A recent study by scientists refutes claims that ice melting near the Toits, Pine Island and Pope glaciers in West Antarctica is unusual, unprecedented or unnatural. Instead, scientists have found that the ice sheet in this region of the Amundsen Sea now averages about 40 meters thick, which is about 8 times thicker than it has been for most of the last 8,000 years of the Holocene.
Thus, any melting of ice in this region is not only natural, but the opposite of “unprecedented.” Scientists characterize current changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet as “reversible.
Causes of ice melting
The Toits, Pine Island and Pope glaciers are located in a hotbed of active geothermal heat flow, which has led to an abnormally high rate of melting in the region. In fact, ” there is clearly a large amount of heat from the Earth’s interior beneath the ice ” in the very places where ice melting is most prominent.
While the Earth’s crust has an average thickness of about 40 km, the anomalously thinner crust (10 to 18 km) in the Toits Pine Island Glacier Pope area exposes the base of the ice more easily to tectonic troughs with temperatures of 580°C. “A band of increased geothermal heat flow is interpreted as being caused by anomalously thin crust underlain by a hot mantle,” which has a “profound effect on the flow dynamics of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.”
Despite the established natural causes of ice melting in the region, it has nevertheless become commonplace for those who believe human behavior to “knob” the climate, to claim the melting of the Toates Glacier, dubbed the “Doomsday Glacier” by alarmists, is caused by people driving gasoline-powered trucks or using natural gas for energy.
Study Findings
Scientists used concentrations of cosmogenic nuclides and bedrock cores to determine that the ice sheet is now about 8 times thicker than it was during most of the last 8,000 years of the Holocene, when the ice was between 2 m and 7 m thick. Even more interestingly, the scientists found that “there is no exposure age data in the Amundsen Sea region indicating that the ice became thicker than modern ice after 4,000 years ago,” suggesting that the current thickness is close to the most noticeable in the last 4,000 years.
Thus, any melting of ice in this region is not only natural, but the opposite of “unprecedented.” Scientists characterize current changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet as “reversible.
