Report for: Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica

Title	Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica
Published in	Science, May 2014
DOI	10.1126/science.1249055
Pubmed ID	24821948
Authors	I. Joughin, B. E. Smith, B. Medley
Abstract	Resting atop a deep marine basin, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has long been considered prone to instability. Using a numerical model, we investigated the sensitivity of Thwaites Glacier to ocean melt and whether its unstable retreat is already under way. Our model reproduces observed losses when forced with ocean melt comparable to estimates. Simulated losses are moderate (<0.25 mm per year at sea level) over the 21st century but generally increase thereafter. Except possibly for the lowest-melt scenario, the simulations indicate that early-stage collapse has begun. Less certain is the time scale, with the onset of rapid (>1 mm per year of sea-level rise) collapse in the different simulations within the range of 200 to 900 years.

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Twitter Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 229 tweeters who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	53	23%
United Kingdom	18	8%
Spain	10	4%
Sweden	7	3%
Australia	7	3%
Canada	5	2%
Germany	3	1%
Ireland	3	1%
Argentina	2	<1%
Other	25	11%
Unknown	96	42%

Demographic breakdown

Type	Count	As %
Members of the public	181	79%
Scientists	32	14%
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors)	15	7%
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals)	1	<1%

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 450 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	11	2%
Germany	3	<1%
Canada	3	<1%
United Kingdom	2	<1%
Belgium	2	<1%
Australia	2	<1%
Netherlands	2	<1%
Norway	1	<1%
Poland	1	<1%
Other	5	1%
Unknown	418	93%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status	Count	As %
Researcher	134	30%
Student > Ph. D. Student	104	23%
Student > Master	50	11%
Student > Bachelor	31	7%
Unspecified	30	7%
Other	101	22%

Readers by discipline	Count	As %
Earth and Planetary Sciences	240	53%
Environmental Science	68	15%
Unspecified	46	10%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences	27	6%
Engineering	12	3%
Other	57	13%

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1471. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 September 2019.

All research outputs

#1,689

of 13,593,785 outputs

Outputs from Science

#138

of 62,574 outputs

Outputs of similar age

#18

of 188,662 outputs

Outputs of similar age from Science

of 873 outputs

Altmetric has tracked 13,593,785 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.

So far Altmetric has tracked 62,574 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 44.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.

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Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica

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