Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf cavity observations reveal multiyear sea ice dynamics and deepwater warming in Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica

Wild, Christian T.; Snow, Tasha; Dotto, Tiago S.; Davis, Peter E. D.; Tyler, Scott; Scambos, Ted A.; Pettit, Erin C.; Heywood, Karen J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-2605-2025

Articles | Volume 21, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-2605-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-2605-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 5

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

28 Oct 2025

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 28 Oct 2025

Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf cavity observations reveal multiyear sea ice dynamics and deepwater warming in Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica

Christian T. Wild, Tasha Snow, Tiago S. Dotto, Peter E. D. Davis, Scott Tyler, Ted A. Scambos, Erin C. Pettit, and Karen J. Heywood

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-2605-2025-supplement

Data sets

Data from Ran missions NBP009 and NBP011 from Nathaniel B. Palmer cruise NBP1902 A. Wåhlin https://doi.org/10.5878/yw26-vc65

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Copernicus Open Access Hub European Space Agency et al. https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/

Model code and software

tsnow03/thwaites_amigos: Thwaites sea ice concentrations for Wild et al. (2025) (v0.1.0-alpha) T. Snow https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17328677

wavelet-coherence A. Grinsted https://github.com/grinsted/wavelet-coherence

Co-editor-in-chief

The article provides critical observations relating to the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf and the modified Circumpolar Deep Water. The observed warming has important consequences for implied basal melting and can impact the stability of the ice shelf, with notable subsequent impacts, such as addition of mass into the ocean and thus implied sea level rise. The work calls for further efforts in constraining the uncertainties via a combination of observations, modelling and mechanistic understanding.