Beneath large Antarctic glacier
the elevated levels of helium-3, they assumed it was an anomaly or a mistake.
But follow-up measurements confirmed the helium isotope spike wasn’t an aberration.
Loose said, “When you find helium-3, it’s like a fingerprint for volcanism. We found that it is relatively abundant in the seawater at the Pine Island shelf.”
Pine Island Glacier is losing ice mass faster than any other glacier in Western Antarctica, but researchers don’t believe the volcanic heat source is the main driver of the glacier’s melting.
Loose added, “There are several decades of research documenting the heat from ocean currents is destabilizing Pine Island Glacier, which in turn appears to be related to a change in the climatological winds around Antarctica.”
The volcanic heat source is, however, one more factor to account for when modeling the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf. The ice shelf’s stability has serious implications for the future of sea level rise.
The analysis of trace gases — published in the journal Nature Communications — suggested the volcanic heat source is putting off as much as 25 times more thermal energy than a dormant volcano. And while climate change explained the bulk of the glacier’s melting, the new heat source is most likely accelerating the glacier’s ice loss.
Karen Heywood, a professor at the University of East Anglia, said, “The discovery of volcanoes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet means that there is an additional source of heat to melt the ice, lubricate its passage toward the sea, and add to the melting from warm ocean waters.
“It will be important to include this in our efforts to estimate whether the Antarctic ice sheet might become unstable and further increase sea level rise.”