A research team at the University of Arizona has pointed out that that the Scandinavian island of Iceland is rising as a result of global warming. After studying the relatively fast rising of Iceland crust over the last three decades, the researchers have raised concerns over the fact that it could be rising by as much as 1.4 inches a year and that it could lead to an increase in volcanic activity in the future.
“There have been a lot of studies that have shown that the uplift in Iceland is primarily due to ice loss,” said lead author Kathleen Compton, an Arizona PhD student, adding that her study was the first to show accelerated sea level rise influences the land.
The research draws attention towards the rising of the vast ice sheets with the onset of global warming nearly three decades back. Kathleen says the team first began using GPS technology similar to what you’d find in a car to measure uplift in 2006.
“We used 62 GPS stations located all across the island of Iceland, and looked at how fast those GPS stations were moving upward through time,” Compton told FoxNews.com.
What really surprised researchers was the speed at which some sites in Iceland were rising.
“They’re not only moving upward very rapidly in the central and southern part of the island, but they’re speeding up over time- moving faster and faster each year.”
Some sites are rising as much as 1.4 inches a year. Researchers are worried that the rebound of the crust could mean an increase in the frequency of volcanic eruptions similar to the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull which had disrupted air travel over the European continent on an unprecedented scale.
Shortly afterwards, another Icelandic volcano Bardarbunga had began erupting in August 2014 and it hasn’t stopped since.
“I anticipate, given the 2014 Bardarbunga eruption, that there will be continued close monitoring of activity in Iceland- at least for the next five years,” said co-author Richard Bennett, an associate professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona to FoxNews.
The team’s study was financed by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Center for Research and the findings were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.