Draining 10% of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (5% of Antarctica as a whole), Pine Island Glacier currently accounts for ~13% of Antarctic ice loss (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01887-y). Although much of the ice is lost through basal melting of its floating ice tongue, iceberg calving accounts for periodic phases of retreat. There has been no significant calving for 5 years and the shelf extent is approximately the same as 20 years ago. However, in recent years thinning and weakening have caused ice flow to increase significantly.
This 7.5 year animation of EU Copernicus Sentinel-1 SAR data shows the complexities of calving and the stochastic nature of the calving process. This mp4 video is free for you to download and share.
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