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Possible Seismogenic-Trigger Mechanism of Activation of Glacier Destruction, Methane Emission, and Climate Warming in Antarctica

  • MARINE GEOLOGY
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Oceanology Aims and scope

Abstract

A seismogenic-trigger mechanism is proposed for the rapid activation of destruction of cover and shelf glaciers in West Antarctica at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, accompanied by release of methane from the underlying hydrate-bearing sedimentary rocks and consequent rapid climate warming. This mechanism is associated with the action of deformation waves in the lithosphere–asthenosphere system, resulting from large earthquakes occurring in the subduction zones surrounding Antarctica: Chile and Kermadec–Macquarie. Disturbances in the lithosphere are transmitted over long distances on the order of 3000 km, and their additional associated stresses, which reach Antarctica several decades after the earthquakes, leading to a decrease in the adhesion of glaciers to underlying rocks, accelerated sliding of glaciers and development of faults in them. This process, in turn, reduces pressure on the underlying gas-hydrate-bearing sedimentary layers, leading to methane emission and climate warming. This hypothesis leads to the conclusion that in the coming decades, glacier destruction and climate warming processes in Antarctica will speed up due to an unprecedented increase in the number of large earthquakes in South Pacific subduction zones in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

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Funding

The study was partly carried out under the state task of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, RAS, (no. FMWE-2021-0004) and partly under the state task of the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, RAS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    L. I. Lobkovsky, I. S. Vladimirova & Y. V. Gabsatarov

  2. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (National Research University), Dolgoprudny, Russia

    L. I. Lobkovsky, I. S. Vladimirova & Y. V. Gabsatarov

  3. Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    A. A. Baranov

Authors
  1. L. I. Lobkovsky
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  2. A. A. Baranov
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  3. I. S. Vladimirova
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  4. Y. V. Gabsatarov
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Correspondence to L. I. Lobkovsky or Y. V. Gabsatarov.

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Lobkovsky, L.I., Baranov, A.A., Vladimirova, I.S. et al. Possible Seismogenic-Trigger Mechanism of Activation of Glacier Destruction, Methane Emission, and Climate Warming in Antarctica. Oceanology 63, 131–140 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S000143702301006X

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S000143702301006X

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