Mysterious crater in Antarctica has arisen due to global warming – RIA Novosti

14:4913.12.2016

(updated: 15:36 13.12.2016)

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MOSCOW, 13 Dec – RIA Novosti. Unusual giant craters several kilometers long, was found recently in Antarctica, did not arise as a result of falling asteroids in the past, and due to accumulation of melt water on the surface of glaciers in some parts of the continent, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“In January 2015, all the media began to report the discovery of a mysterious crater in the land of the king Baudouin Foundation in Eastern Antarctica, which was said to journalists, most likely, was the result of a meteorite. I looked at the pictures of this structure and immediately thought that it arose as a result of melting of water and not the fall of a celestial body,” said Ian Lenertz (Jan Lenaerts) from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium).

In recent years, climatologists are beginning to pay more attention to the melting of the ice of the South polar cap, which was considered until recently was relatively stable. As shown by satellite and aircraft observations, in fact it is not – ice in the West Antarctica melt, crack and get destroyed today, and East Antarctica, which was considered impregnable, is also under threat of rapid extinction.

Lenaerts and his colleagues figured out why the Eastern ice sheets of Antarctica are melting faster than predicted by climate models and calculations, examining the mysterious three-kilometer crater opened in the glacier of king Baudouin in January 2015 one of the survey aircraft of the Alfred Wegener Institute, American Oceanographic organization.

About a year the authors have visited the structure, measured depth, and thoroughly studied it to find that actually this “crater” did not arise as a result of a meteorite, and with the exit surface of the lake ice, the melt water which had forced its way to the surface and in the direction of the waters of the ocean.

All the water from the lake, as shown by the study of its “banks”, emerged in the ocean by the time he was photographing the plane that hid him from the essence of who discovered it scientists and the public. The discovery of such a large lake has forced scholars to review the photos of this part of the ice array, obtained using probes of Terra and Aqua. It turned out that next to this “crater” is another 55 like structures, hidden under the snow and ice.

Their discovery surprised the authors, and they tried to explain their occurrence by analyzing all the process that is happening today in the East Antarctic using their new developed climate model of the region.

As it turned out, in the formation of these lakes was to blame for two things – strong winds blowing always in one direction in this part of the continent, and rising temperatures due to global warming, moreover, still further strengthened such winds. Due to both the melting of ice at the foot of the glacier, which is located directly above the surface of Antarctica has actually doubled in recent years, which explains the appearance of these lakes.

Strong winds, as the scientists explain, play another role – they blow away the snow from the surface of the so-called “blue” multi-year ice, reflecting less light than the snow. It enhances melting and making the glaciers in East Antarctica are more vulnerable to heat and light than previously thought by scientists. She meltwater besides warms the glaciers in this part of the continent and makes them equally vulnerable to destruction, like their “cousins” on the Antarctic Peninsula, which recently began ice-free.