UW researchers will survey Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier as part of major international effort

Reconnaissance flight over Thwaites Glacier, which is thought to act as a buttress on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
U.S. Antarctic Program/National Science Foundation
Reconnaissance flight over Thwaites Glacier, which is thought to act as a buttress on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The National Science Foundation and the U.K.’s Natural Environmental Research Council this month announced a joint 5-year, $25 million effort to study Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier.

Nicknamed the “world’s most dangerous glacier,” Thwaites Glacier already is contributing to rising seas; if it collapsed it would raise global sea level by about three feet. The glacier may also act as a linchpin on the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which could raise sea level by much more.

University of Washington glaciologists will participate in one of the eight projects funded through the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration to better understand the glacier and predict what it will do next.

“About 100 scientists are involved in this initiative, which is the largest Antarctic deep-field effort in 70 years,” said Knut Christianson, assistant professor of Earth and space sciences and the UW’s principal investigator on the project. “This is one of the largest deep-field efforts ever attempted in West Antarctica, and is on a scale neither the U.S. nor the U.K. — or anyone else — could accomplish alone.”

Read more at UW Today »