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no green soil And South Pole The ice sheet – the world’s two largest ice bodies – is melting at an alarming rate, causing major problems for local ecosystems and coastal communities. Now, in more evidence that the climate crisis is changing everything in strange and profound ways, new research suggests that the collapse is distorting the Earth’s crust.
NS New study, published in Geophysical Research Letters last month, analyzed satellite data for ice melt from 2003 to 2018. The authors paired this data with models that show how changes in ice mass affect the crust. The model shows that much of the Northern Hemisphere is moving horizontally due to melting ice in Greenland and the Arctic.
This is because the planet’s outermost layer is drooping slightly more than you might think. As ice sheets build up, their weight causes the crust they sink into to compensate. When the ice melts, as has happened at record rates due to higher temperatures, there is less weight to hold the crust until it bounces back.
Sophie Coulson, a Harvard planetary scientist and lead author of the study, said in see press. “When you press the board down, the water under it will move down. If you pick it up, you’ll see the water move vertically to fill the space.” But like an old mattress or couch cushion that puts pressure on your body after you lie down on it, crust doesn’t always come back exactly the way it was.
During the Ice Age, the earth’s crust was covered by a layer of ice thousands of feet thick. The earth has risen again in places where the ice sheet has receded. But this new phenomenon is a completely different ball game driven by climate change and the rapid collapse it causes.
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Some We see an upward movement that could be caused by melting ice sheets, but this new report takes a closer look at the horizontal shift. In some places, researchers have found that horizontal shifts are more important than up and down shifts. These changes can be observed even in areas hundreds of miles away from the ice loss itself. The researchers provoked them to use a variety of satellite data, including the network that helps provide GPS.
Movements are accurate, averaging under one millimeter (0.04 in) per year globally. The crust beneath western Canada and the United States is shifting horizontally by 0.3 mm (0.01 in) per year. Elsewhere, the greatest shifts have occurred at the northern edge of Greenland, particularly during periods of significant ice loss. West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, two Hot Spots Losing Ice, and also saw significant movement (well, “major”), with crust as far as the Southern Ocean creeping back into the area where the ice disappeared.
These small shifts build up, and can actually cause more ice fusi. Coulson said thatCrust rebound changes the slope of the bedrock beneath the ice sheet, and this can affect ice dynamics.” In West Antarctica, for example, bedrock slopes downwards inward. An upward spring in the crust in the Southern Ocean This can cause the slope to increase further, sending more seawater to erode the ice. (To be clear, this is a symbolic process and we have Much bigger, immediate climate change Effect On top of the ice sheet to worry about.)
The authors of the new study hope their research will help future studies and other researchers will develop new ways to monitor changes in glacier mass. The analysis of crustal motion is very important for predicting tectonic movements, earthquakes, and other geological processes.
“Understanding all the factors that cause crustal movement is crucial to a variety of Earth science problems,” Coulson said.
This isn’t the first time researchers have found that melting ice is causing major global changes. Previous studies have found that the loss of ice has redistributed enough water for it Earth’s axis shift by Moving the poles of rotation. new The latest study A reminder that the climate crisis is driving this large-scale changes in the Earth’s structure –And Except the world stages external use Fossil fuelThis profound transformation will continue.
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