This phrase brings to mind images of a seemingly boundless expanse of white emptiness, evoking a sense of awe and vastness, akin to what one might imagine when picturing the combined expanses of snow-covered Canada, the Arabian Desert, and Patagonia.
has found.
With just a few peaks rising above the ice sheets along the western coast.
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Researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island ran 4,000 computer simulations to investigate the effects of losing this ice cover on the magma chambers beneath it.
The Antarctic ice sheet is extremely weighty. Seriously, extremely weighty. Approximately 24,380,000 gigatonnes weighty.
At the moment, the combined weight of all those snowflakes is compressing most of the subterranean magma – the lifeblood of volcanoes – downwards. Magma chambers, hidden deep under the Earth's surface, store molten rock under immense pressure.
Without the ice cover, the molten rock could expand and exert further pressure on the underground chambers, ultimately triggering volcanic eruptions. Scientists refer to this process as 'unloading'.
In other words, the ice acts like a stopper on a drastically agitated champagne bottle.
‘Additionally, the reduced weight from the melting ice above also means that dissolved water and carbon dioxide can form gas bubbles, which results in pressure building up inside the magma chamber and may eventually lead to an eruption,’ the authors wrote in their paper published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.
‘In these circumstances, it appears that the disappearance of an ice sheet directly above a volcano leads to more frequent and more substantial eruptions.’
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Just because these eruptions aren't visible doesn't mean they aren't affecting the surrounding area.
The heat is causing the ice above volcanoes to melt more quickly, allowing even more magma to escape, resulting in a self-reinforcing cycle.
This won't happen overnight, however. The process takes place over hundreds of centuries, the study found, and would continue even if human emissions of greenhouse gases stopped.
A professor of disasters and health at University College London stated that the research is 'vital' to comprehending how the altering climate interacts with ancient volcanic systems.
‘While immediate eruptions from this climate-linked mechanism are unlikely, we must always think about extreme climate and volcanism scenarios to better prevent potential disasters,’ he told Vivid Bulletin.
'This investigation aids in clarifying certain connections between Antarctic climatic change and volcanism.'
as a decade ago.
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If all the ice were to melt, the oceans would swell by roughly 60 metres – just over the height of the Eiffel Tower.
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