Sunlight has started to hit Pine Island and Thwaites glacier. Less than a month left until we start seeing the first Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. But before that, we still have thermal imaging, so we can get an overview of the state of the glaciers and ice around them going into the season.
I have attached two images, the first one is from August 23rd, and the second one is from August 19th.
There are a few notable things:
There is still no strong fast ice in front of the Pine Island glacier. In fact there is a big polynya with almost no ice at all. The ice further out looks fast-ish in the most recent image, but that's why I included the second image too, to show that as recently as 8 days ago that ice was actually completely shattered. Does anyone know whether this is normal or rare? In any case it doesn't bode well for the PIG this season, although there are still no big cracks in it that would signal a calving soon.
You can see the B-22 iceberg in the bottom of the first image. It hasn't moved a lot over the freezing season, but it's well out of the way for the Thwaites shelf. Nevertheless, there is strong fast ice stretching out to where B-22 used to sit. I guess this is because of the same shoals that caused B-22 to get stuck in the first place. It remains to be seen how the absence of B-22 affects the ice dynamics of the surrounding area this season.