Ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica is causing deformation at the level of the earth's crust: the study
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himIce loss in Greenland and Antarctica is causing deformation at the level of the earth's crust: the discovery in a groundbreaking study led by researchers at Harvard University
The consequences of the melting of glaciers are now known to all, starting with the rise in sea levels. But there is a "side effect" of the phenomenon, which has just been discovered by a team of scientists from Harvard University in Massachusetts. Which? The progressive deformation of the earth's crust, even a thousand kilometers away from the point where the ice loss occurs.
In the study, published in the prestigious scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers led by Dr Sophie Coulson describe how the melting of ice from Greenland and Antarctica caused "The horizontal displacement of the land" across much of the Northern Hemisphere between 2003 and 2018.
Read also: Melting of glaciers at a record rate. In just 20 years, an area the size of the UK has been lost
The details of the study
The topic of Massachusetts scientists analyzed the effects of melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica since the beginning of the 21st century. To get a complete picture of the situation, they combined various data and images provided by the satellites, also making a series of future predictions.
According to the results of the monitoring, the soil has risen by up to 0,3 millimeters per year in some areas of Canada and the United States.
@Geographical Research Letters
Forecasts of horizontal movement show significant year-to-year variations in magnitude and direction - scientists announce - In years of maximum ice mass loss, tangential movements across North America can reach as high as 0,15mm / year ( excluding the area directly surrounding Alaska glaciers). In South America, on the other hand, the predicted horizontal movements are characterized by a localized and outward-directed ray pattern (typical of post-glacial uplift), while in both Alaska and the Himalayas, the horizontal movement pattern reflects the more complex ones. ice mass loss geometries in these regions.
And in years of high ice mass loss, crustal uplift rates in northern Canada and Scandinavia peak at 0,9 and 0,7 mm / year, respectively. And these rates are more than double those predicted in times of low ice mass loss in Greenland.
@Geographical Research Letters
This study shows that, instead of being localized only in regions where ice loss occurs, - explain the scientists - the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic glaciers has caused a significant horizontal and vertical deformation of the crust that extends over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere. The redistribution of mass between continents and oceans determines a significant and time-varying crustal deformation.
The one just conducted is only the first study that clearly shows the effects of the melting of glaciers (caused by the climate crisis) on the earth's crust, therefore on a horizontal level. However, according to the US researchers, more research is needed to investigate the matter and make more accurate predictions. What is certain is that global warming is causing a series of disturbing consequences on our planet and we do not yet know many of them.
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Fonte: Geographical Research Letters
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