Ice mountains of cities float near the United Kingdom: What awaits Antarctica?

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The newly discovered signs at the sea floor reveal this The huge ice mountain mountain transports drift In front of the coast of the United Kingdom. According to the British survey scientists in Antarctica (BAS), the scraping signs show the place where the bottom of the iceberg was dragged across the northern sea between 18,000 and 20,000 years.

This is it The first clear evidence that the brutal ice blocks They wandered in this region – less than 145 km from the British coast – providing valuable data on how to change Ice scene in Antarctica The continent is also heated.

“We talk about the huge flat peak or “scheduling” ice“The geophysic scientist James Kirkham explains, from Bass, in reference to the ice mountain mountain that caused the deep grooves.” In a conservative way, they measured between five and perhaps a few dozen kilometers – compared to the surface of a medium -sized British city such as Cambridge or Norwich – and can be thick a few hundred meters. “

When was the ice mountains in the North Sea?

It was preserved in the buried deposits under the bottom of the current sea, these plow brands belong To the end of the floggingIt is a period in which a iceberg withdrew a large part of the British and Irish islands due to the climate heating.

It was first discovered in the seismic data used to determine the platforms of Petroleum and gas drilling In the Earth’s Earth Basin, between Scotland and Norway. In this regard, the individual grooves formed by a small iceberg have already been discovered, but the width of the wide meters of the Earth’s witch was also discovered that there is also a giant dialectical mountain.

Tabroolic ice comes out of ice platforms, floating ice meals from ice rivers They separated themselves from the ground to take advantage of the ocean. Therefore, researchers can conclude that the British and Irish ice layer had these structures as well.

Kelly Hogan, marine geophysics in BAS and co -author of the new study published in the “Nature Communications” magazine, explains how this provides historical evidence. “With our data, we can document it The catastrophic collapse of these platforms From the ice at the end of the last ice age, “he says,” Because we discovered about 18,000 years, we discovered a change in the type of brands of plowing in the ice recorded in the seafarers ’sediments, from a huge wallpaper mountain – produced by the normal life cycle of ice life – to a small ice. Ice platforms disintegrate“.

What suggests this about the ice layer in Antarctica?

Ice platforms Important to stabilize the ice layerBass explains. They support and keep ice ice, which would drain faster towards the ocean. Regular separation in the ice shed on the edge of the attack on platforms – which sometimes occurs every few decades – in keeping the ice rivers behind it in a stable condition.

75 % of Antarctica Surrounded by these floating platforms. But it is not clear how the frozen continent will move Climate Because of the man. Perhaps the most important example of the ICE platform rupture so far is what happened with the Ice Larsen B.

After disintegrating the ice platform, The ice rivers kept Behind her increased her speed several times, and accelerating her contribution to Increased sea level. Old brands in the northern sea plow indicate that this phenomenon has occurred on a large scale, when the British and Irish ice layer was reduced quickly by 200 and 300 meters per year at its edges.

A mystery is still ongoing is whether this rapid withdrawal It was caused by the collapse of its ice platforms Or if the symptoms of the mass loss of the ice layer that were already ongoing. But the best dating sediments can provide the answer.

“It is an interesting issue that takes us To the heart of the effect of ice platforms In the ice layer in the modern southern pole. If we notice a similar transition from a large taboo mountain to a smaller iceberg, this may indicate that the continent is about to experience a fast and fast mass loss, ”says Rob Larter, a joint author of BAS.