ACINN Graduate Seminar - WS 2025/26

2025-10-29 at 12:00 (on-line and on-site)

Probing Thwaites Glacier to Understand Polar System Change

Christian Wild

University of Innsbruck, Austria

 

The polar ice sheets are major contributors to global sea-level rise, with Antarctica’s contribution accelerating and potentially dominating later this century. Thwaites Glacier represents a critical wildcard, capable of triggering an irreversible retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Observations show that Thwaites is undergoing some of the most dramatic ice–ocean changes anywhere on Earth, making it a key focus of international initiatives to understand rapid glacier retreat and the stages leading to ice-shelf collapse.

I will present how the integration of satellite observations, field measurements from both above and beneath the ice, and numerical simulations provides new insight into the glacier’s evolving dynamics. I will then show how the methods developed at Thwaites continue to shape my research about Antarctic-wide processes, and link back to the local mountain glaciers where my scientific journey began.

 

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