When the ice melts, the Earth spews fire
GEOMAR researchers discover a link between climate and volcanic eruptions
It has long been known that volcanic activity can cause short-term variations in climate. Now, researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), together with colleagues from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) have found evidence that the reverse process also occurs: Climate affects volcanic activity. Their study is now online in the international journal “Geology”.
In 1991, it was a disaster for the villages nearby the erupting Philippine volcano Pinatubo. But the effects were felt even as far away as Europe. The volcano threw up many tons of ash and other particles into the atmosphere causing less sunlight than usual to reach the Earth’s surface. For the first few years after the eruption, global temperatures dropped by half a degree. In general, volcanic eruptions can have a strong short-term impact on climate. Conversely, the idea that climate may also affect volcanic eruptions on a global scale and over long periods of time is completely new. Researchers at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) and Harvard University in Massachusetts (USA) have now found strong evidence for this relationship from major volcanic eruptions around the Pacific Ocean over the past 1 million years. They have presented their results in the latest issue of the international journal “Geology”.
The basic evidence for the discovery came from the work of the Collaborative Research Centre “Fluids and Volatiles in Subduction Zones (SFB 574). For more than ten years the project has been extensively exploring volcanoes of Central America. “Among others pieces of evidence, we have observations of ash layers in the seabed and have reconstructed the history of volcanic eruptions for the past 460,000 years,” says GEOMAR volcanologist Dr Steffen Kutterolf, who has been with SFB 574 since its founding. Particular patterns started to appear. “There were periods when we found significantly more large eruptions than in others” says Kutterolf, the lead author of the Geology article.After comparing these patterns with the climate history, there was an amazing match. The periods of high volcanic activity followed fast, global temperature increases and associated rapid ice melting.
To expand the scope of the discoveries, Dr Kutterolf and his colleagues studied other cores from the entire Pacific region. These cores had been collected as part of the International Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and its predecessor programmes. They record more than a million years of the Earth’s history. “In fact, we found the same pattern from these cores as in Central America” says geophysicist Dr Marion Jegen from GEOMAR, who also participated in the recent study.Together with colleagues at Harvard University, the geologists and geophysicists searched for a possible explanation. They found it with the help of geological computer models. “In times of global warming, the glaciers are melting on the continents relatively quickly. At the same time the sea level rises. The weight on the continents decreases, while the weight on the oceanic tectonic plates increases. Thus, the stress changes within in the earth to open more routes for ascending magma” says Dr Jegen.
The rate of global cooling at the end of the warm phases is much slower, so there are less dramatic stress changes during these times. “If you follow the natural climate cycles, we are currently at the end of a really warm phase. Therefore, things are volcanically quieter now. The impact from man-made warming is still unclear based on our current understanding” says Dr Kutterolf. The next step is to investigate shorter-term historical variations to better understand implications for the present day.
Reference:
Kutterolf, S., M. Jegen, J. X. Mitrovica, T. Kwasnitschka, A. Freundt, P. J. Huybers (2012): A detection of Milankovitch frequencies in global volcanic activity. Geology, G33419.1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G33419.1
Not a model in sight … must be real science.
It does make sense that a reduced overburden load of ice might increase the chances of an eruption. Even for Mt St Helen’s one of the videos shows pretty clearly that the trigger for the blast was a landslide that removed considerable weight from the top of the mountain.
It’s a fascinating area of research, though it does not really say much about anthropogenic influences.
@Truthseeker
You better go back and reread that article. They used ‘geological computer models’ to examine their theory.
Truthseeker says: “Not a model in sight … must be real science.”
– – –
You seem to have missed this sentence:
“They found it with the help of geological computer models.”
Just read the abstract of this study. They mention detection of ‘Milankovitch periodicities in volcanic output across the Pleistocene-Holocene ice age”. It’s curious that the above article does not mention this at all.
I wonder if the unintuitive sea level decrease from ice loss due to mass loss near the volume of ice loss was taken into consideration in their models?
http://motls.blogspot.ca/2010/06/if-greenland-melted-sea-level-in.html
I saw this first referred to in Gizmag and I though I should suggest the story but Watts got in first.
No doubt some alarmist is going to jump on it ignoring the Milankovitch frequencies given that the Milankovitch cycle is about 26000 years.
Geological computer models to come to a reason. I read the reference and how did they measure volcanic activity given most of its in the deep oceans and if its just land than it can’t be Isostatic geological decompression as that is supposed to be the oceans relatively rising. So unless Magna is flowing all the way under the deep oceans to the land than its a big fail as a theory.
Once upon a time I told my geophysics prof that I thought that rapid changes in the earth’s magnetic field could induce heating of ferromagnetic and low resistivity rocks by eddy losses, in other words magnetic induction heating. He said it was probably an insignificant factor. Someone with time and means should have a look at this if it has not been done already. A warming Sun exciting the Earth’s AC magnetic field ??
@Truthseeker, you’re obviously trying to be ironic, but the last two paras are models. Any half-decent theory is a model, even if it’s completely wrong. Your way of telling whether or not it’s real science is a model! Science, and anything in real life, is replete with models. And imaginary life is itself a model! People are model-making machines.
“If you follow the natural climate cycles, we are currently at the end of a really warm phase.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Will the journal editor be forced to resign and apologize to Kevin Trenberth for allowing this sentence through?
Aren’t volcanic eruptions supposed to cool the earth? Sounds like another negative feedback: Catastrophic eruptions reduce the effects of catastrophic global warming. 🙂
On Mt. St.Helens. I was there for all of it from the inital eruptions to the May 18th blast and
aftermath. The Land slide was the northeast side- Goat Rocks. I flew a survey around the mountain the day before. The rocks were clearly bulging. I mean clearly. Goat rocks were
the result of the previous eruptive explosive period, They were plugging the vent, while some
of the energy went upward most went to the side, the explosion of the volcano went the way of least resistance to the side. The blast created the landslide….and lots of Andesite….
Well, we have evidence of isostactic rebound still occurring from the last ice age and it seems reasonable that we’d be at a much slower rate now than say 4k years ago give or take 3.6k years. It also seems reasonable that continental masses that are basically floating on molten rock if rising would effect magma “currents” especially at subduction zones where various densities are already providing upward pressure. I also think they demonstrate reasonableness with the statement: “If you follow the natural climate cycles, we are currently at the end of a really warm phase.”
Looks to me like we may have some real science going on here even with the computer modeling.
Well whaddya know, a Negative Feedback!
I will not quote Robert Frost.
I will not quote Robert Frost.
I will not quote Robert Frost.
This one’s has the cause and effects in the proper order, unlike CO2 and Temperature rise. I also like the author’s informative comment ‘if you follow natural climate cycles’. Scientists with a more Paleo view of climate often do not have the skewed context of our modern day short sighted computer modelers. Of course the door is open to study man-made warming effects 🙂
“If you follow the natural climate cycles, we are currently at the end of a really warm phase. Therefore, things are volcanically quieter now. The impact from man-made warming is still unclear based on our current understanding” says Dr Kutterolf.
Incidentally, it has been Doomsday for sixteen hours here in Brisbane. The sky is a bit cloudy, but, as far as I can tell, the world hasn’t come to an end yet. Still time, though.
Weren’t we all laughing at the article around the time of the Icelandic eruptions which claimed the exact same thing?
Explosive volcanic eruptions are associated with subducting plates. For example, off the coast of Washington State there is the Juan de Fuca Plate and Mt. St. Helens is about 90 miles from the coast. In contrast, Kilauea Volcano (Hawaii) is much less explosive. The timing of explosive eruptions ought to be related to the rate and angle of descent of the subducting plate. The rate of plate movements appears to be controlled by the production of magma underneath spreading centers or ridges.
The provided link is to an abstract. Full PDF is a $25 one day deal. While I am wondering what the full paper says – I can wait.
My gut reaction is akin to what I felt when I first heard about Louis Alvarez and the K-T asteroid impact. My first reaction then was, “The dinosaurs were dying out at the end of the Cretaceous. It’s mighty coincidental that they were finished off by an impact then.” Only by a change of perspective do you examine your logical trail and realize, “No, we were taught that things happened gradually, so we had to believe dinosaurs were dying out prior to extinction.”
So with that lesson in paradigm shift in mind, let’s evaluate what is presented here. Raise the water lever by melting the ice, their by raise the water pressure at the sea floor trenches — 300 ft in 15,000 ft? Two Percent?
When it comes to plausible mechanisms, however, I can make a very good case for climate induced volcanism at the COLDEST part of the ice age, not the warmest of the interglacial. Consider this…. At the closest point, we have ice sheets bearing down on the cratons of the world. Sea level is very low with beaches at the continental margins. Every volcanic island and seamount now has 100 m + of its once submerged skirt above water. The stresses on the flanks of these active / dormant / extinct volcanos is much higher than when formed. Large-run-out-landslides will become more frequent. Each on exposing the core of the volcanos to less overburden pressure inducing eruptions. Imagine the sloughing of the north slope of Mt. St. Helens causing its eruption.
Now transport that landslide process to Oahu and Molokai as well as Fiji, Java, Martinique, Monserrat, Marianas, Solomon Is., Aleutians, Philippians, … there are hundreds of potentially eruptive islands. These seamount and volcanic islands might be especially susceptible to landslides because a large part of them are composed of underwater erupted and cooled pillow lava that can be thought of as watermelon sized ball-bearings upon which the dry land rests.
True, these volcanos are basaltic and are not generally as explosive as the andesitic St. Helens, but hot rock and ocean water may make their own kind of fire works.
I’ve read and heard about these subsea runout landslides, but until now I had not considered that they might be triggered by sea drops, but it now seems inevitable.
So the paradigm shift I have made tonight is that climate change CAN cause a world-wide increase in volcanism. The trouble is, I can much more easily believe a sea-level low stand causing landslides as the volcanic trigger than a sea-level high stand.
Interesting speculation, but we wouldn’t see any effect for thousands of years.
woodfortrees.org doesn’t have this dataset up yet, so it’s hard to confirm.
@RoHa. Good to know Brisbane is still there. However, some people believe that the end of the world will happen at the exact time of the winter solstice: Dec, 21, 2012 at 11:12 UTC.
Or as I write it: 121221.1112, a eerie collection of 1s, 2s and no other digit.
How did the Mayans know we’d be measuring time from Greenwich, England? Spooky.
Reminds me of Apollo 13.
The mission’s launch date written numerically was 4-11-70; add the digits to get 13.
Lift off was Wed. April 11, 13:13 Houston time.
Two days after liftoff, the Oxygen tank blew up. April 13.
Yes, Friday the 13th.
No, it was NOT a Hollywood script. It was real life.
Ok…. LATER, it became a hollywood movie — and a pretty good one.
Back to the clock… 3 hrs and 42 minutes to go.
“Now I lay me down to sleep….”
Tectonic activity in the North Atlantic and Central Pacific can be directly related to climate (temperature) changes
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO.htm
When oscillations in the geomagnetic field are combined with solar oscillations, relatively good approximation of the natural variability is obtained:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
Gaia at work?
My spidey-sense is tingling, and this is not a good thing. Call me cynical along with my sceptical side, but this seems like a grant-grabbing preamble to a fresh litany of things caused by climate change. If that is the case, in reality, we are all doomed because EVERYTHING is caused by climate change. And because climate change IS, that is metaphysically, (no denier here), then sooner or later it will cause our demise, or some other side-effect which will tip the balance. The science, therefore, is settled /sarc.