Shear-Zone Fractures Presage the Disintegration of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf

Satellite imagery and GPS observations yielded two key insights:

1) fractures occurred in two stages: the initial propagation of long fractures parallel to ice flow, followed by smaller fractures perpendicular to ice flow.

2) the shear-zone disintegration causes upstream ice-flow speed to increase on the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf.

Sea level rise is about to get a lot more immediate. When the Thwaites goes, the West Antarctic Ice Shelf follows. Once it's afloat, forget melted just floating, we'll see around 5 metres average sea level rise worldwide. Estimates and models say the new sea level will take about 12 days to stabilise globally.

It might be enough time to evacuate but not much else.