Thwaites Ice Tongue from Sentinel-2

Thwaites Glacier and Ice Tongue in West Antarctica imaged by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 10 January 2019. Thwaites is a particularly important part of the Antarctic Ice Sheet because it holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by around 60 cm and is considered by many to be at risk of rapid retreat, threatening coastal communities around the world. Recently, scientists have developed a new Artificial Intelligence, or AI, technique using radar images from the  Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission to reveal how the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue is being damaged by squeezing and stretching as it flows from the middle of the continent to the coast. Being able to track fractures and crevasses in the ice beneath the overlying snow is key to better predicting the fate of floating ice tongues under climate change.

Read full story: Sentinel-1 and AI uncover glacier crevasses