Heat From Earth's Magma Contributing To Melting Of Greenland Ice

[Ladywriter 7,783]

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2007) — Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland 's ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice.

They have found at least one “hotspot” in the northeast corner of Greenland -- just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.

The researchers don't yet know how warm the hotspot is. But if it is warm enough to melt the ice above it even a little, it could be lubricating the base of the ice sheet and enabling the ice to slide more rapidly out to sea.

“The behavior of the great ice sheets is an important barometer of global climate change,” said Ralph von Frese, leader of the project and a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. “However, to effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change, we must understand the natural impacts, too.

“Crustal heat flow is still one of the unknowns -- and it's a fairly significant one, according to our preliminary results.”

...

The ice thickness, the temperature at the base of the ice, and ground topography all contribute to the forming of an ice stream -- a river of ice that flows within a larger ice sheet. In recent years, Greenland ice streams have been carrying ice out to sea faster, and ice cover on the island has been diminishing.

Once the ice reaches the sea, it melts, and global sea levels rise.

“The complete melting of these continental ice sheets would put much of Florida, as well as New Orleans, New York City and other important coastal population centers, under water,” von Frese said.

...

“Recent observations indicate that the Greenland Ice Sheet is much more active than we ever believed,” van der Veen said. “There have been rapid changes in outlet glaciers, for example. Such behavior is critically linked to conditions at the ice bed. Geothermal heat is an important factor, but until now, our models have not included spatial variations in heat, such as this hotspot.

“Our map is the first attempt at quantifying spatial variations in geo-heat under Greenland -- and it explains why the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is where it is,” van der Veen added.

To measure actual temperatures beneath the ice, scientists must drill boreholes down to the base of the ice sheet-- a mile or more below the ice surface. The effort and expense make such measurements few and far between, especially in remote areas of northeast Greenland.

For now, the researchers are combining theories of how heat flows through the mantle and crust with the gravity and radar data, to understand how the hotspot is influencing the ice.

Once they finish searching the rest of Greenland for other hotspots, they hope to turn their attention to Antarctica.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212103004.htm

eh... my concern here is that big polluting govts are going to use this as an excuse to shift the problem of global climate change off the filth they belch into the sky to natural phenomenon. That aint the case. This discovery just worsens an already existing problem and should make govts in a bigger hurry to cap co2 emissions. Man is in a big time fight with the earth here, we have to change just to survive natural cycles of the planet.

[Myk JL 1,731]

I think I've run out of things to say so... We're boned...

[Vincent 2,861]

but isn't greenland itself really just an arctic hawaii? I remember this travel channel special about greenland and all the hot springs they have over there.