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Study Links Antarctica's Ice Sheet Formation to Geological Uplift Alongside Climate Factors

Confirmed1 source · Sep 4, 2026

Research published in Science suggests that 34 million years ago, the rise of the Antarctic landscape above the permanent snow line—triggered by continental breakup and mountain uplift—was a critical factor in ice sheet formation, working in combination with falling atmospheric CO2 levels rather than as an equal or superior cause.

Study Links Antarctica's Ice Sheet Formation to Geological Uplift Alongside Climate Factors
Image via The Debrief

What happened

A study led by the University of Southampton and published in Science proposes that Antarctica's East Antarctic Ice Sheet formed around 34 million years ago due to a combination of geological and climatic factors. The research, based on landscape evolution models, identifies that the breakup of Africa and Antarctica created a coastal escarpment in Dronning Maud Land that rose to nearly two kilometers, with an elevated plateau extending inland for 2,000 kilometers. Over subsequent millions of years, further uplift gradually migrated inland toward the Gamburtsev Mountains, raising East Antarctica's landmass above the permanent snow line roughly 15 million years before large-scale glaciation began around 45 million years ago. The team also found that the resulting ice sheet's high albedo (reflectivity) may have contributed an additional degree Celsius of global cooling.

Context

The formation of Antarctica's ice sheet during a period of comparatively warm global temperatures has long puzzled scientists, since prevailing explanations—declining atmospheric CO2 and global cooling—do not fully account for why the Northern Hemisphere did not experience similar glaciation for another 20 to 25 million years. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough frozen water to raise sea levels globally by more than 50 meters if completely melted. By attributing ice sheet formation to long-term geological transformations that raised the landscape, the study shifts emphasis to the interaction between topography and climate, suggesting that planetary ice ages can result from slow changes in Earth's surface geometry acting alongside climatic shifts.