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Human-driven climate change, not volcanism, main driver of Antarctic melt | Fact check

Kate S. Petersen   Paste BN
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The claim: Volcanos, not human-driven climate change, responsible for Antarctic ice melt

A Dec. 8 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows a person claiming that sub-glacial volcanos are the only cause of melting in Antarctica.

"Before today we have been led to believe that the melting is the result of human activity, but it turns out to be an absolute lie," the person says. "The anthropogenic factor has nothing to do with it."

The video, which previously circulated on TikTok, was shared nearly 2000 times.

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While there is some indirect evidence of active sub-glacial volcanos in Antarctica, researchers said this activity does not account for the significant ice loss in the region in recent decades. Research shows climate change driven by human greenhouse gas emissions is behind the melting.

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NASA reports the Antarctica ice sheet has lost more than 2 trillion metric tons of ice since 2002. Antarctic ice loss is driven by ocean and atmospheric warming and other climate changes attributable to human activity, according to research.

"There is an extensive body of literature highlighting the role of atmospheric and oceanic warming, alongside glacier dynamics, in driving recent ice loss in Antarctica," Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries, a geoscientist at the University of Oxford, said in an email.

Van Wyk de Vries co-authored a 2017 inventory of sub-glacial volcanos in Antarctica and told Paste BN that some may be active.

However, "there is no basis to the claim that they are a dominant driver of ice melt," he said. "They either have no effect at all or a very small effect. Work is ongoing to understand the details of this, but the claim that they are a driver of Antarctic ice melt instead of anthropogenic atmospheric and oceanic warming is not supported by any data."

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Brice Loose, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island, co-authored a 2018 paper reporting indirect chemical evidence of potential active volcanism under the Antarctica Pine Island Glacier.

His analysis "showed that this volcanism could at most represent 0.2% of the heat present in the Pine Island Ice Shelf cavity where melt is taking place," Loose told Paste BN. "This (analysis) tells us that if the chemical evidence we found is actually tied to a subglacial volcano, that volcano is not capable of producing more than a fraction, less than 1%, of the melt we observe in Pine Island Bay."

"The evidence we have shows that volcanism can not be solely responsible for the melt that we observe around Antarctica," he said.

NASA also reports volcanism has been happening in Antarctica for millions of years and that there is no evidence of an increase in activity that could explain the accelerated melting over the last few decades.

Paste BN reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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