Heat flowing from the base of the West Antarctic ice sheet is surprisingly high, a new study has revealed.
Researchers at the University of California in Santa Cruz probed the sediments in the ice sheet in Antarctica and have uncovered that a flow of heat emanates from its geothermal sources below, according to a press release.
The researchers, however, said that this is not a "new phenomenon" that can be attributed to climate change.
"The ice sheet developed and evolved with the geothermal heat flux coming up from below - it's part of the system," said Andrew Fisher, a professor at UC Santa Cruz, according to the press release. "But this could help explain why the ice sheet is so unstable. When you add the effects of global warming, things can start to change quickly."
The heat may also explain the presence of sub-glacial lakes, which has led to the "high flow of glacial streams" that have been recently discovered by other scientists.
Fisher and his team were able to measure the flow of heat at 285 milliwatts per square meter. "This is the first geothermal heat flux measurement made below the West Antarctic ice sheet, so we don't know how localized these warm geothermal conditions might be. This is a region where there is volcanic activity, so this measurement may be due to a local heat source in the crust," Fisher added.
Their study is part of an Antarctic drilling project that is being funded by the National Science Foundation under the WISSARD (Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling) program. It could prove helpful to the scientists who are trying to understand the why the West Antarctic ice sheet is slowly diminishing.
"It is important that we get this number right if we are going to make accurate predictions of how the West Antarctic ice sheet will behave in the future, how much it is melting, how quickly ice streams flow, and what the impact might be on sea level rise," said Slawek Tulaczyk, one of the heads of WISSARD, on Science Blog. "I waited for many years to see a directly measured value of geothermal flux from beneath this ice sheet."
The study was published in Science Advances.
