Research by new Ph.D. finds warping of planet’s crust, with far-reaching effects.
The melting of polar ice is not only shifting the levels of our oceans, it is changing the planet Earth itself. Newly minted Ph.D. Sophie Coulson and her colleagues explained in a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters that, as glacial ice from Greenland, Antarctica, and the Arctic Islands melts, Earth’s crust beneath these land masses warps, an impact that can be measured hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles away.
“Scientists have done a lot of work directly beneath ice sheets and glaciers,” said Coulson, who did her work in the Harvard University, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and received her doctorate in May from the Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. “So they knew that it would define the region where the glaciers are, but they hadn’t realized that it was global in scale.”
By analyzing satellite data on melt from 2003 to 2018 and studying changes in Earth’s crust, Coulson and her colleagues were able to measure the shifting of the crust horizontally. Their research, which was highlighted in Nature, found that in some places the crust was moving more horizontally than it was lifting. In addition to the surprising extent of its reach, the Nature brief pointed out, this research provides a potentially new way to monitor modern ice mass changes.
Crust Movement Feeds Back Into Melting
To understand how the ice melt affects what is beneath it, Coulson suggested imagining the system on a small scale: “Think of a wooden board floating on top of a tub of water. When you push the board down, you would have the water beneath moving down. If you pick it up, you’ll see the water moving vertically to fill that space.”
These movements have an impact on the continued melting. “In some parts of Antarctica, for example, the rebounding of the crust is changing the slope of the bedrock under the ice sheet, and that can affect the ice dynamics,” said Coulson, who worked in the lab of Jerry Mitrovica, the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science.
The current melting is only the most recent movement researchers are observing. “The Arctic is an interesting region because, as well as the modern-day ice sheets, we also have a lasting signal from the last ice age,” Coulson explained. An ice sheet once covered what is now Northern Europe and Scandinavia during the Pleistocene Epoch, the ice age that started about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until roughly 11,000 years ago. “The Earth is actually still rebounding from that ice melting.”
Earth Acts Like Elastic and Fluid Over Time
“On recent timescales, we think of the Earth as an elastic structure, like a rubber band, whereas on timescales of thousands of years, the Earth acts more like a very slow-moving fluid,” said Coulson, explaining how these newer repercussions come to be overlaid on the older reverberations. “Ice age processes take a really, really long time to play out, and therefore we can still see the results of them today.”
The implications of this movement are far-reaching. “Understanding all of the factors that cause movement of the crust is really important for a wide range of Earth science problems. For example, to accurately observe tectonic motions and earthquake activity, we need to be able to separate out this motion generated by modern-day ice-mass loss,” she said.
Coulson is continuing her research as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as part of a climate group that works on future projections of ice sheets and ocean dynamics.
Glenn Antony Milne, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Ottawa, explained that understanding the extent of this movement clarifies all studies of the planet’s crust. “Sophie’s work is important because it is the first to show that recent mass loss of ice sheets and glaciers causes 3D motion of the Earth’s [solid] surface that is greater in magnitude and spatial extent than previously identified,” he said. “Also, one could look for this signal in regional and larger-scale global navigation satellite system datasets to, in principle, produce improved constraints on the distribution of ice mass fluctuations and/or solid Earth structure.”
References:
“The Global Fingerprint of Modern Ice-Mass Loss on 3-D Crustal Motion” by Sophie Coulson, Mila Lubeck, Jerry X. Mitrovica, Evelyn Powell, James L. Davis and Mark J. Hoggard, 16 August 2021, Geophysical Research Letters.
DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095477
“So much ice is melting that Earth’s crust is moving” Research Highlight, 24 August 2021, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/d41586-021-02285-0
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16 Comments
1/2 the world’s scientific community have their undies in a wad…very limited intellectually (love how that think they know mother nature & since nearly 100% Atheist there’s no talking to them) while the other 1/2 are like yeah yeah but look at all this stuff that’s been under the ice for thousands of years thar tell us smart guys what rear end is up instead of us (just) guessing.
Very Interesting Research.
The Earth is actually a Matallic Core surrounded by a Viscus Fluid of Lava on which the continents and Tectonic Plates float.
The Melting of the Frozen Ice is turning Solid into liquid and raising the Water levels in the oceaans. The attempt to fill the empty space and fill the solid space vacated, is onlyto be expected.
We are seeing weak signals of the same in the recent Volcanic Eruption and Lava Flow to the Sea/ Ocean we are hearing about in the news media.
Like everything else the Planet is also undergoing evolutionary changes.
A great deal of the Changes we can expect and predict in the Short time frame (On a Universe Time Scale) and these can be accurately predicted using Quantum Computing and Predictive Models on a Planetary Scale. The accracy of these models on a longer time frame is Iffy , as long term predictions are increasingly inaccurate.
The Science of Prediction using Models is in its infancy and we are groping in the dark, as at the planetary levels the forces and energies at play are enormous and we barely know the impact on the earths crust where most humans reside. The Consistency ofthe Earths Crus is also not uniform. Hence our ability to predict the Earthquakes, Volcanoes and other other disasters is also limited.
Modelling Earth (Planet Gia – Third Rock from the Sun) using a Quantum Computer with all factors ( Variables and Constants ) considered, and the factors which could be driving same needs to be bult.
I susect that the short -term impact based on Dataset gathered would be accurate , and may help us in making better predictions of such disasters and avoid the consequences of the same on people/ Other creatures living onthe Earths Crust.
Views expressed are personal and not binding on anyone.
Best of luck to the team!
I wonder how much oblateness would be reduced with the mass redistribution.
“Modelling Earth … using a Quantum Computer with all factors ( Variables and Constants ) considered, and the factors which could be driving same needs to be bult.”
Easier said than done when many of the “variables and constants” are poorly understood. One of the most, if not THE most, important variables is cloud coverage, which varies on a time scale of minutes or seconds, resulting in a changing albedo. While sometimes listed with a few significant figures, albedo is commonly characterized as being “about 0.3!” That is hardly adequate for forecasts a century into the future! Climatologists aren’t exactly known for their rigorous mathematical analysis of even 1st-order forcings, let alone secondary and tertiary feedbacks. Note how often they don’t even bother to list the uncertainties in their measurements!
Even quantum computers are not immune to the principle of “Garbage In, Garbage Out.” Computer models have long been acknowledged as running warm, and the most recent results are even worse. That suggests to me that there are some fundamental assumptions about variable relationships that are wrong. The emphasis should be on obtaining quality data and more accurate relationships between all the climatological parameters.
When the ocean levels cover California and New York I’ll be happy. Then we can talk about global warming
It seems got have been overlooked that about 30 Myr-ago in the late Eocene atmospheric CO2 was more than double what it is today and the biosphere enjoyed the warmth. And even though the pH of the oceans was much lower than today, the carbonate-secreting plankton diversified. No “acidification”. Then when the CO2 started to drop the polar ice sheets began to form. It has not been studied and recorded how much the Earth’s crust went up or down. Of course, there were no humans to worry about it or try to prevent it.
The first state we lose to rising ocean is Florida. Will you be buying or selling in Florida. What do we do with the senators from Florida one less state.
Why is it all the left leaning Liberal universities can see all these negative findings when its also hard to disprove these ambered claims. More of Gorings propaganda perhaps? Sea levels are constant with measurements within theverrors of measurement never mentioned!
Start putting all the trash we produce in place of the ice that should recover the right balance.
The crust is warping. The earth is dimming. The seas are rising. Yadeh yadeh yadeh. Translation. More billions in grant money please so we can take our sabaticals at six star hotels in Davos and avoid grading tedious term papers.
This would be pure conjecture of course if any of the Left’s prior and now expired dire predictions had come to fruition. As none of at least 50 such predictions beginning in the 1960s have come to pass you will pardon my skepticism. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me 50 times, plant me I am not sentient.
andromeda missing in telescope where is the next sun? a direction to focus on as stars burst out so too will the area get hotter close to the sun earth the sun will see its dying days but who will understand how to find the directions for saving earth as we see it so the colision is happening eh maybe math wasnt how long but how fast it can happen black holes anyone suggest they bend time make highways for space what you think earth is on a orbit for eternity nothing to gravitate towards sun so take another route
Look, if you nerds don’t understand why people on the southern hemisphere don’t fall off the earth because of Newton’s sisters trusted notions of alternate gravity than you don’t know modern science! But with a record of life on earth at least 3.5 billion years we should not worry about a mass extinction event anytime soon….besides if there is a better life after death we might all wake up in a better place ..right? Think!
7.5 million scientist . Half are religious . Not sure how you determine their intelligence to be less than yours. Your rant seems a bit bias . Because of belief . Science has no belief. That’s not true . It’s just gathering facts & evidence . To see which direction the data . Takes us . If no conflicting data. Then science keeps going with that. Until data opens new roads . Then existing data is added to new data . To keep going . No need to discourage this process of the natural world . It’s not about proving a deity or anything outside of what can be seen & tested . To evaluate .
I’ve been having flashes or visions of high waters coming inland, or “moving vertically, over land mass, that I do believe might be our Turtle Island/North America, Central America, and the Northern part of South America, at least 60-100 feet deep, or about 4 to 6 stories tall, drowning everyone and everything, and sweeping away many and much, then temps dropping to 100 degrees below zero or colder, band suddenly freezing solid, all these waters on land, to solid ice sheet, humans, animals, cars, houses, and more, frozen solid and suspended in this solid ice, that perfectly forms a permafrost, as these continents are slowly moving towards the top of the Earth, band the North pole is shifting towards them quickly, as well, as North America, Central America, band the Northern part of South America, become “The New North Pole,” and Arctic and the Antarctic, are melting rapidly, not so much because of “global warming, ” but because they are going to be, right where the New Equator line will be, and this being why they’re melting so rapidly. I saw so many people & animals dying, drowning, freezing to death, lungs freeze and eyeballs freeze, if not covered, it becomes just that cold😞 I have been warning EVERYONE that this is coming, because I’ve seen this replaying in my mind, again and again, I keep seeing this, ever since 1999, and I started warning ppl then, that we only had about 35-50 years, possibly less than 30 yrs, and now, we gave less than 10 yrs, possibly less than 5 years, before this happens. I’m not 100% sure just yet where “The New South Pole will be, but since Africa got snow recently, I think it will be Africa, or in between Africa, and Australia. But I feel with every inch of me, this is what’s soon to happen, very soon, and I’ve been knowing this and warning of this, for 23 yrs now. No one will listen. Mother Earth has a message for us all, ” I love all of my children, but before I allow my children to destroy me, I will be left with no choice, but to destroy them, I will cleanse myself, and renew ” This colonization the yonegas/wasicus/Europeans) whites, implemented onto every land mass of the world, by genocide, and destruction of the Earth and raping of her resources, was NEVER A GOOD IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE. We NEVER asked for it. And as far as technology goes, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. My Indigenous American ancestors predicted this would one day come, because if you don’t know the ways of spirit, the way to live in unison and naturally with the energies of the universe, the energies of the universe will deny yours, your energy, from continuing. Ostu iga/Good day👋🏾 Many blessings, relatives, walk softly on this Earth, and go in a good way. Osiyo
The author of the article is lying.
Antartica is not melting. Its rather the opposite. The scientists at Amundsen station have reported that the temp has been dropping since last year and is now the lowest in 60 years.
Endless scare articles. Tiresome scientists hunting for grants for the rest of their careers. Ignore and enjoy life. Nuclear war much more likely to end us.