone gets all bent out of shape because the glaciers are melting. Is it because people are clueless to the cycles the planet goes through??? Were are in an interglacial period where temps go up and ice retreats.. guess what comes after the interglacial period.... cold..very fkn cold... more people die from the cold then from the heat.. a thousand years ago vikings had hundreds of farms on Greenland with thousands of animals so tell me how Greenland is doing now...
Thank you Paul, please keep us posted!
It appears to me that what we depend on, like food crops, will collapse well before significant sea level rise. But I'll finish my ark, just in case.
If i remember my bible history, it took 78 years for Noah to build the ark .... hope yours doesn't take that long. 😄
@sumiland6445 It's a tiny ark for me and my dog🫠
I fear 1. water scarcity due to heat or unspeakables 2. lack of pollinators. I asked google how long we have if we lose pollinators and the answer was surprisingly specific - 4 years.
I have an ark. It won’t float, but it’s well above any potential sea level rise. Not that I’ll live that long. 😆🤷♀️
@christinearmington 😄 waterworld!
Thank you for this video, sir. I have been fascinated by this glacier since I first heard of it. Not many people are covering it, especially not old legacy media, so I am grateful for you using this wider way of reaching people around the globe.
Glaciers are not static. They grow through snowfall in higher elevations and then this precipitation flows as glacier-ice to lower elevations. The size of the glacier is determined by the balance between the amount of snowfall and the amount of ice-calving. With thwaits glacier there is a speciality. Underneath of it there is a huge magma plume which seems to become more active. This could cause and explain a kind of disbalance of more calving than growing and in this way a continious retraction of the glaciers front on the sea. It seems, that global warming is not the only cause to what we see with thwaites glacier.
Thanks Paul, was good of you to update us late into the evening. We had massive electrical storms on the East coast of Australia on the 18th Jan with cold south air crashing into hot inland air across from the west. A spectacular event unfolded as the two air streams collided. There was a massive break up of ice on the 16th and 17th Jan on NASA wordview......so I expect we will see more whiplash events from extreme heat to cold weather on the East Coast of Australia.
And even when it's a cool change the UV index reading alert is very extreme 12+. So, now we know.
Just what we needed!
Not yet I wasn't ready.
Thwaites is mounted on a mountain incline along with the two glaciers to each side of it. Add the continued melt & sea level rise from other worldly melt sites. This is a canary in the coal mine for worldly sea level rise. A ten fold increase in the rise rate that will continue to accelerate over time.
So it will just slide into the ocean?! Oh my god!!
The late canary.
More like an Eagle in a coalmine.
Makes me wonder, as insurance firms are already pulling out of Florida flood prone sites and fire sensitive area, at what point will big finance double / quadruple their rates on insurance and investments in port facilities?
These essential financial backing products often have running periods of 20 plus years, a time frame in which you cannot guarantee the security of those million dollar seaside investmets. These firms arent in it to throw away money on preductable risks, so rates will go up, and affect all of us, as import goods will get a price hike, long before actual danger arrives to our ports. Trumps new tariffs will be a laugh comparison, and the next president cannot bring m down again. Its a serious threat to world ecnomy
Ever since the French Scientist gave his lecture on this very subject. I have kept an eye this glacier. It will be a massive wake-up call to all of them, especially in Australia. Anyway, love is the only way. 🇦🇺🇦🇺
How much sea level rise we talking for Australia?
@@coralcometas far as im concerned and Im not an expert is that if Antarctica melts it affects the northern hemisphere more than the southern hemisphere, although Australia would be screwed too ....
Damn. Thanks for the update.
this might be the year it actually starts, how tragically poetic
hope so. and more. humans need an education
Same risk since 1990. Cool but nothing new.
I thought people would wake up back in 2004 when the Larsen B Ice Shelf collapsed and shattered!
@@EdwardM-t8p And what did you learn from that? Hopefully that U live on a dynamic planet, situation NORMAL
Gore predicted end of Artic Sea ice to happen a decade ago in 2004. Nothing much has changed, climate catastrophism still sells and Artic ice still there.
This is indeed the year. Way to many runaway feedback loops have been triggered. The ridiculous weather in North America right now is caused by the main thermohaline current AMOCC being nearly stopped. Europe is gonna get very nasty weather too.
I live in New Zealand. This summer has been colder and windier than usual. We already have a coastal erosion problem which will get worse once the glacier chunk goes……
Thank you Paul !!
Thanks Paul. Interesting and alarming. The ocean part of the glacier, the plug so to speak, is deteriorating faster then thought, which supposedly will allow the land part to slide more rapidly into the ocean. Amazing that we can watch it unfold like this.
Wow that's not good. I expected it but I was hoping against it. The cascade has begun. It's getting closer to land and the permanent ice. I might avoid buying the beachfront house. Thanks for the news. You do an amazing job mate
The insurance companies know what's up. Insurance rates for houses within 100 miles of the ocean has gone up between 300% and 600% over the last 20 years.
How much of the cracking off is seasonal sea ice retreat as opposed to ice-sheet collapse? There doesn't seem to be images from previous years to compare.
The sea ice will continue to break away until mid to end February.
Thanks for the update!
We have only been warned for 70years. In sure we can fix it in 5...........
I just looked up the area of South Carolina ( where I live) right at 90,000 sq km. Similar to the “round” part that broke off … wow…definitely helps grasp the size!
Hi Paul, thanks for showing this. It’s amazing to be able to see this in real time. However, it does need to be put in context with previous years. Is this just a seasonal thing which breaks off and refreezes every year or is this genuine retreat of the glacier front? I checked the current view with previous years. If you compare today with the previous 5 years on the same date then there is a retreat of the ice shelf. However, if you look at mid March 2024, so end of Antarctic summer last year, the edge of the ice shelf is further back. So the ice shelf being lost now has only grown since last year. It would be interesting to compare during March this year to see if the ice is being lost in areas which were previously permanent year round. Edit: just checked back further years. Look at 2019 on this date, it’s way back from where it is today!
If you compare Jan-21-2019 to Jan-21-2025 on worldview, you can see that there is actually significantly less sea ice cover in 2019 than this year in the same spot. Similarly, you can check other years where sea ice extent was low such as 2016 to get a sense of what the natural cycle in this region is like during austral summer. According to climate reanalyzer, sea ice extent across Antarctica is trending average - slightly below average. I would wait for a paper to come out discussing this!
I would like to see VOLUMES of sea ice over the same period, I bet that is a much different story than what is happening on the surface
@@TadaGanIarracht Exactly ... volume is much more important than extent. And the north polar region is of significant concern, with record low sea ice volume by a substantial margin.
What are the coordinates of the crack?
Thank you for reporting on this. Concerning
The next image was just published - amazing! It's not a crack anymore, it's separating quickly. Is it "Doomsday" yet?
Last year was pretty similar
I have checked the pictures from the last years. Whats the difference between today and 2019 or 2013? There where similar big parts of ice gone at this time.
Thanks for updates
Paul, I saw this info on-line, that the A.M.O.C. isn't changing. The info was from the following: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Are they financed by the PetroChemical Industry? And if not? What is the right info?
They're financed by 3 letter agencies, so I have heard, and do top secret research for them.
Oh Thwaites!
We've watched,
We've
Waites!
Paul warned
Long ago:
Good chance,
YOU would go....
[Chorus: Sea Level Rise x2]
Oh Thwaites!
We Waites.
hahahha
Thank god there’s always one! 1️⃣🤩🥳
Thank you for the update 👍
Looking back through Worldview, January 2003 and 2019 look to also have large glacial ice losses.
Can I ask why this time is different?
We are doomed. But the science is totally fascinating. Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Paul. 🎉
Science is fascinating. Sealevel rise is more fiction than stories about King Arthur and the round table.
@@donaldduck830 What's even more fascinating is how idiots like you think they are clever, might be a great idea to go and learn something on the subject...
@@donaldduck830 Tell that to Venice and Florida...
Many thanks Paul thanks for sharing this informative view of Antarctica Thwaites glacier with us and we can constantly observe this and see that's going on..Very alarming to say the least..Time for another swig of that chalice!!👍👍
Pretty stunning in scale
So how “big” is that area that cracked off? What’s the size? Compared to US states might be analogous
Sorry jumped the gun. At 13:00 mark it’s said. Approx 9 km by 33 km. So about 5 miles by 20 miles.
@@EchoDoctrine it’s also the proverbial cork in the bottle. I would think that it would start to move faster towards the sea going forward.
@@EchoDoctrineamazing
Come to Bluesky Paul. Lots of scientists on the platform and there are subscriber packs to get you up and running with them in minutes.
I am on BlueSky
@PaulHBeckwith there are starter packs for scientists. I have joined a couple of them.
> bluesky
> scientists
lmao
Is there any confirmation of this from people on the site?
I bet the sound of that calving was awesome. I’d have loved to have seen that in person over those few days.
I don't know if this is the crack he's talking about, if you look at this same area a year ago it cracked then as well ?
Thanks, very interesting!
How many cubic km,
Thanks for making my day Paul. I didn't things could get worse
Giving an idea of size, the small piece that rotated is about 1/3rd the size of the city of Atlanta. The entire large area is about twice the size of Fulton county where Atlanta exists.
Thanks for that - another site to check and give me nightmares
Bluesky? I just opened an account there. I have no degrees though
Australia has been in the midst of rolling heat waves since mid December. Paul is there a calculator that will give an idea of how much sea level rise will result 2000km2 of ice?
answer under @danielfranklin2344 question, less than .001 mm
The world is having a party as it burns to the ground.
Just like the roaring 20’s! First the crash then the burn.
That's how we humans do after all. Party or fret or... The choice is yours
@@Knifymoloko Knowing the end is near just makes every day more precious.
I was going to make a quip about Nero in the White House but Nero didn't go out and throw gasoline on the fires burning Rome to the ground, he simply did nothing.
TWIT isn't pinned and provides little back pressure. TEIS is the side that is pinned. It's under a lot of pressure, and is gradually losing chunks over the last few years, but the crack you're pointing at is in very loose stuff.
This is a figure showing the pinning point of TEIS tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/5187/2021/tc-15-5187-2021-f04-web.png
Also, it's very difficult to distinguish fast sea ice from ice shelves just using the visual data. Radar does a much better job, for example www.polarview.aq/images/106_S1jpgsmall/202408/S1A_EW_GRDM_1SDH_20240808T042014_6C48_S_1.jpg
I’m not sure what are saying, is this crack not as concerning as Paul is saying? From a non scientist.
@paintingtracey Yes, I think Paul jumped on an unreliable source without doing the background reading to be able to properly interpret the satellite images. An overview paper from 2021 can provide some context: "Two decades of dynamic change and progressive destabilization on the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf"
Theres a submarine ridge holding back the glacier. I suppose that ridge is still on the right side of this crack, at the land side, keeping the main body of Thwaites in place. at least, alandpost seems to point to that. Got any solid map data showing the location of that ridge, alandpost?
Hi Paul, thanks for this update and resource.
I was wondering what you think of the latest news about the AMOC remaining stable for the last 60 years?
I will check it out
The data on those reports is from 1963 to 2017, not very valid information. However they did state it will certainly collapse.
@ Thank you!🙂
live from the next vanishing glacier, Doomsday.
These just appear to be part of the floating shelves that are braking off in summer. I think the gray demarcation lines show the boundaries of the floating shelves.
Calving: referring to a cow birthing a calf, also to the breaking of off ice from a glacier.. Calf rhymes with staff. Calving rhymes with having. For the love of all that's holy, please Dr. Beckwith, you can pronounce 'archipelago' any way you want, but calving rhymes with having! 😃 Thanks for all your dedicated work.
Only if you're north American, the rest of us pronounce it as "carfing"!
Interesting conversation!
Paul, Western Europe is already at 2.7 and has been for over a year. The Antarctic must be a bigger number. Irrespective it's not about a particular number. The last 5 years have seen big differences in w-euro. Humidity increases doubled around the med. Feels almost like new zealand which is very humide (80% auckland to the north) all the time. The weather in west euro has become unstable and unreliable. It's hunting for equilibrium. Northern hemisphere west euro has likely tipped. I see no reason to think America and Asia have not tipped. It only
takes continuous acute climate events for a short while to understand it's chronic breakdown. We're not going back to stability and predictability. I'm sure you understand that situation.
I love this comment!!! I’m no expert but dang, I’m old enough to have just enough insight or common sense. Thank you for the wake up call.
I stay wake at nights worrying about the young Children coping with the Ocean rise. After all, they are so much SHORTER !
Funny. I am more worried about children being lied to, making them unnecessarily traumatized.
@@donaldduck830 The biggest liars are the Deniers. You have no trouble teaching kids history, about war, the endless criminal movies and TV shows, the Cowboys and Indians travesty, school shootings etc. A bit of science about the damage we are doing to the planet isn't going to be their biggest problem.
Most coastal shorelines along with the lower course of rivers around the world have porous soils.
This type of ground should allow accessive ocean water to be absorbed into the water table.
Huh? Any porous soils near the coats already have plenty of fresh, or brackish waters saturation, if they are porous.
Thanks for the news and visual resource. Can you estimate what 2000 km2 would cause in sea level rise. Is that an cm or 10 cm?
Hardly any. I found a site that has the calculations
say the 2000 km2 was 1 klm thick, so 2000 cubic klms.
Online calculator says thats 2,000,000 Gigalitres, but only half of that would be above sea level to contribute to SL Rise
Say 1,000,000 Gigalitres, = 1+e9 Kilos, = .001 Gigaton
458.30 Gigaton of ice (as calculated above), then we could calculate the global sea level equivalent by:
SLE (mm) = mass of ice (Gt) x (1 / 361.8)
SLE = 458.30 x (1 / 361.8)
SLE = 1.27 mm
with just under half million km3 of ice being held back at thwaites glacier... it is a big risk in terms of sea-level rise.
This watch of the Thwaites Glacier calving looks a lot like the Mount Everest start of the climb. Where the glaciers there are continuously changing the trail to access the mountain. It too, is moving faster than years ago.
This is my first time at your site. It is summer in Antarctica, obviously. How does this compare to previous summers.
Where is the summer melt line from last year?
Currently Antarctic sea ice extent is tracking on the 1980-2010 average.
was this today?
Biggest change from Jan 17th to the 21st
Yes he told us the date
Hell. Simultaneously freezing 🥶 over and melting away. 🥶😳
awesome tip
switch to 2013
what does it all mean?
How does this event affect me ?
Could you show some images of how other areas of ice eg. European glaciers have receeded over the last 50 years, (assuming that they have).
It strikes me that this would be one of the most compelling pieces of evidence to confirm global warming but no one seems to be doing it.
Chat GPT says that glaciers in The Alps, South America, Himylayas, Northern Europe, New Zealand and Russia have all retreated substancially over the last 100 years.
Written testimony is one thing but a picture is worth a thousand words and to show a thing is far more convincing than to talk about it.
If people want to convince us that global warming is taking place then why don't they just show us the evidence, lots of it!
I wonder if it can be estimated the cubic mass of the 2000 squared km sheet.
What are the other lines that aren't cracks on the map? Grounding lines? The bottom of your crack crosses one of these.
Its a natural thing to happen we are still in a ice age .the oceans have been rising for the last 15thound years
258,000 cubic km of that ice is above sea level, for now. That's a lot of liquid refreshment, but the ocean is 1.3 billion cubic km, so there probably won't be flooding in Denver.
When the whole antarctic ice sheet melts, sea level will rise 58 meters or 190 feet, which puts me under water. I should move, but then my property taxes will go up and I'll have to find new doctors... forget it.
When you look at the size of the crack, and the mass of ice breaking off, is it not telling us the sea is already holding it up?
The ice that is being held up by the sea, has already displaced the quantity of water equal to the mass of the ice it's holding up.
It's only water in the form of ice on land, that isn't already displacing the water that can have the effect of rising sea levels when it melts.
Is it possible there is a combination of the ice hanging on to the mass of ice, and partially being held up by the sea?
Sea level rise would be immediate, when the ice breaks off, not progressive as the broken off ice melts.
Whats NOT in the new?
Lithium Battery Fire in Moss Landing
Worse case scenario, how long do we have untill climate change starts killing a third of the fish?
Well there are fleets of vessels fishing for krill...! The thin end of the food chain, and we are on the thick end, metaphorically and literally....
We already ate 90% of the fish.
Look for red tides! Right before they rename the Gulf of Mexico!😢😢😢
@@alanj9978 its worse... we fed the smaller fish to bigger fish. its a huge waste of energy. we even use smaller fish as bait for bigger fish.
@@user-ci2fd8vc2f i can see people treating one another this way. They use nets.
I'm talking about die off.
How far till then?
Evil man destroys everything he touches.
Thanks Paul for the info.
Try adding other layers. The ice velocity layer is interesting but it's only available up until 2011 for some reason.
So we could see a 2000 sq km sheet of ice enter the ocean. Underneath it, how much is in the ocean vs the mass above that might cause ocean displacement (sea level rise). Furthermore, loss of this sheet in February could unlock calving of a larger area behind it? How large?
@OHexpat12. How large, indeed! They say the area of Thwaites Glacier is the size of Florida or England+Scotland+Wales.
It just broke off.
Quite dramatic shift away, after watching this video earlier today and seeing the crack. And then the picture now 😮
Minute 19:13, Paul, the cloud cover to the upper left of your cursor has a somewhat of a spiral appearance, possibly some high winds are pulling that glacier apart, as it appears to be pulling the 93 1/2 sq. kilometers as seen at minute 18:50. Maybe there were some nasty winds that helped break up the party.
Been waiting for this to happen since the crack first appeared and all the science about whats been happening underneath. I try to imagine the sounds it was making as it ‘calved’ having heard calving thunder in AK years ago. Still,its shocking. Its happening ..
why is this news not covered in the media?
Yay
We're approaching maximum arctic summer melt so this is to be expected.
Thanks
For years, I have secretly wanted Thwaites to fall.
(I have my reasons) 😅
If you look at early February last year there is a similar or maybe greater level of breakup. I don't know the significance of this 🤔
This part of the ice shelf grows and ebbs every year around this time. Check and compare the view from Mar 14 2024 and there is the same erosion and calving. WORLDVIEW allows an on screen comparison of different dates.
On the Worldview site given by the link, you can choose the year. To my untrained eye, 2025 is among the worst years looking at Jan. 21, but not clearly worse than 21/1/2013 or 21/1/2019.
Dun dun dun !!!!!!!!!
Might be why it's snowing in Florida. The glacier moved 3"
It's a shame you don't do a comparison to last year, although I'm sure it's worse this year
I'm sure it will grow back, everything will be fine................
I _KNEW_ this was going to happen! We were warned 10 years ago.
If that was my kitchen ceiling, I'd cover it in artex. How much for the whole job mister ?
Just a few months ago I was reading about how this scenario was incredibly unlikely in my lifetime. I think the technical term is we’re fkd 🤦♀️
Look at worldview and see the difference between Dec 24 and Jan 22. And 2003, 2013, 2019 and 2025 are years that something is happening. Will it be 4 years to next time and then fewer and fewer? Seems like that is the way things are going all around, so I think it is OK to be a bit worried.
It found in the last two centuries the movement was twice the speed of what we have now is interesting.
Citations please? What do you mean
@@melusine826 " It found in the last two centuries the movement was twice the speed" was a quote off the page Paul was reading about the glacier.
@@melusine826 Same as this one " this feedback accelerated melting by 30%, or as much as what was expected from a whole century of a high emission climate change scenario "