Posted on 04/17/2010 5:17:38 AM PDT by jerry557
OSLO (Reuters) – A thaw of Iceland's ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, scientists said on Friday.
They said there was no sign that the current eruption from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that has paralysed flights over northern Europe was linked to global warming. The glacier is too small and light to affect local geology.
"Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades," said Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.
"Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems," he told Reuters. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.
"We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption," he said of Eyjafjallajokull. "The eruption is happening under a relatively small ice cap."
Carolina Pagli, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, said there were risks that climate change could also trigger volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in places such as Mount Erebus in Antarctica, the Aleutian islands of Alaska or Patagonia in South America.
"The effects would be biggest with ice-capped volcanoes," she said. "If you remove a load that is big enough you will also have an effect at depths on magma production."
She and Sigmundsson wrote a 2008 paper in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters about possible links between global warming and Icelandic volcanoes.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This is not something new....Keep driving your SUV!!!
As Chicken Little would say, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.”
I’d like to thank my teachers for being old fashioned teachers who saw critical thinking as an essential part of learning.
Without them, I would simply say “Well the scientists says its true, so who am I to argue”.
Well, since there is no evidence that global warming is even happening, I guess we don’t have to worry about this.
Climate change nutcases are going to spin anything that happens to be man made. They think they have god powers to control nature and the universe
Of course it is the melting of the glaciers in Alaska that is causing all the volcanoes in Indonesia to erupt. Didn't you get the message?
If removing a vast weight (relieving pressure on the crust) caused volcanoes, then Michael Moore, Kirstie Alley, Oprah Winfrey, and Al Gore would be leaving little volcanoes behind them with every step.
Cheers!
There is no way, of course, that volcanic activity is melting the glacier!
Some gubbermint paid good taxpayer money to fund this profund research. Show some respeck for the "proper place for science!"
My brother lives in high wahee and reports that his his allergies have kicked in cause the air is full of volcanic dust due to the eruption which uhcurd when the ice cap in high wahee melted.
sarc off
So in prehistoric times the Vikings could not sail because of all Volcanoes going off at once? Owl Gore go wash your hog!
In other words, “I am a scientist that needs to keep the AGW scam grant money flowing”.
*Minus a small handling fee
Gee, is that what happened in Pompeii? All the ice melted off Mt Vesuvius?
I would say 3 miles of Rock has more of an impact on “capping” a volcano versus 300 feet of Ice.
If that isn’t enough, weigh a Rock versus the equivalent mass of Ice..........
Oh wait- that didn't happen then, so why would 300 ft of ice make a difference in Icleand ? The North American ice sheet was a mile thick !
Does not the weight of water equal the amount of weight in the ice pack. Since when does “water” get lighter when it goes from a solid to a liquid?
Yep agree. But i now claim i am an expert on climate change and i declare it to be a false notion. I am sure it is all a lie since i have this data that proves it. If you want to see the data i will need a couple hundred million though and then you can see it. Ok?
Okay...even the most basic of scientific understanding null’s this one.
FACT: When Mt. St Helens blew NO AMOUNT of ICE CAP would have keep that billions of metric ton’s of rock on top. These Marxist Idiots want you to believe that somehow the relatively small weight of the ice cap can keep back the power and pressure of inner earth.
You see folks...THIS is why you should resent and despise liberals. Liberals took the schools long ago, and ever since that purposeful plunge into ignorance (by design) they have not been able to produce people in large numbers that can think...JUST what they want...so Idiots like this one can come along and actually say such stupid things so as to be believed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.