Scientists have finally discovered what sustains microbes in the lakes buried deep beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet. The study is one of the first to provide evidence that the ice sheet was smaller in the past before growing back to its current size. This understanding is crucial in predicting Antarctica’s future as the world continues to warm due to human-caused climate change. There are hundreds of lakes under Antarctica’s massive ice sheet, which are the result of the underside of the ice slowly melting due to heat from the Earth’s interior. These lakes are pitch-black, near freezing, and almost entirely isolated from the outside world. Greg Balco, a geochemist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center in California, who was not involved in the study, says that understanding how the ice sheet changed during past periods of warming is crucial to predicting Antarctica’s future. The study provides valuable insights into the mysterious world beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet.
2023-05-12 06:00:00
Post from www.sciencenews.org
Ancient carbon is consumed by microbes in a lake located deep beneath Antarctica’s ice.
