Evolution of the cracks in the Pine Island Glacier

Recently, the frequency of Pine Island Glacier calving events has increased. Today, the glacier is observed to be losing mass by a combination of calving events together with strong basal melting, where warm ocean currents erode the underside of the floating ice shelf. As the ice shelf both thins and calves enormous icebergs, the glacier discharge is unable to replenish the ice lost and the ice shelf front recedes from its previous position.
"Long-term measurements of West Antarctic Ice Sheet glaciers such as Pine Island are critical to understanding changes to the rate of loss of ice mass into the ocean, and thus Copernicus Sentinel-1 has become fundamental to gauging Antarctica's contribution to rising sea levels," says Mark Drinkwater.

Image: Glacial 'aftershock' spawns Antarctic iceberg