Weakening of the pinning point buttressing Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica

Wild, Christian T.; Alley, Karen E.; Muto, Atsuhiro; Truffer, Martin; Scambos, Ted A.; Pettit, Erin C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-397-2022

Articles | Volume 16, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-397-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-397-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 2

Research article

|

03 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 03 Feb 2022

Weakening of the pinning point buttressing Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica

Christian T. Wild, Karen E. Alley, Atsuhiro Muto, Martin Truffer, Ted A. Scambos, and Erin C. Pettit

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Feb 2022)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 06 May 2021)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Review_Wild_et_al', Clemens Schannwell, 03 Jun 2021

Please see attachment for detailed review.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-130-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Christian Wild, 14 Sep 2021
  
  The authors reply to the comments of both reviewers in the attached document
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-130-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on tc-2021-130', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Jun 2021

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-130/tc-2021-130-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-130-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Christian Wild, 14 Sep 2021
  
  The authors reply to the comments of both reviewers in the attached document
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-130-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (16 Sep 2021) by Josefin Ahlkrona

AR by Christian Wild on behalf of the Authors (16 Oct 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (18 Oct 2021) by Josefin Ahlkrona

RR by Clemens Schannwell (22 Oct 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (12 Nov 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (30 Nov 2021) by Josefin Ahlkrona

AR by Christian Wild on behalf of the Authors (22 Dec 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (04 Jan 2022) by Josefin Ahlkrona

AR by Christian Wild on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2022) Manuscript

Short summary

Thwaites Glacier has the potential to significantly raise Antarctica's contribution to global sea-level rise by the end of this century. Here, we use satellite measurements of surface elevation to show that its floating part is close to losing contact with an underwater ridge that currently acts to stabilize. We then use computer models of ice flow to simulate the predicted unpinning, which show that accelerated ice discharge into the ocean follows the breakup of the floating part.