At first, when I got an email message pointing out this topic of global warming driving more earthquake energy, I thought it was satire. Then I saw it was on CBS News, so I knew it couldn’t be satire, but something else altogether. I’ll leave deciding what that is up to you the reader.
Today’s Quakes Deadlier Than In Past
Study: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming
June 18th full story is here
New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago.
Excerpt:
“The most serious environmental danger we face on Earth may not be climate change, but rapidly and systematically increasing seismic, tectonic and volcanic activity,” said Dr. Chalko.
“Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating. “
In related news:
Energy release from earthquakes may be up since 1990, but it is still below levels early in the 1900s; see the graph from this page:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/other/quake1.html
Source data: USGS
Click for a larger image
Estimated total annual earthquake energy release (magnitude 8 earthquake = 1 = 1,000 magnitude 6 earthquakes) in red; 7-year average in grey.
Click for a larger image
Annual earthquake death rate per million population in red; smoothed rates in grey (specifically, linear smoothing with 7-year Hann window). Note logarithmic scale.
UPDATE: I resisted my primal urges of expression on this subject, figuring others with such skills would take care of that for me. Strangely, I now find myself in my first ever agreement with BigCityLib, on this issue.
UPDATE2: Junkscience.com reports that Hansen’s modeling may be the impetus for this idea:
We’ve probably had enough fun at Chalko’s expense but should point out his ‘research’ is based on totally flawed model output from none other than Hansen himself. Remember the infamous “smoking gun” release? In Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications Hansen, et al, state: “Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse gases and aerosols, among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing 0.85 ± 0.15 watts per square meter more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years.” This is the source of Chalko’s “NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space. This ‘thermal imbalance’ means that heat generated in the planetary interior cannot escape and that the planetary interior must overheat. Increase in seismic, tectonic and volcanic activities is an unavoidable consequence of the observed thermal imbalance of the planet” Unfortunately for Tom, they aren’t “NASA measurements from space” but Hansen’s crappy model output and it’s quite wrong.
When the “Energy Imbalance” paper was written the model output was a fair wiggle-fit with Willis (2004) and Levitus (2004). Like all happy accidents, however, this good thing came to an end, too. We’ll let Professor Roger Pielke, Sr., do the honors:
The Correction To The Lyman Et Al 2006 Paper Is Available – The correction to the Lyman et al paper “Recent cooling of the upper ocean” is available. It is “Correction to ‘Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean’” by Josh K. Willis, John M. Lyman, Gregory C. Johnson and John Gilson. While this correction eliminates the cooling that they reported in the 2006 paper, the warming of the 1990s and very early 2000s has not continued. This absence of global ocean warming (which is consistent with the absence of a significant global average sea surface temperature anomaly trend for the last few years) is a challenge to the modelers and to the conclusions of the IPCC with respect to the ability to skillfully predict global warming. Indeed, it appears that with respect to the challenge on Climate Science of A Litmus Test For Global Warming – A Much Overdue Requirement, the models have failed so far. (Climate Science)
UPDATE UPDATE!
AS OF 11:20AM PST 6/19/08 CBS NEWS HAS PULLED THE STORY! The link no longer works!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/tech/main4191556.shtml
Here is proof however of it’s existence, a small screen cap. Did anyone make any larger ones?
MORE: Associated Press (AP) has also pulled the story:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It’s a coincidence, a correlation too, but hard to sell as causation. And the hyperbole is tough to swallow (“strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating”). The gentleman’s graph of annual energy release shows an extreme around 1906, but it wasn’t really warmer then. The premise doesn’t seem to hold up. A better explanation is the “earthquake shadow” theory. When an immense amount of stress is released (as happened with the San Andreas slip in 1906) it takes many decades (typically a century or more) for stress to build up again before another major slip or increased seismic activity. Following the San Andreas (aka San Francisco) quake, there was an 85 year shadow of relatively low activity. It was just coincidence that seismic activity increased during the warming of the 1990s. This is likely a local phenom, but it does seem that when the eastern Pacific Rim faults move, it leads to increased activity along the eastern rim (US west coast).
Perhaps even the plagues of Egypt were caused by Global Warming. Those Pharoahs were notorious for causing many changes to Gaia. The pyramids, and related construction projects surely affected that ancient environment in terrible ways. Heck, man, it is STILL hot in egypt…
Why am I suddenly reminded of the graph clearly proving that the reduction in pirates causes global warming?
You need to go to his website to see what he get up to. http://sci-e-research.com/ He’s barking mad, although his vibration analysis stuff looks quite good.
The very idea that a temperature change of a few tenths of a degree would affect the motion of lithospheric plates thousands of kilometers across and hundreds of kilometers thick, or change the friction in faults tens of kilometers down where the temperature is a couple of hundred degrees is utterly absurd.
This is however really worrisome, not because of the story itself, which is 100% pure bullshit, but because it shows that the “mainstream” media will believe and repeat absolutely anything about AGW without checking or thinking.
I should say the moral is: Never believe anything you hear on CBS.
I know what I want to say; however, you may not approve of such an outburst, resulting in numerous lines of text being filled with asterisks as I describe this ******* by this *******, etc.
When reading this, I was reminded of an article from May 2001 by the same person that suggests that global warming will cause the earth to explode.
This article as well as last month’s article on earthquakes can be found, in pdf form, at
http://nujournal.net/
Everyone can read the full text of each article and judge for themselves.
BTW, I first saw that bit on the earth exploding on a list of all things being caused by global warming at
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Dr Chalko and his “research” are thoroughly debunked on Climate Audit.
The wonder, or should that be worry, of it is that supposedly reputable media outlets gave the story any credence.
This is a joke, right? It’s got to be one of those fake bait stories like the bacteria one put out last year. Right?
Has anybody looked at the level of coupling between the Earth’s and Sun’s magnetic fields, and whether there’s enough energy involved and variation in the right place to be a factor?
Hmmm… I know I will be paying attention to EQ activity as the solar system passes through the galactic equator in 2012. I am also wondering about disturbances in the Oort cloud.
This is funny, I’ve noticed an increase in the intensity of my belches. Now it could always be because I’ve been drinking more soda, but I chalk it up to global warming overheating my insides and causing me to expel all that excess air in a crude manner.
BTW, I was sure it was a satire the first time I saw it too.
With a quick eyeball of this, it looks as though its an inverse of solar activity, during the same period i.e.
more solar activity = less earthquakes
less solar activity = more earthquakes
It would be interesting to see the two overlaid.
The above story, definitely a case of 1+1 = 3
PS, Great site, I enjoy reading the posts and comments
The 100 year graph shows a perfect example of how a short term fluctuation was used to produce a dramatic story line.
Just when I thought AGWers couldn’t get any dumber, they go and raise the dumbness bar further. They are making a mockery of science. A phantom menace causes everything bad. AGW is a one-size-fits-all bogeyman, seemingly intent on dragging science back to the Dark Ages.
That’s just great; Australia can now lay claim to 2 of AGW’s weirdest scientific advocates; Tim Flannery and this guy, Tom Chalko.
Oh well, better add it to the list:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Well I thought Flannery may have taken the cake as the most idiotic of AGW scientists for wanting to put sulphur into the sky to make it cooler, and for predicting a couple of years ago that Australian capital cities would be uninhabitable due to drought, but I think he is surpassed by this Chalko nut;
http://bioresonant.com/freedom.html
http://thiaoouba.com/seeau.htm
Maybe earthquakes cause global warming.
What do you say to stories like this except that it’s utter crap.
The whole hypothesis falls apart when put beside your graph above that shows much higher energy within the last century. Perhaps that’s why Chalko only goes back 20 years
“The most serious environmental danger we face on Earth may not be climate change, but rapidly and systematically increasing seismic, tectonic and volcanic activity,”….says it all, I think Chalko is looking for more funding?
This is a stupid idea and in ten years’ time people will be amazed that scientists ever came up with rubbish like this.
I think I smell a new UN protocol.
How does the “San Fran Protocol” sound? Will it involve trading Quake Credits with geologically stable countries?
Chalko also has a paper out entitled “No second chance?Can Earth explode as a result of Global Warming? “.
Its baloney and frankly these media outlets should be hanging their heads in shame.
My initial reaction is skeptical.
A poster at CBS referenced http://nujournal.net/ and among Chalko’s other papers is one about the risk of Earth’s core overheating due to global warming:
My current reaction in incredulity. His claim is (and he has math to back it up) is that
I’ll certainly disagree with heat flow across a slab – an increase of 1 degree on the cooling side will mean an increase of 1 degree on the warming side. It may be that in a spherical case the temperature at the core would increase more, but convection and the little issue that at r = 0, the volume enclosed is also 0 and it doesn’t matter what temperature it is.
He also says that fission reactors are driven by energy input by fast neutrons. If I recall my high school readings and whatnot, that’s patently false. Fission releases fast neutrons and they have to be “thermalized” to slow them down to a point where the next nucleus can absorb one. The transmutation results in an unstable isotope (and I guess energy state) and that cause the next fission. I’m probably wrong on a few details there – an unstable isotope should emit an alpha or beta particle.
As for whether global warming leads to more earthquake activity, let me just point out that a handful of random magnitude 7-8 earthquakes can badly skew an annual average and that a large earthquake on a long fault can lead to more strain on adjacent regions and lead to a greater than average rate of earthquakes for decades. There’s a fault in Turkey that has had devastating quakes and they’re getting closer to Istanbul.
In general, remarkable claims require remarkable evidence and I don’t see it. I do see evidence of remarkable claptrap.
I had another thought on his ‘earth exploding’ fantasy.
He’s said that, in the past, as the planet’s core began to overheat, massive volcanic eruptions occurred which created a blanket of dust blocking sunlight resulting in an ice age which in turn helped to cool the planet’s core. If this is the case, then AGW or not, it doesn’t matter; the planet’s core will heat in any case as in the past and volcanic eruptions will again do their dirty deed and bring on another ice age.
We’re doomed!
Eventually, someone will say that global warming is the fault of our current school system and we will be dealing in teacher trades, not carbon trades.
The author, Tom Chalko, is a flake – NOT a scientist. This article was self published by the fake “Editor” of a fake “Journal”.
CBS was hoaxed, as was AP from which CBS and Drudge and others got this story.
I don’t expect a retraction though.