Glacier basal condicions inferred from seismic data

Thwaites Glacier, located in an overdeepened basin that extends far inland, is one of the fastest and largest glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Together with Pine Island Glacier, it is one of the main candidates for a potential catastrophic collapse of the marine ice sheet along the Amundsen Coast. Recent studies indicate that the glaciers along the Amundsen Coast are thinning rapidly. In particular, the most dramatic changes have occurred on Pine Island Fig 1 - West Antarctica map showing the Glacier and Thwaites Glacier, where Joughin and others (2009) used models constrained by remotely sensed data to infer the basal properties of both glaciers. The results indicate strong basal melting in areas upstream of the grounding line, where the ice flow is fast and the basal shear stress is , the speed near the grounding line increased more than 25% between 1974 and 2008.