Katla volcano in iceland sees 14 earthquakes in 48 hours. This may mean nothing, or it may be a prelude to an eruption. Either way it bears watching.
Via Ice Age Now:
Fourteen earthquakes have occurred below Iceland’s Mýrdalsjökull glacier during the past 48 hours – one within the last 4 hours. Katla Volcano lies beneath the Mýrdalsjökull glacier.
Katla Volcano usually erupts every century, says Iceland’s President Olafur Grimsson. and the last eruption was in 1918. “The time for Katla to erupt is coming close.”
“I don’t say if, but I say when Katla will erupt,” Grimsson says. “We have been waiting for that eruption for several years.”
“It can create, for a long period, extraordinary damage to modern advanced society.”
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/
Thanks to Jenny Cameron for this link
Also see this short video from Iceland’s president:
h/t to Russ Steele
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Oh lovely! (First thought)
Wasn’t it a near “nuclear winter” last time?
Oh dear
As per Alan Sullivan (RIP), I wouldn’t be concerned until the 2-4Hz line climbs: http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/stodvaplott.html
Oh no…not another friggin volcano going to bring unnecessary transport chaos to large chunks of Europe!
Last time the ‘airspace authorities’ relied on computer modelling of the distribution of volcanic ash, rather than actual observations, to close down the Northern European airspace for nearly a week.
It took the Chairman of British Airways to fly a 747 through the supposed areas of concern (he is a qualified pilot) without damage to demonstrate that these decisions were draconian and OTT. And that the models were wrong. Ring any bells?
The only saving grace may be that the Minister of Transport in UK is now Philip Hammond (also my constituency MP). He has Heathrow Airport bordering his constituency and a high number of his voters work in the airline industry. He has also worked outside politics before becoming an MP (now sadly becoming unusual in UK), and I hope he has a lower level of bs tolerance than most, and will take a much tougher line on ‘ash alrmists’. We really really do not need more pointless politically determined disruption just as the holiday season begins.
One fascinating scientific puzzle is that of the Earth’s magnetic field (GMFz vertical component) , possibly as a reflection of geological movements in Island and particularly in Denmark Strait, closely follows the average of the solar activity during last 400 years (as far back as the records are available).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
Uh-Oh.
Katla is at least easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajökull. Perhaps we’ll get some data on what happens when with an eruption under an icecap, pertinent to Antarctica.
I hope it does not blow.
If it does, then the ongoing cooling, ice increases, lack of drought, etc. will be attributed to the eruption. Then we will have to listen to the warmists say “We can not count on a major eruption every couple of years to offset the massive warming”. Of course that will be after they tell us that “the volcano was caused by the ice melt caused by the warming”. But it will not be possible to point to the volcano as natural negative feedback to the warming.
You can not win.
The caldera of the volcano has a diameter of 10 km (6 mi) and is covered with 200-700 metres (660-2,300 ft) of ice. The volcano normally erupts every 40–80 years. The flood discharge at the peak of an eruption in 1755 has been estimated at 200,000–400,000 m³/s (7.1-14.1 million cu ft/sec), comparable to the combined average discharge of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze rivers.
In the past 1,000 years, all three known eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull have triggered subsequent Katla eruptions.
Oh this is going to be getting interesting. There is another volcano in Iceland that erupts every ten years and is due to go off this year as well.
This information should be read with Gustav Holst’s “Mars, The Bringer of War” playing in the background. The opening couple of minutes are particularly appropriate.
http://www.last.fm/music/Gustav+Holst/_/Mars,+The+Bringer+of+War
tallbloke says:
July 10, 2010 at 12:50 am
Uh-Oh.
Uh-oh is right.
I’ve been watching this for a while – the interesting difference between this cluster of tremors and most of the others in the recent past is the location. Most of the others have been inside the Katla crater ridge and of mainly of low ‘quality’ in the table data.
This cluster is nearly all high quality and located mainly between Katla and Eyjafjallajökull. The intensity is probably too low to worry about. But bookmark the webcam – just in case…
http://www.ruv.is/katla/
Andrew30 says:
July 10, 2010 at 1:04 am
“[…]warming”. But it will not be possible to point to the volcano as natural negative feedback to the warming.
You can not win.”
Climate is an oscillating thing. Stephen Schneider is the archetypical procyclical trader; he switched from predicting an ice age to predicting thermageddon right at the local minimum of temperatures. He got the timing right. Difficult to beat a procyclical trader who has the timing right.
He’s probably too old to be interested but i would expect him to switch anytime again now; he has the talent to see the switch when it’s coming. The cooling is upon us, see NOAA’s predictions mentioned here.
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/noaa-forecasts-great-drastic-cooling/
“Katla is at least easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajökull”
I just nicknamed it Volcano Bob for convenience.
I’ve been following that website for a few months now, ever since the unpronounceable one went off. The current pattern of quakes under Katla has been seen a couple of times previously in that period; I’d be looking for a much tighter pattern and a lot more frequency before getting too excited.
“Either way it bears watching.”
I wonder if the polar bears will be watching ……….. uhhhhhmmmmm ahem. 🙂
This could be the start of something or it could be nothing. There have been rumblings of this magnitude under Katla for weeks, although granted this set of 14 in 24h is more than of recent. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture in Iceland http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/atlantic/ this is not unprecidented. An eruption from Katla could still be months/years away.
Typo in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/10/katla-making-noise/#comment-427063
Iceland !
I am lucky enough to go on vacation to Iceland most years and have travelled extensively throughout the country.
The scenery is rugged and spectacular, but the one thing that always strikes me is the that most of the rocks are geologically recent lava flows(<3 million years old). The rest are volcanically related, such as tuffs (volcanic ash), plus intrusive sills and dykes. A good summary of this can be found here:
http://www.eldey.de/English/geology/geology.html
Iceland has an area of 103,100 sq. kms. About 80,000 sq.kms is less than 3 million years old. On the assumption (something defined as hard fact by climate 'scientists) the volcanic material is around 3,000 metres thick, that means a staggering 240,000 sq.kms of volcanic material has been erupted in geologically recent times. Of course, an unknown additional amount of volcanic material has been removed by the effects of erosion.
The Pleistocene Ice Age started 2.6 million years ago, coicidentally about the same time as much of Iceland's volcanic activity. It is possible therefore (the word 'possible' somehow always seems to be morphed by climate 'scientists' into the concept of hard fact) that volcanic activity in Iceland may have been a major controlling factor over global temperatures during recent geological times.
As we have seen recently, it is not lava eruptions which are the problem, but when lava erupts beneath a glacier – it instantly becomes volcanic ash spewing up into the atmosphere.
Consequently, during the last Ice Age when Iceland was covered by a thick layer of ice, there may have been a steady to intermittent recharges of volcanic ash into the atmosphere thus cooling the entire planet.
Of course, this is a theory, but it is yet another indicator of how impotent man is in matters of our planet's climate.
Western governments have to cut pointless spending to reduce their budget deficits, I for one know exactly where I would start.
I hope it does erupt: It could be a climatic significant one. We then would have very good satellite readings of the event and thus try to calculate the atmospheres feedback. Like Roy Spencer tried with the eruption of Mount Pinatubo
There is nothing unusual with Katla. Only a few magnitude ~1 earthquakes recorded with sensitive equipment…
Regards.
Agust
Iceland
Ed Murphy said in tips and notes just over a week ago:
Ed Murphy says:
July 1, 2010 at 12:16 am (Edit)
For getting a lot of rain in the middle of planting crops (for some) things look pretty good. Yes there was some winter wheat damage and some beanfields haven’t been planted but east of the Rockies looks really green and lush. Crops look good. Beats having fireworks banned for fire danger!
Here’s some things some of you might be interested in, maybe not, I’ve been working too much to examine this for accuracy, maybe Robert or someone would take a look.
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php/102513-Cyclic-Archeomagnetic-Jerks-Volcanic-Eruptions-amp-Solar-Cycle?s=490a73503cd826ac4c30eabb6891eca0
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUFMPP61A0298A
The Role of Explosive Volcanism During the Cool Maunder Minimum
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0° C decline over 20 years.[2] The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum. The precise cause of the lower-than-average temperatures during this period is not well understood. Recent papers have suggested that a rise in volcanism was largely responsible for the cooling trend.[3]
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/17/6…#otherarticles Analyzing data from our optical dust logger, we find that volcanic ash layers from the Siple Dome (Antarctica) borehole are simultaneous (with >99% rejection of the null hypothesis) with the onset of millennium-timescale cooling recorded at Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2; Greenland). These data are the best evidence yet for a causal connection between volcanism and millennial climate change and lead to possibilities of a direct causal relationship. Evidence has been accumulating for decades that volcanic eruptions can perturb climate and possibly affect it on long timescales and that volcanism may respond to climate change. If rapid climate change can induce volcanism, this result could be further evidence of a southern-lead North–South climate asynchrony.
Alternatively, a volcanic-forcing viewpoint is of particular interest because of the high correlation and relative timing of the events, and it may involve a scenario in which volcanic ash and sulfate abruptly increase the soluble iron in large surface areas of the nutrient-limited Southern Ocean, stimulate growth of phytoplankton, which enhance volcanic effects on planetary albedo and the global carbon cycle, and trigger northern millennial cooling. Large global temperature swings could be limited by feedback within the volcano–climate system.
http://www.spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcresearchreport1-2010.doc
…An independent review of historical records was performed for 350 years of global volcanic activity
(1650-2009) and seismic (earthquake) activity for the past 300 years (1700 to 2009) within the continental United States and then compared to the Sun’s record of sunspots as a measure of solar activity. All three data sets were examined to determine whether a relationship existed between them and if the results of such a study could be used to develop methodology for identifying future geophysical events. The preliminary results from the study have shown that there exists a strong correlation between the solar activity that causes climate changes and the Earth’s largest seismic and volcanic events. The impressive degree of correlation for global volcanic activity (>80.6%) and for the largest USA earthquakes (100% of the top 7 most powerful) vs. solar activity lows provides a basis for future estimates of the time periods and magnitudes for the largest volcanic and seismic events many decades in advance. Finally, the coincidence of the Centennial and Bi-Centennial cycles of the RC Theory showed unmistakable relationships to these largest geophysical events. The use of such a tool may provide a new and valuable method for protection of people and property located in and around high risk geologic zones. Further, a significantly increased risk is indicated during the next 20 years for volcanic and earthquake events of historic scale. Citation: Casey, John. L. (2010), Correlation of Solar Activity Minimums and Large Magnitude Geophysical Events, Research Report 1-2010 (Premiminary), March 1, 2010, Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC).
1. Introduction.
[2] Previous work by Casey (2008) known as the “RC Theory,” established solar activity as a reliable model for prediction of the Earth’s climate changes. During the course of the research it was observed that there may be a positive correlation between solar activity as measured by sunspot counts over a long term base line average, and major geophysical events specifically earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This previous research found for example, that the largest ever recorded volcanic eruption, Mt. Tambora in Indonesia (1815), as well as the largest earthquakes in the history of the United States, the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812, all occurred near the bottom of the last solar hibernation known as the Dalton Minimum (1793-1830). Given this initial relationship, a more detailed study of geophysical records was made to assess the degree of correlation if any that may exist between the Sun’s activity and such events…
Llanfar says July 10, 2010 at 12:39 am
Better scale at: http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/gosplott.html
hvo = Láguhvolar. 63.52628 N, 18.84754 W, about 10 klicks south east of Katla.
Note at top of both pages: “Katla is NOT erupting and there are NO indications that Katla is about to erupt”. Katla WEB Cam at: http://www.ruv.is/katla. Nothing to see!
If Katla is about to erupt, maybe it is better to erupt now, at the end of the NH crop growing season, than in six months time.
Ah you see, the more we think we know, the more there is to know, and the unknowns to fear.
What have those warmist;s done, create a climate scare, expectations of warming beyond all comprehension, create the ultimate carbon indulgence as the saviour of mankind and what does Nature do, trumps them in spades no less!!
Puny man -scientists take cover, perhaps we/they, us, them, can blame this one on Obama, don’t try to monkey with nature, it will bite you on your political bum.
Got to be in awe of the potential power of nature, I know I am! Now that is reality!!