Melting ice is destroying the earth!

Des chercheurs de l’université de Harvard (États-Unis) ont mesuré les déformations de la croûte terrestre dues à la fonte des glaces. Elles s’étendent au-delà de ce qu’ils avaient imaginé. © Fly_and_Dive, Adobe Stock

As the ice melts, the earth’s crust will melt. In a local way, the researchers thought until then. But satellite data now calls into question the idea. Over the past two decades, melting Arctic ice has caused significant erosion of much of the Earth’s crust in the northern hemisphere.

When the ice melts, the The crust of the earth The bottom is distorted. Years of study Ice bubbles And this Glaciers We have already shown this to researchers. But today a Harvard University Committee (United States) assumes that the affected area will extend far and wide. Hundreds, thousands of kilometers from melted ice.

The researchers worked on satellite data collected between 2003 and 2018. Anthropological Global Warming. And how the Earth’s crust is deformed. They measured the horizontal displacement of the latter. They also observe that in some regions, the earth’s crust moves farther horizontally than vertically. On average, deformation is measured in tens of millimeters per year. This is a large part of the Northern Hemisphere.

To help us understand, Sophie Coulson, geophysicist, makes a proposal Connected, Meaningful film. “Imagine a wooden board floating on the surface of the water Bathtub. If you push the board down, the water at the bottom will also go down. If you remove the board, you will see water moving vertically to fill the empty space. “

The implications are not yet clear

When ice melts, it changes the face of the earth. Because it’s especially boring Movements The crust of the created earth, will have an impact on it Proof By changing the slope of the bed under the snow cap.

Researchers at Harvard University today recall that what they noticed already happened in the past. About 2.6 million years ago, a Ice age It covered northern Europe and Scandinavia with snow. Until about 11,000 years ago. “Even after the ice has melted, the earth is still dripping, Sophie Coulson insists. The earth acts like a very slow fluid. The processes of the ice age take a very, very long time to expand, so we can still see results today.. ⁇

According to the researchers, the effects of these movements The crust of the earth Substantial. This study first shows the recent mass loss Ice bubbles And glaciers cause motion in space on the Earth’s surface Size Spatial size is higher than previously identified. Searching this signal now in databases of regional and large-scale navigation satellite systems will, in principle, create advanced barriers to the distribution of ice mass or structural fluctuations. Solid Of the earth.

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