It's so big and so cold. I don't expect I'll live to see it. The seal people, Brad and Sue, spotting animals from the ice tower. This is an image from Jesse Johnson's computer model of the Antarctic ice cap. One of the interesting things about the model is that it predicts basal melting, that is, that some of the ice cap will have a layer of liquid water at the bottom.
Actual observations seem to agree with the prediction.
What this map shows is the predicted thickness of the basal water, with a scale in meters on the right. Fast moving glacier streams, like Thwaites, are probably sliding down hill on a cushion of a few inches of water. Cruising along the edge. On the left is the fast ice north of the Thwaites Glacier Tongue. On the right is the polyna, the big ice free area.