Underground Volcanoes Responsible For Glacier Melting In Western Antarctica

Found this on my android blink feed yesterday. They say it's a huge factor in the ice melting.


www.ibtimes.com...

100 Miliwatt/m²... That is about 1/10.000 of the solar energy on a sunny day here in northern Germany..

That doesn't seem much. But hey, at least its not man-made, right?

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
100 Miliwatt/m²... That is about 1/10.000 of the solar energy on a sunny day here in northern Germany..

That doesn't seem much. But hey, at least its not man-made, right?

yes but ground heat has a bigger difference on ground melt than air temperature. just like those in ground heaters they use for driveways to keep snow and ice clear, they don't use much power or produce much heat but they melt the snow and ice, even in very cold temperatures. even when a snowfall is not completely melted as it falls, it does not last long. and when you feel the ground where it is in use it is still cool and not even warm to the touch, yet it might be below -30C outside.

a reply to: NotSoAnonymous

They don't say "huge" they say "contributed significantly".

They also say this, where "Thought" is the keyword.

The cause of the variable distribution of heat beneath the glacier is thought to be the movement of magma and associated volcanic activity arising from the rifting of the Earth's crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

It's also a very local area.



Still interesting though, as it could mean other glaciers on Antarctica are affected by volcanism

Some more info on the Thwaites Glacier.

CLI CK ME

originally posted by: generik

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
100 Miliwatt/m²... That is about 1/10.000 of the solar energy on a sunny day here in northern Germany..

That doesn't seem much. But hey, at least its not man-made, right?

yes but ground heat has a bigger difference on ground melt than air temperature. just like those in ground heaters they use for driveways to keep snow and ice clear, they don't use much power or produce much heat but they melt the snow and ice, even in very cold temperatures. even when a snowfall is not completely melted as it falls, it does not last long. and when you feel the ground where it is in use it is still cool and not even warm to the touch, yet it might be below -30C outside.

That might be the case. But here we are not talking about a driveway. We are talking about heating a glacier. On the one hand, ice is a bad heat-conductor, so even this small amount of warmth will get stored up under the ice. On the other hand, ice is a bad heat-conductor, so after melting some centimeters of ice, there should be an equilibrium between incoming thermal energy from the ground and outgoing thermal energy by flowing water and slow conduction over a greater surface along the whole of the glacier.

tl;dr: 100mW/m² seem to me not enough to produce enough heat to melt enough water to let it slip into the ocean.

a reply to: ManFromEurope

I wonder how many invisible or under water or ice vulcanoes we do have actively heating us up bit by bit.

I have never bought into the 'man-made global heater',the planet has repeatedly heated up well before man evolved so its a natural/cyclic function of this planet, which might be something we don't like but it happens.

Global warming has been a means of government's inventing new taxes which I am heartly sick of. However, I do think that with the expansion of population we are absolutely right to be more responsible about the many ways we exploit and waste our planet's resources and the different types of pollution we expect it to absorb.

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: ManFromEurope

I wonder how many invisible or under water or ice vulcanoes we do have actively heating us up bit by bit.

Quite bizarrely, they apparently don't know how many undersea vents and volcanoes there are actively spewing heat and gases into the oceans, so have never factored this into their climate change models.

a reply to: Britguy

As you say its bizarre not to factor something in for this form of water heater.

I guess this goes to show that study of the entire worlds dynamic processes is necessary before claiming Doomsday anthropogenic climate change baloney!

originally posted by: ManFromEurope

originally posted by: generik

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
100 Miliwatt/m²... That is about 1/10.000 of the solar energy on a sunny day here in northern Germany..

That doesn't seem much. But hey, at least its not man-made, right?

yes but ground heat has a bigger difference on ground melt than air temperature. just like those in ground heaters they use for driveways to keep snow and ice clear, they don't use much power or produce much heat but they melt the snow and ice, even in very cold temperatures. even when a snowfall is not completely melted as it falls, it does not last long. and when you feel the ground where it is in use it is still cool and not even warm to the touch, yet it might be below -30C outside.

That might be the case. But here we are not talking about a driveway. We are talking about heating a glacier. On the one hand, ice is a bad heat-conductor, so even this small amount of warmth will get stored up under the ice. On the other hand, ice is a bad heat-conductor, so after melting some centimeters of ice, there should be an equilibrium between incoming thermal energy from the ground and outgoing thermal energy by flowing water and slow conduction over a greater surface along the whole of the glacier.

tl;dr: 100mW/m² seem to me not enough to produce enough heat to melt enough water to let it slip into the ocean.

But once you create a gap between the ice and the ground, gravity pulls down more ice towards the ground so the process repeats.

There have been studies made of all the different energy exchange systems between land, sea and air. Waves crash into the coastline, wind blows against mountains, water evaporates from the ocean surfaces and falls back down as rain, energy is lost from the planet as reflected light, energy is gained from absorption by dark colored rocks and vegetation, water gains energy from underground vents and volcanoes. In every case, the amount of energy transferred was in the range of MegaJoules and TeraJoules of energy.