Global warming accelerates the process of meteorite fragments sinking into the ice of Antarctica, causing the loss of valuable research materials.
Antarctica has a large amount of meteorite fragments concentrated on its surface. Therefore, this icy continent contains a lot of invaluable information about the solar system, allowing people to learn about the emergence of life on Earth, the formation of the Moon and many other issues.
However, meteorite fragments are disappearing rapidly due to global warming, according to new research by a group of scientists from Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). , Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) Birmensdorf and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), SciTechDaily reported on April 12. This disappearance will greatly affect human knowledge about extraterrestrial life.
There are currently at least 300,000 meteorite fragments on the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet. Due to warming, about 5,000 meteorite fragments disappear each year, five times faster than the collection rate.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to combine satellite observations of Antarctica with climate model predictions, the team of scientists estimates that, by 2050, about a quarter of all meteorites will be lost. disappear. This number could increase to three-quarters by the end of the century, depending on future greenhouse gas emissions.
“Even when the ice temperature is below 0 degrees Celsius, dark meteorites still warm up a lot in the Sun and can melt the ice right below. With this process, warm meteorites create creates a localized indentation in the ice and over time, it disappears completely below the surface. As atmospheric temperatures increase, the ice surface temperature also increases, thus accelerating the process because less natural heat is needed more jelly to melt the ice locally,” explains Veronica Tollenaar, a scientist at ULB and co-author of the study.
“To protect this priceless extraterrestrial material, we need to increase the collection of meteorites in Antarctica before they are lost to climate change. Similar to collecting ice cores from glaciers disappear or sample coral reefs before they bleach, our research identifies meteorite loss as an unexpected effect of climate change that we need to address,” said Harry Zekollari, Expert at VUB, study co-author, said.