Earth's Inner Heat And Climate Change Melting Antarctica's Doomsday Glacier

The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, that¡¯s more commonly known as the ¡®Doomsday Glacier¡¯ is getting a double blow of heat -- from rising temperatures due to climate change as well as due to Earth¡¯s internal temperatures -- intensifying its melting and subjecting the planet to exponential sea level rise.

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This is according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment that has revealed that it¡¯s not just the warming ocean and atmosphere that are causing the exponential melting, the heat of our planet itself is contributing to this too.

In the study, researchers looked at geomagnetic field data from West Antarctica to create new maps of geothermal field data from West Antarctica to create new maps of geothermal heat flow in the region. This basically revealed how much heat from Earth¡¯s interior is rising up to warm the South Pole.

Researchers say that the crust beneath West Antarctica is thinner than the East -- 17 kilometres to 25 kilometres thick in the west compared to 40 kilometres thick in the East, exposing the glacier to more geothermal heat than glaciers on the other side of the continent.

Lead study author Ricarda Dziadek, a geophysicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, said in a statement, "Our measurements show that where the Earth's crust is only 17 to 25 kilometres thick, geothermal heat flow of up to 150 milliwatts per square meter can occur beneath Thwaites Glacier."

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This can be partly blamed on the fact that West Antarctica is situated in an oceanic trench and the crust under the sea is thinner than the crust below East Antarctica.

Scientists had already feared this difference in the crust would result in more heat being absorbed by the ice from Earth¡¯s upper mantle that can get as hot as 200 degrees celsius and affect the formation of glaciers over millions of years.

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In this study, researchers, with the help of magnetic field datasets, calculated the distance between the crust and the mantle at various areas throughout Antarctica. It is difficult to tell how warm the glacier is where the ice meets the seabed as different kinds of rocks react to heat differently. However, the additional heat clearly isn¡¯t a good sign for Thwaites.

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Study co-author Karsten Gohl, also a geologist at AWI added, "Large amounts of geothermal heat can, for example, lead to the bottom of the glacier bed no longer freezing completely or to a constant film of water forming on its surface. Either of these conditions could cause the glacier's ice to slide more easily over the ground, causing the glacier's ice loss to accelerate considerably.¡±

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