According to a study by the University of Arizona published in Geophysical Research Letters , the portion of the earth’s crust located under the territory of Iceland is emerging as global warming melts large glaciers and ice sheets on the island.
This is the first research to show that the current accelerated uplift of the Icelandic crust is the result of accelerated melting of the country’s glaciers , which coincides with the onset of warming that began about 30 years ago, according to scientists.
Some areas of central and southern Iceland are rising by up to 35 millimeters per year, a surprising speed for geological parameters. For Kathleen Compton, lead author of the study, her measurements relate this accelerated elevation of the land with the accelerated melting of the ice sheets of Iceland. Geologists already knew that as glaciers melt, and thus lose weight, the earth below reacts by having less load on top.
Whether this rebound effect is related to a deglaciation in the remote past or due to recent loss of ice has been a debated issue until now. But according to Richard Bennett, associate professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona and co-author of the research, “Iceland is the first place where we can say that the accelerated uplift is related to a recent accelerated loss of ice mass.”
To calculate the speed at which the crust is propelled upward, the team used a network of 62 global positioning satellite (GPS) receivers attached to rocks across the country. Through annual monitoring, the scientists saw the rocks move and were able to calculate the speed thanks to a technique called geodesy .
“We have detected a climate-induced change on the Earth’s surface,” says Bennett, who adds that there is geological evidence that during the last deglaciation, which occurred about 12,000 years ago, volcanic activity in some regions of Iceland increased thirty times.
Others have estimated that the lifting of the island’s crust due to warming could increase the frequency of volcanic eruptions , as happened in 2010 with the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which affected world air traffic and had negative economic consequences globally.
