Global Warming Science - www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming
Alarm, Alarm - Global Warming Causes Earthquakes!
[last update: 2011/03/18]
|
Alarmists Blame Earthquakes on Global Warming
“Some scientists theorize that the sudden melting of glaciers due to man-made climate change is lightening the load on the Earth's surface, allowing its mantle to rebound upwards and causing plates to become unstuck.”
“These scientists point to the historical increase in volcanic and earthquake activity that occurred about 12,000 years ago when the glaciers that covered most of Canada in an ice sheet several kilometres thick suddenly melted. The result was that most of Canada's crust lifted — and is still rising.”
Still rising – been rising for 12,000 years.
[http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/03/climate-change-earthquakes-tsunamis-alarmism.php]
“Some geologists believe that global warming may already be causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. After all, screwing with the world's ornery climate system to the extent which we have is bound to have far-reaching effects -- effects like, it's been suggested, huge amounts of melting ice causing the earth's crust to "bounce" up, potentially triggering earthquakes.”
The bounce (isostatic rebound) actually takes thousands of years.
[http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-11-todays-tsunami-this-is-what-climate-change-looks-like]
The dateline “Holy Crap” says it all – global warming believers will believe anything that’s part of their religion.
At least they published some corrections to the original (which was titled “Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like” in response to the massive earthquake / tsunami that hit Japan on March 11):
|
|
Sea Level and Isostatic Rebound
Sea level is affected by isostatic rebound – since the last ice age 12,000 years ago the melting of the North American ice sheet has resulted in the continental rebound that has been occurring since.
Alaskan sea levels have been steadily decreasing over the last century as shown in the following figure (sea level graphs from the UK Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level [http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/]).
The following figure shows the effects of isostatic rebound on sea levels along the western (Pacific) coast of North America. North of Northern California, sea levels are dropping (not really – the continent is moving upwards). South of there, sea levels are rising as the continent subsides. Northern California is the pivot area for the continental rebound.
|
|
Greenland Ice Sheet Melt
The whole alarmist basis for an effect on earthquakes is that the Greenland ice sheet is rapidly melting allowing the earth’s crust to rebound and cause seismic activity.
The problem with the alarmist theory: Greenland ice sheet melt was at least as great in the 1930s and Greenland glaciers have been retreating since the Little Ice Age.
The following figure shows western Greenland ice sheet melt from Chylek 2007 as reported by Akasofu who states: “present changes of the Greenland ice sheet are smaller than changes observed during the 1920– 1940 period” [http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf]
A paper by Jason Box et al (Box, J.E., D.H. Bromwich, B.A. Veenhuis, L-S Bai, J.C. Stroeve, J.C. Rogers, K. Steffen, T. Haran, S-H Wang, “Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Balance Variability (1988-2004) From Calibrated Polar MM5 Output”, Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, No. 12)[http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/jbox/pubs/Box_et_al_J_Climate_2006.pdf] states “The combined effect of temperature and precipitation trends over the 17-yr lead to increased rates of ablation and increased accumulation (Fig. 10b). The net effect of these competing factors demonstrates that the overall (total ice sheet) surface mass balance change is relatively small”. The following figure shows Greenland ice sheet runoff.
The Jakobshavn Glacier has been retreating since observations began being recorded in the 1800s. The following figure shows the retreat of the glacier since before 1850. Since the IPCC indicates CO2 warming has only occurred since 1970, the previous 150 years of glacier retreat must be caused by something else. [http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/Thompson%20Senate307.pdf]
See also: http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_Greenland.htm
|
|
Alarmists’ Recycling
Alarmists unsuccessfully tried to connect earthquakes with global warming three years ago, but the recent Japan disaster has revived the nonsense. See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/19/quake-n-bake-global-warming-causes-more-earthquakes/
The following figures provide evidence from USGS contradicting the alarmist claims.
|
|
Solar Connection
An increasing amount of research is indicating that there may be a solar connection to earthquakes.
(Kessel, Freund and Duma, “ULF energy transfer in the solar wind - magnetosphere - ionosphere - solid Earth system”, Geophysical Research Abstracts [http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU06/01705/EGU06-J-01705.pdf] “It is now possible to bring together recent, previously unknown, and amazing correlations that have been shown to exist between different parts of the solar wind - magnetosphere - ionosphere - solid Earth system, in particular with respect to earthquake activity. There is strong evidence of electromagnetic processes responsible for earthquake triggering, that we study extensively. We will focus here on one correlation between power in solar wind compressional fluctuations and power in magnetospheric pulsations and ground H component fluctuations. The variation of the horizontal component H of the geomagnetic field is the crucial parameter in the Magneto-Seismic Effect MSE” Also: [http://www.isfep.com/website%2014_013-G.Duma.pdf]
Anagnostopoulos, Papandreou and Antoniou, “Solar wind triggering of geomagnetic disturbances and strong (M>6.8) earthquakes during the November – December 2004 period” [http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1012/1012.3585.pdf] “The results of this paper support conclusions of previously presented statistical studies that solar activity influences the seismic activity, this influence is mediated through rapid geomagnetic disturbances and the geomagnetic disturbances are related with increases of solar wind speed.”
|
|
|
