Antarctica’s Thwaites glacier is losing its eastern ice shelf as large fractures spread across the floating structure. The development threatens to speed up the glacier’s flow and add to global sea levels over coming decades.
The Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf covers about 1500 square kilometres and is 350 metres thick. Satellite observations show that the shelf is fracturing rapidly around its pinning point and along the grounding line where the glacier meets the sea. Flow speeds have tripled since January 2020 and reached just over 2000 metres per year by January 2026, with further acceleration recorded in the following months.