Global Warming May Have Boost From Underground Magma To Melt Greenland Glacier

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Some scientists now say that underground magma, along with warming surface temperatures, might be contributing to melting glaciers in Greenland. Researchers say that a thin spot on the Earth's crust is enabling the hot magma underground to melt the ice.

While no one knows if the molten magma is now contributing to ice melt in Greenland, it is known that heat from inside the Earth has been used to heat homes there since the 10th century when residents harnessed hot springs as a heating source. Water in a hot spring is heated either by geothermal heat from the Earth's interior or by coming in contact with hot magma, scientists say.

Researchers say they don't the temperature of the hot spot under a recently discovered ice stream in Greenland.

"Crustal heat flow is still one of the unknowns -- and it's a fairly significant one, according to our preliminary results," lead researcher Ralph von Frese said in a statement.

Von Frese, who is a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University also said that while the way major ice sheets behave is "an important barometer of global climate change" that to understand climate change they had to be able to "effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change" and understand "natural impacts."

Early results of the study on the situation in Greenland were presented Thursday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco by a graduate student who worked on the study with von Frese.

The melting glaciers have a particular significance for Americans, as the water from them flows into the sea raising sea levels around the world.

"The complete melting of these continental ice sheets would put much of Florida, as well as New Orleans, New York City and other important coastal population centers, under water," von Frese said.