|
Thwaites Glacier () is an unusually broad and fast Antarctic glacier flowing into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Thwaites Glacier: Antarctica, name, geographic coordinates, description, map )〕 Its surface speeds exceed 2 km/yr near its grounding line, and its fastest flowing grounded ice is centred between 50 and 100 km east of Mount Murphy. It was named by ACAN〔 for Fredrik T. Thwaites, a glacial geologist, geomorphologist and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.〔 Thwaites Glacier drains into West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea and is being closely watched for its potential to raise global sea levels. Along with Pine Island Glacier, Thwaites Glacier has been described as part of the "weak underbelly" of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, due to its apparent vulnerability to significant retreat. This hypothesis is based on both theoretical studies of the stability of marine ice sheets and recent observations of large changes on both of these glaciers. In recent years, the flow of both of these glaciers has accelerated, their surfaces have lowered, and their grounding lines have retreated. In 2011, using geophysical data collected from flights over Thwaites Glacier (data collected under NASA's Ice Bridge campaign), a study by scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory showed a rock feature, a ridge 700 meters tall that helps anchor the glacier and actually helped slow the glacier's slide into the sea. The study also confirms the importance of seafloor topography in predicting how these glaciers will behave in the near future.〔http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2904〕 == Thwaites Glacier Tongue == The Thwaites Glacier Tongue, or Thwaites Ice Tongue (), is about 50 km wide and has progressively shortened due to ice calving, based on the observational record. It was initially delineated from aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump in January 1947. On 15 March 2002, the National Ice Center reported that an iceberg named B-22 broke off from the ice tongue. This iceberg was about 85 km long by 65 km wide, with a total area of some 5,490 km². As of 2003, B-22 had broken into five pieces, with B-22A still in the vicinity of the tongue, while the other smaller pieces had drifted farther west. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thwaites Glacier」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|