Thwaites Glacier Western Calving Front

At the most active part of the terminus of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, kilometre-sized icebergs calve away every few weeks. Some of these icebergs capsize to reveal a smooth underbelly which appears darker in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. This animation of SAR data captured by the Copernicus Program Sentinel-1 SAR shows the ongoing calving of hundreds of icebergs over the last 8 years. This calving process is partially controlled by the buttressing provided by a mixture of previously-calved ice and sea-ice known as mélange (see Anna Crawford's paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2024JF007737). You can view this animation at high resolution and download it to your computer.