This Week's Sci-Lights

In response to Southern California’s untypically cold weather as of late, we’d like to present this week’s Sci-Lights under the theme of ice and the many discoveries that await beneath its surface.

First up, GEOMAR researchers recently uncovered what they believe to be a link between volcanic activity and global climate change. Volcanoes, they say, are often associated with increases in global temperature, which leads to the swift melting of ice sheets that we see today. This shifts the weight of the ice on the continents towards the weight of the water that comprises the world’s oceans. By transferring the load from continental tectonic plates to ocean plates, volcanoes lose their vigor and the Earth begins to cool. This is what is known as the temperature cycle. Before now, there as no defined research that was able to hold a candle to criticism, but this one may hold the key to educating the community on the temperature cycle. The effect of humans upon the temperature cycle was intentionally left out, as its full consequences are not yet known. To read more, look to the original article here.

Next, an American team at Antarctic Lake Whillans is racing to complete project WISSARD, or Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling. There, the researchers are hoping to probe for microbial life in a subglacial lake a half mile below the ice. Given they reach the lake, which has been the hardest part for unsuccessful teams like as Great Britain, they will scan the lake to gain a 3D image of its inlets and outlets. It has been surmised that life is indeed capable of living at these depths, where sunlight cannot shine through the ice. For more information, you can find the original NY Times article here.

In another enlightening article by BBC, scientists lamented data showing that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet may be melting at least twice as fast as previously estimated. Till now, it was believed that the surface of the Antarctic plane was so cold that the temperature would never rise above freezing, where surface melting could occur. It was assumed that all ice melt came from a warming of the ocean, which in turn melted the ice sheets that rested upon it. With this new research, scientists believe that the atmosphere may in fact play a role in the melting of ice in Antarctica, especially in the west. Unfortunately, this would lead to a rise in ocean levels, which would accelerate the temperature cycle previously described by the GEOMAR researchers. To read more on the subject, you can find the original article here.