THE EXPANDING EARTH THEORY

Is climate change making Earth  expand? Melting ice sheets are altering the shape of our planet
Researchers at Newcastle University studied the motion of Earth's crust and found it was moving much faster than thought in Antarctica. The movement may be caused by climate change. As the heavy ice above melts, Earth's mantle moves more easily. Growth has happened in just decades but should have taken much longer.

Antarctica is a motionless and frozen landscape. Yet hundreds of miles down the Earth is moving at a rapid rate. The study explains why the motion of the Earth's crust in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula is currently taking place so quickly.

Researchers have revealed rapid growth of Earth's crust in Antarctica. The reason for the growth is the lightening load above as ice on the surface melts, which allows the mantle to move upwards more quickly

Previous studies have shown Earth is 'rebounding' due to the overlying ice sheet shrinking in response to climate change. This movement of the land was understood to be due to an instantaneous, elastic response followed by a very slow uplift over thousands of years.

The theory that Earth is growing suggests that the movement of the continents is caused by our planet getting bigger. There are three different forms of the theory; the first is that the mass of the planet has stayed the same as the planet grows, so gravity has decreased.

The others suggest Earth has grown in accordance with mass to keep gravity constant.
The final theory suggests gravity has increased as the mass has grown ever more.
In 1888 Russian engineer Yarkovsky said this added mass could come from space.

GPS data has revealed that the land in this region is rising at a phenomenal rate of 0.6 inches a year – much greater than can be accounted for by elastic response alone.

Also the mantle below the Antarctic Peninsula is flowing much faster than expected, pdue to subtle changes in temperature or chemical composition. This means it can flow more easily and so responds much more quickly to the lightening load hundreds of miles above it, changing the shape of the land.

Since 1995 several ice shelves in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula have collapsed and triggered ice-mass unloading, causing the solid Earth to 'bounce back'.

The ice is pressing down and the crust bounces back. Collating data from GPS stations across the Northern Peninsula, the team found the rebound was so fast that the upper mantle viscosity had to be at least ten times lower than previously thought for the region and much lower than the rest of Antarctica.