Click image for the story. h/t to WUWT reader “Eric”.
I’m always amazed at the lack of historical perspective some people have related to natural disasters. It’s doubly amazing when reporters who work in newspapers, who have huge archive resources at their disposal, don’t even bother to look. Here’s some excerpts from the story:
“There is certainly some literature that talks about the increased occurrence of volcanic eruptions and the removing of load from the crust by deglaciation,” said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta. “It changes the stress load in the crust and maybe it opens up routes for lava to come to the surface.
“It is conceivable that there would be some increase in earthquake activity during periods of rapid changes on the Earth’s crust.”
Other scientists, however, believe that tectonic movements similar to the one that caused the Japanese quake are too deep in the Earth to be affected by the pressure releases caused by glacier melt.
…
Some experts claim that jump can be explained by the increased number of seismograph stations — more than 8,000 now, up from 350 in 1931 — allowing scientists to pinpoint earthquakes that would otherwise have been missed.
But this does not explain the recent increase in major earthquakes, which are defined as above 6 on the Richter magnitude scale. Japan’s earthquake was a 9.
Scientists have been tracking these powerful quakes for well over a century and it’s unlikely that they have missed any during at least the last 60 years.
According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey there were 1,085 major earthquakes in the 1980s. This increased in the 1990s by about 50 per cent to 1,492 and to 1,611 from 2000 to 2009. Last year, and up to and including the Japanese quake, there were 247 major earthquakes.
There has been also a noticeable increase in the sort of extreme quakes that hit Japan. In the 1980s, there were four mega-quakes, six in the 1990s and 13 in the last decade. So far this decade we have had two. This increase, however, could be temporary.
======================================================
A couple of faults in the argument, from the NYT, 1879:
As many as 200,000 people died in the 1855 quake.
And again in 1896:
and also….1923
h/t to Steve Goddard, who has been doing a lot of historical research here: http://news.google.com/newspapers
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You forgot the part where it was conservative firebrands that actually accused scientists of blaming global warming for the earthquakes in Japan. They manufactured an issue and statement that just wasn’t there to beat environmentalists over the head with it. All they were saying is that isostatic adjustment can lead to increased seismic activity, which is possible. I’m not sure how any of your recent historical information applies to the pretty well understood process of isostatic rebound.
Never question a liberal arts or media majors religion, its all they have as they have yet to develope reasoning ability.Talking points, must have talking points…..Canadian education system is a shining example of nanny state education, please note cousins to the south, this is where federal run education will take you, save your children, defund the state.
Of course global warming is causing these earthquakes! It’s obvious. Just the Chile and Alaska ones were caused by global cooling. When the earth heats up it expands and that causes earthquakes and when it cools down it contracts and causes earthquakes and we humans are to blame but we can pay penance in the form of a carbon tax and all feel good again. /sarc
I’m embarrassed to be on the same planet as those people much less the same city. God help us all.
Not to speak about the even more tenuous claims that the increase in solar activity causes mega-earthquakes.
TreeHugger did a similar article, where they tried to link climate change and tsunamis. I wrote about it here:
http://climatequotes.com/2011/03/12/why-i-dismiss-environmentalists-a-close-reading-of-the-treehugger-tsunami-article/
Typical environmental ‘journalism’.
Japan is a land of Earthquakes and Tsunamis. Geez ,folks, let’s have a bit of perspective
Warmists think history began 30 years ago…
My guess is that if one side or section of the ring of fire moves a lot (slips down, slips over, or slides), adjacent and opposite sides of a plate would respond to that movement at least in some domino fashion. When a plate slips up or down on one edge, or slides this way or that way against the edge of another plate, physical science theories relating to plate tectonics seems the place to go for the null hypothesis regarding the notion that global warming has any connection to swarms of earthquakes. The energy behind that movement, a calculable amount, is WAY, WAY, WAY more powerful than these other wild guesses.
I’m surpirsed they didn’t say that global warming causes an increase in atmospheric moisture with increased precipitation that “greases” the fault lines to slip, causing more earthquakes.
Quite so.
I am always amazed how people think something is new: there is nothing new under the sun.
Dr. Pielke Jr. has an excellent chart on this here:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/03/recent-big-earthquakes.html
Looks pretty random to me, but if you doubt your eyeballing no doubt with Matlab and the rest to torture the data you can probably get some sort of correlation to something: if I could be bothered I would try shipping movements. I am sure Smokey would prefer pirates. Whatever.
Kindest Regards
ej
Isostatic adjustment from what exactly?
If the warmistas are really going to blame isostatic rebound as a reason behind the Japan quake, then I’ll be the first person to blame the Greenies for their insistence on such schemes as Geothermal heat extraction which is far more likely to cause rumblings from below.
Everything is blamed on global warming or whatever the phrase of the day is. ‘Hoomans’ are silly. This blue marble just proved it.
Oh well.. that’s life.
Par for the course when it comes to the AGW ideologists. Soon, everything will be caused by ‘man-made global warming,’ which is mathematically impossible to ever occur on Earth.
Once again, the failure of the mainstream media and AGW ideologists to look up – at the Sun – for it is there that they will find the answers. But, don’t hold your breath until AGW is nailed completely shut in the coffin in which it always belonged.
One of the largest earthquakes ever was off of the Washington coast on January 26, about 9 P. M. in 1700. An M 9.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/
When can we see a graph of this increase in earthquakes? In the shape of a hockey stick no doubt.
It’s my understanding that much of the glacier recession we’ve seen since the LIA occurred before 1950. If that’s the case, the worst of the rebounding should have occurred then, not 60 years later.
ej
I am not sure where you are getting the “conservative firebrands” from…I dont see any mention of it in the article. In fact the first 3 paragraphs set up the reporters agenda perfectly…What could possibly be causing all of these big quakes? Why, climate change, of course!
“Lubricating plates…” please…the Japan quake was located 1000’s of feet underwater, I dont think some glacial melt water is having any effect there.
Speaking as a college teacher, all I can say is that when it comes to Canadian education, it really is “worse than we thought.”
As a geologist and a amateur meteorologist, this article makes me want to cry , laugh & hurl , all at the same time. I mean – come on – where do I start? 10,000 years since the last melt down & we are just seeing the effects now ??? And using the title (global warming is synonymous with AGW in the public’s mind) to imply mankind has something to do with it …. And as correctly pointed out, where’s the historical perspective??? And has anyone actually related stress field changes to rebound & related those stress field changes to earthquakes & volcanic eruptions. Last time I checked, neither were predictable but it is suggested the cause is known. I am not convinced, to say the least.
When the Washington Naval Treaty was signed in 1923, the Imperial Japanese Navy had the four Amagi class battlecruisers planned and under construction. The terms of the treaty meant that none of these ships could be completed as designed, but the treaty allowed for a certain amount of this tonnage to be completed as aircraft carriers.
The Amagi and the Akagi were selected for this purpose, and both were a-building when the Great Kantō earthquake hit Tokyo on 1 September 1923. The hull of the Amagi was so badly damaged that it had to be declared a total loss. In its place, the incomplete Tosa-class battleship Kaga was constructed as an aircraft carrier, and together the Kaga and Akagi made up the First Carrier Division of the Kido Butai (the Mobile Force carrying the 1st Air Fleet in the strike on Pearl Harbor).
The international response to the Kantō earthquake in 1923 was immediate and unprecedented, particularly on the part of both the U.S. government and the American people.
And it should surprise nobody that in 1923 the Asiatic Fleet – the predecessor of today’s U.S. Seventh Fleet – figured swiftly in the response to that devastating loss of life suffered by the Japanese people.
Here we go again. Blame the public school. What if it’s the adults who become stupid AFTER they grow up????? I know of more than one person who was pretty smart all through school and then got really stupid as an adult.
Remember, children spend their time constantly learning new things (and questioning adults). Adults spend their time telling others what they know, and usually don’t spend much time questioning it.
So for all those folks who think they know what public school teachers are telling their students, my instruction to you, as a teacher, is to question that assumption. Or else you paint yourself with the same color you are slopping on others.
I’m from Calgary and trust me, there is probably NO city in the western hemisphere where the people are LESS bought into global warming alarmism. The major industry is oil and gas and it’s the most small-c conservative city in Canada. I’m actually kind of shocked to see that article appear in the Herald.
There’s been an increase in moronic journalists and gullible readers, as well. Likely caused by Global Warming … and evil spirits.
Sure isostatic rebound can and will change stress in the upper crust leading to possible earthquakes when huge inlandsis are disappearing as per Martin Sharp correct statement. However, a generalization of this supposed to blame the regional warmings -remember there are zones cooling too- is simply preposterous. Moreover, one would imagine that this would concern intraplate quakes where ice sheets are located as opposed to plate boundary quakes that are related to plate cinematic and internal processes. Like it or not, molten rock convection occurs in the Mantle and drives plate tectonic regardless of the IPCC…
The following link shows that virtually all of the 16 strongest magnitude quakes have been located around the Pacific since 1900. This distribution and the fact that the more powerful the quake, the least often it will happen, suggest that none of these are linked to a “Global Warming 0.7C surface temperature according to GHCN data” induced isostatic rebound but simply are due to the internal dynamics of the planet. One would have to worry about seasonal quakes between summer and winter temperatures…
Japan statistical facts also make a moquery of this latest alarmism:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2011/usc0001xgp/#summary
“The Japan Trench subduction zone has hosted nine events of magnitude 7 or greater since 1973. The largest of these, a M 7.8 earthquake approximately 260 km to the north of the March 11 epicenter, caused 3 fatalities and almost 700 injuries in December 1994. In June of 1978, a M 7.7 earthquake 35 km to the southwest of the March 11 epicenter caused 22 fatalities and over 400 injuries. Large offshore earthquakes have occurred in the same subduction zone in 1611, 1896 and 1933 that each produced devastating tsunami waves on the Sanriku coast of Pacific NE Japan. That coastline is particularly vulnerable to tsunami waves because it has many deep coastal embayments that amplify tsunami waves and cause great wave inundations. The M 7.6 subduction earthquake of 1896 created tsunami waves as high 38 m and a reported death toll of 22,000. The M 8.6 earthquake of March 2, 1933 produced tsunami waves as high as 29 m on the Sanriku coast and caused more than 3000 fatalities.
The March 11, 2011 earthquake was an infrequent catastrophe. It far surpassed other earthquakes in the southern Japan Trench of the 20th century, none of which attained M8. A predecessor may have occurred on July 13, 869, when the Sendai area was swept by a large tsunami that Japanese scientists have identified from written records and a sand sheet. ”
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/10_largest_world.php
(sarc on) Geez, 1611 is in the middle of the LIA…
And finally since runaway Global warming is happening we all know the upper crust is also melting and becoming much less crusty, therefore a warming globe should see much less quakes since the crust is becoming less brittle… (sarc off).
The stoopid. It just never quits.