Posted on 04/03/2008 5:30:58 PM PDT by blam
Melting ice caps may trigger more volcanic eruptions
10:38 03 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine Brahic
Vatnajökull in the south-east is the largest ice cap in Iceland and conceals several volcanoes (Image: NASA)
A warmer world could be a more explosive one. Global warming is having a much more profound effect than just melting ice caps – it is melting magma too.
Vatnajökull is the largest ice cap in Iceland, and is disappearing at a rate of 5 cubic kilometres per year.
Carolina Pagli of the University of Leeds, UK, and Freysteinn Sigmundsson of the University of Iceland have calculated the effects of the melting on the crust and magma underneath.
They say that, as the ice disappears, it relieves the pressure exerted on the rocks deep under the ice sheet, increasing the rate at which it melts into magma. An average of 1.4 cubic kilometres has been produced every century since 1890, a 10% increase on the background rate.
Frequent eruptions
In Iceland there are several active volcanoes under the ice. The last big eruption was in 1996 at Gjàlp, and before then in 1938 – a gap of 58 years. But Pagli and Sigmundsson say that the extra magma produced as the ice cap melts could supply enough magma for similar eruptions to take place every 30 years on average.
Predicting the eruptions precisely will be tricky, though, as the rate of magma migration to the surface is unknown.
The situation in Iceland does not necessarily mean magma will be melting faster around the world. Vatnajökull sits atop a boundary between plates in the Earth's crust, and it is this configuration that is allowing the release in pressure to have such a great effect deep in the mantle.
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
The volcanoes on Iceland are caused by the two Atlantic ocean tectonic plates pulling away from each other.
I imagine icecaps have no bearing on plate tectonics do they.
The scientists who do these studies get invited to all the “great global warming parties” afterward as a reward for contributing to the cause, but in the background, all the scientists are snickering at both them and how these outrageously ridiculous claims can keep making it into print. It is almost a contest about who can get “global warming will cause cannabilism” story into print.
I will give it a try.
“Global warming has resulted in mankind polluting the entire universe and causing universal warming. If we don’t stop polluting the universe with our CO2, we will cause entire galaxies to go supernova at the same time. this could happen in 30 to 40 years, faster than the speed of light even.”
OMG! The magma is melting!
Bumper Sticker Idea:
The Earth’s Magma is Melting.
If a volcano is going to blow, a glacier won't stop it for more than 15 minutes.
Idiocy...we're so screwed.
thats right,,we are screwed,because it a political position instead of science. They will never accept any truth,I don’t care if we froze solid,,they will march on claiming it’s because of global warming.
Volcanic eruptions darken the skies, reflecting solar radiation back into space so it doesn’t reach the Earth’s surface, the surface consequently cools down, and the ice caps come back.
Problem solved!
One more reason for McCain to convince us that we’ll be buried by magma if we don’t pay $1,000,000,000,000,000 to his globalist, Marxist UN buddies.
McCain is more stupid than hillary. At least she’s pushing global warming to establish Marxism. McCain actually believes this crap and has no clue of the end result.
Draft Cheney at the convention.
All that's left during this interglacial are little chunks here and there.
That extra .5 degrees celsius air temperature really makes a difference under the earth’s crust.
next, global warming linked to inducing a wobble into the earths poles and the slowing of the earths rotation thus making the day longer and the year longer...
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Thanks Blam. Dr. Evil "Liquid Hot Magma" ping. |
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They probably do but this article is clearly a "scare" piece designed to further the global warming/climate change hysteria. Look up "isostasy."
While rocks seem hard and inflexible, when great weight is placed on them they bend. At great depth the friction caused by that flexing creates heat. Heat is also created by frictional flexing when the weight is removed and the rocks go back to their original equalibrium. It's the heat that causes magma creation and hot magma expands, often venting to the surface as volcanic eruptions.
This is a normal and continuing process along plate boundaries when one plate is subducted beneath another -- as around the Ring of Fire. The recent Mt. St. Helen's eruption was part of that cycle. What the article purposely leaves out is that similar magma production occurred from isostatic flexing when the ice formed into heavy sheets after the last interglacial.
The Big Lie of "climate change" is its ridiculous assumption that there's some sort of "normal" climate. There isn't. Climate is constantly changing over the eons and the human race has survived -- so far -- only by being tough, resilient and adaptable enough to find ways to make it through the changes.
(Should we have a competent geologist on board please correct me if I'm wrong)
This seems entirely backward to me. The heat exists down below BECAUSE of the pressure (And some small radioactive decay). Relieve the pressure and some of the heat goes away too. Why would something that causes heat to decrease result in increased melting? Am I missing something here or is the science here even junkier than usual for the GW bunch?
Apparently not. It’s caused massive snow storms and tornados this winter/year. How’d that happen again?
Sounds odd - can anyone think of anywhere else that reducing pressure increases temperature?
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