Geothermal Heat and Glacial Growth

Abstract

Abstract In a 300 m. deep hole drilled in the 3000 m. thick ice at Byrd Station (lat. 80° S. long. 120° W., 1513 m. above sea-level), the temperature was observed to decline with depth below 45 m. This profile was extended to the bottom of the ice with the aid of heat conduction theory under these assumptions: i. that as the ice was deposited the climate became warmer at the rate of 045° C. per 1000 years; ii. The conduction of geothermal heat is 31.6 cal. cm.−2 yr.−1. It is estimated that the first 2000 years of geothermal heat conducted to this ice, whose annual accumulation is 30 cm., is dissipated to the atmosphere and space. When the ice becomes thicker, it retains all the geothermal heat given to it for a long time. An alternative, non-climatic change explanation of the decreasing temperature in the Byrd Station hole is based on colder ice from higher elevations moving under the warmer ice accumulated locally. However, an examination of the topography of the Marie Byrd Land ice does not appear to support this explanation.