![](\"http:\/\/www.orthodoxnet.com\/archives\/2007\/images\/Greenland_ice_2007-12_md.jpg\")
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LiveScience<\/a> | Andrea Thompson | Dec. 13, 2007<\/p>\n Global warming may not be the only thing melting Greenland. Scientists have found at least one natural magma hotspot under the Arctic island that could be pitching in. <\/p>\n In recent years, Greenland\u2019s ice has been melting more and flowing faster into the sea\u2014a record amount of ice melted from the frozen mass this summer, according to recently released data\u2014and Earth\u2019s rising temperatures are suspected to be the main culprit. <\/p>\n But clues to a new natural contribution to the melt arose when scientists discovered a thin spot in the Earth\u2019s crust under the northeast corner of the Greenland Ice Sheet where heat from Earth\u2019s insides could seep through, scientists will report here this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.<\/p>\n \u201cThe behavior of the great ice sheets is an important barometer of global climate change,\u201d said lead scientist Ralph von Frese of Ohio State University. \u201cHowever, to effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change, we must understand the natural impacts too.\u201d<\/p>\n The corner of Greenland where the hotspot was found had no known ice streams, the rivers of ice that run through the main ice sheet and out to sea, until one was discovered in 1991. What exactly caused the stream to form was uncertain.<\/p>\n \u201cIce streams have to have some reason for being there,\u201d von Frese said, \u201cand it\u2019s pretty surprising to suddenly see one in the middle of the ice sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n The newly discovered hotspot, an area where Earth\u2019s crust is thinner, allowing hot magma from Earth’s mantle to come closer to the surface, is just below the ice sheet and could have caused it to form, von Frese and his team suggest. <\/p>\n . . . more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LiveScience | Andrea Thompson | Dec. 13, 2007 Global warming may not be the only thing melting Greenland. Scientists have found at least one natural magma hotspot under the Arctic island that could be pitching in. In recent years, Greenland\u2019s ice has been melting more and flowing faster into the sea\u2014a record amount of ice … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[75,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-warming","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}