Deep Earth forces enabled Antarctic ice sheet formation 34M years ago despite warmer climate

Thirty-four million years ago, Antarctica's ice sheet took hold in a world five degrees warmer than our own — a paradox that has quietly unsettled climate science for generations. New research traces the answer not to the sky but to the deep interior of the planet, where slow-moving waves of heated mantle rock had been lifting the Antarctic continent for over a hundred million years, raising it high enough that ice could persist despite the warmth above. The discovery invites us to reconsider the relationship between deep geological time and surface climate, reminding us that the forces shapin