The melting of ice across Antarctica could soon cause over 100 hidden volcanoes to erupt underneath the surface in an event that would be devastating for the region.

Climate change is having devastating effects on the world, and you only need to look as far as mass wildfires in Los Angeles to understand how dangerous and destructive it can be.

Alongside large scale fires caused by dehydrated land, the increased temperature of Earth is also notable causing ice to melt in areas like Antarctica, leading to a rising sea level that could eventually engulf the planet if rates continue.

Perhaps an unexpected side effect of this melting for many however is the interaction with Antarctica’s many ‘hidden’ volcanoes that exist underneath the surface, sitting several hundreds of kilometers below the frozen surface.

Erebus is the only active volcano in Antarctica above the surface right now (Bill Rose/Michigan Technological University)

Continued melting of ice is predicted to lead to the eruption of these volcanoes, with over 100 spanning the region – many of which are centralized in the western areas.

Moreover, if eruptions are triggered within these volcanoes it could lead to a devastating feedback loop of continued melting that would be devastating not just for Antarctica but the world as a whole.

As reported by Live Science, activity is predicted to increase in subglacial volcanoes when pressure is reduced on magma chambers, causing to expand and eventually erupt.

Furthermore, one scientific study in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems indicates: “The reduced weight from the melting ice above also allows dissolved water and carbon dioxide to form gas bubbles, which causes pressure to build up in the magma chamber and may eventually trigger an eruption.”

Many have likened this reaction to that of a cork popping on a well-shaken bottle of champagne, as the pressure built up inside the subglacial volcanoes causes its magma chambers to explode.

It is almost an inevitability then that eruptions will happen once the ice has melted enough, and global trends certainly aren’t doing a lot to curb the accelerated heating process.

Melting ice caps in Antarctica could trigger mass subglacial volcanic eruptions (Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this reaction is that theories suggest that the process would continue to work away and eventually lead to further eruptions even if Earth managed to prevent further increases to global temperature – otherwise known as anthropogenic warming.

“We find that the removal of an ice sheet above a volcano results in more abundant and larger eruptions,” details the study by A. N. Coonin et al. “which may potentially hasten the melting of overlying ice through complex feedback mechanics.”

As per the Global Volcanism Program only one volcano in Antarctica has erupted in the past two decades – Erebus – which began its eruption in 1972 and continues to this day, yet it might not be too long until many more become active.

A massive, mysterious hole in the Antarctic ice has baffled scientists for decades, who just couldn’t figure out what caused it to appear.

In the Antarctic Weddell Sea there’s a submerged mountain called Maud Rise, and scientists have observed the enormous hole sporadically open up for brief periods in the sea ice there.

It’s like a reappearing window into the torrid freezing cold sea below, but after first being spotted in the 1970s and then observed on and off since, it has been a really confusing phenomenon.

NASA Earth Observatory by Lauren Dauphin

Now, though, we might finally have an answer, after the hole’s reappearances in 2016 and 2017 were extensively studied.

The number of techniques used to check out the hole was super impressive, too, ranging from normal-sounding ideas like satellite imaging and computer models, to more inventive ones like fitting sensors to small helmets that seals wore to test the waters in the area – that’s not made up, it really did happen.

This helped researchers to establish that the hole was being formed by a process called ‘Ekman transport’ – which isn’t quite as complicated as it might sound.

Alberto Naveira Garabato of the University of Southampton in the UK, part of the research team, explained: “Ekman transport was the essential missing ingredient that was necessary to increase the balance of salt and sustain the mixing of salt and heat towards the surface water.”

Ekman transport basically involves the movement of different layers of water around the ocean, often caused by the wind on the surface interacting with massive bodies of liquid below it.

Hongjie Han / Getty

This sometimes combines with already existing currents to push warmer water up towards the surface in the Maud Rise area, and when the conditions are right it results in that huge hole forming – something that’s known as a ‘polynya’.

Since these often don’t stay around for very long, studying them can be a real challenge, but in 2016 and 2017 the Maud Rise polynya was long-lived enough to let scientists really dig into it, coming up with these interesting results.

So, as is often the case, this mysterious freezing cold climate might hold something that seems to have no explanation, but when you put a dedicated team of scientists on the job, there’s a pretty solid chance they’ll come up with a persuasive theory to figure it out.

Figuring out how this polynya formed will help up to assess future occurrences elsewhere, and to work out whether they’re becoming more common or larger as the climate crisis intensifies.

It’s mind blowing to think about how much of the world is left to discover.

From ancient monuments to giant viruses, experts are constantly finding out more about our home planet, and it doesn’t look like they plan on stopping any time soon.

Just recently, geologists made a huge discovery in West Antarctica that could offer a glimpse into the mysteries of the Earth’s history.

Whilst digging into a massive ice sheet, they discovered the remains of an ancient river system, and it certainly left them with questions.

The system is thought to have flowed for nearly a thousand miles, and hints at the huge impact extreme climate change could have on the planet.

Johann Klages / The Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Bremerhaven

Study co-author and a sedimentologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, Johann Klages, told Live Science: “If we think about a potentially severe climate change in the future, we need to learn from periods in Earth’s history where this already happened,”

And they’re really looking back in time.

There’s one major climate event in Antarctica that scientists are focused on investigating, and it happened between 34 million to 44 million years ago.

In this period of time, known as the middle-to-late Eocene, the atmosphere of Earth is thought to have changed drastically.

Carbon levels plummeted, and a global cooling led to the formation of glaciers on an Earth that was previously ice-free.

With carbon levels constantly rising currently, scientists are eager to find out more about this widespread cooling so they can understand what triggered it.

The amount of carbon dioxide during the late Eocene period was almost double the amount we have today.

Karsten Gohl / The Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Bremerhaven

And now from their findings, scientists know that during this period of time, a large-scale transcontinental river system once crossed West Antarctica.

In 2017, another team of researchers set out to learn more about the ancient history of the area by venturing to the Amundsen Sea Embayment, where the ice sheet covering the region flows into the sea.

The team collected core samples from soft sediments and hard rocks within the frozen seabed, which contained fossils, spores and pollen.

They also found sections of sandstone dating back to the middle to late Eocene, and found evidence of an ancient river delta.

This is very similar to something one would encounter in the Mississippi River or Rio Grande, Klages said.

Further testing on the multiple samples then uncovered a unique molecule commonly found in cyanobacteria that live in freshwater.

Astronomy Media

Confused? It’s a lot to take in. In simple terms, the finding confirmed their suspicions that an ancient river once snaked across the continent.

The research doesn’t stop there, and the team are now analyzing parts of the core sediments that can be dated back to around 23 million years ago.

Hopefully this will help refine models to better predict future climate.

New scientific reports have indicated that the world is on the edge of ‘irreversible climate disaster’ which even in the most optimistic scenario would require widescale changes in order to combat.

Climate change is one of the world’s major issues and has been for a while, with disturbing scientific predictions becoming the norm alongside outlandish projects backed by billionaires in an aim to combat global warming.

Perhaps the scariest part of it all is how inevitable it seems, and it only appears to be growing worse too. Many have criticized certain billionaires for contributing to climate change through their actions, and while there has been a widespread push for a more sustainable future, it might still not be enough.

Climate activists have brought great awareness to the dangers of our current consumption (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

This has only further been cemented by recent scientific reports, in which experts have claimed in the State of the Climate 2024 report that not enough is being done.

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” the report, led by William J Ripple, begins, “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”

The report then continues to outline that despite warnings laid out in the past 50 years, “we are still moving in the wrong direction,” with worrying signs that only further seem to cement an undesirable future for the Earth.

One of the most worrying aspects of the report is the section that details the increased consumption of the world’s population that has led to further risk of an unsustainable future.

It explains that “decoupling the growth” in variables like an increasing human population, per capita meat production, and livestock population “with greenhouse gas emissions may be difficult.”

Revealed is that while renewable energy consumption did rise 15% from 2022 to 2023, this was partnered also by a 1.5% rise in fossil fuel consumption, which is overall around 14 times greater than solar and wind energy consumption overall.

Fossil fuel consumption continues to rise despite warnings against it (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Additionally, tree losses were significantly larger too, rising from 22.7 to 28.3 megahectares, which is also partly down to an increase in wildfires, which remain a biproduct of global warming.

China, the United States, and Indian account for over half of all global emissions, with a total worldwide count reaching above 40 gigatons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent for the first time ever.

These are far from the only issues outlined by the lengthy study, but it’s conclusion remains that despite major awareness of the issues, “the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel based system.”

This indicates that very little will change in the near future at least if those profiting from it don’t relent, and that we have only “worse to come if we continue with business as usual.”