Antarctica’s ice may melt faster than previously thought as result of a newly discovered network of lakes and streams that destabilize the continent’s ice shelves, according to new research — making them more vulnerable to collapse.
Scientists have long understood that water from melted ice harm ice sheets by flowing into cracks and refreezing, but that phenomenon was thought to be limited to a small part of the continent. Researchers behind a new study published in the journal Nature this week found that the process has been ongoing for decades and actually occurs across the continent including in places where scientists did not think liquid water was commonly found. The pace of the damage will increase as temperatures continue to rise as a result of man-made global warming. A CLASSIC OPINION PIECE.
Illustration of flowing water under the Antarctic ice sheet. Blue dots indicate lakes, lines show rivers. Marie Byrd Land is part of the bulging "elbow" leading to the Antarctic Peninsula, left center. Credit: NSF/Zina Deretsky A new NASA study adds evidence that a geothermal heat source called a mantle plume lies deep below Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land, explaining some of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. Although the heat source isn't a new or increasing threat to the West Antarctic ice sheet, it may help explain why the ice sheet collapsed rapidly in an earlier era of rapid climate change, and why it is so unstable today.
Remember Lord Kelvin's famous quote about the aeroplane? He also claimed radio had no future and X-rays were "clearly" a hoax...
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