By Aazam
This month has raised fresh questions about exactly how fast Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, the widest glacier on the planet, is melting
The Thwaites Glacier is sometimes called the doomsday glacier. The glacier itself contains enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 60 centimeters
The glacier flows from West Antarctica over the land's surface to the coast and into the Amundsen Sea
The glacier pushes deep offshore before it begins to lift off the seabed at what is called the grounding line or grounding zone
the grounding line was like a hinge, connecting the inland part of the glacier to a floating extension known as an ice shelf
The Thwaites Glacier's grounding line has been steadily melting and retreating in the direction of the ice sheet interior over decades
the geology and slope of the seabed changes and undulates, there isn't a nice, continual track of these ridges all the way to the present-day grounding line