PenguinTracker
PenguinTracker / Outlet glacier speeds

Outlet glacier speeds

13 glaciers · 4 with a significant trend · ITS_LIVE annual mosaics

Speed averaged over a fixed set of trunk pixels that carry valid data in every year reported — years below 90% coverage are dropped, not interpolated, because feature tracking succeeds preferentially on fast ice and a sparse year is biased fast. Each figure is measured on grounded ice wherever grounded trunk exists, because ice crossing the grounding line is what raises sea level; a floating shelf displaces no extra water however fast it moves. Of these 13 glaciers only 4 show a change that exceeds twice its own uncertainty. The other 9 are reported as no detectable change, which is the honest result rather than a gap.

GlacierDomainTrunk km²Speed m/yrFitted changeVerdict
Getz Ice Shelfgrounded234510+22.4%significant
Pine Island Glaciergrounded1,3562,001+16.3%significant
Thwaites Glaciergrounded4,7631,023+8.5%significant
Jutulstraumengrounded12199-5.3%significant
Smith and Kohler Glaciersgrounded9342+42.2%no detectable change
Mertz Glaciergrounded9896-2.9%no detectable change
Lambert Glaciergrounded59131+8.8%no detectable change
Denman Glaciergrounded690952-0.7%no detectable change
Rutford Ice Streamgrounded752378-6.6%no detectable change
Shirase Glaciergrounded518923-0.7%no detectable change
Totten Glaciergrounded417456-1.5%no detectable change
Institute Ice Streamgrounded1,267352-0.2%no detectable change
Recovery Glaciergrounded4,077172-0.2%no detectable change

Grounded ice against its floating shelf

Every glacier above with a measurable shelf is also measured on that shelf, over the years the two share. On 2 of them the grounded ice and the shelf in front of it are moving in opposite directions — the distinction most coverage of Antarctic ice loses, and the one that decides whether a number means anything for sea level. See all 11 compared →

There is no continent-wide number here

Coverage before 1999 is negligible and no continent-wide acceleration figure is defensible from this product. Per-glacier series are only reported where the coverage gate is met. Each box is a fixed window around the trunk, not a drainage basin, so these are speeds over a measured area and not mass-balance figures.