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:
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I’m not making as much money as I want. Undoubtedly, this is also a strong symptom of planetary overheating.
Snort. Almost as good as the Discover Magazine article linking climate change to “rotten tomatoes”.
I would be more inclined to believe that the energy released by seismic activity could cause some additional warming, than the other way around. Cart before the horse and all that…
8)
Wow… what is this Chalko guy smoking?
For those of you interested, there is a parallel discussion up on ClimateAudit. Apparently this Chalko “scientist” also has a published paper about the world’s impending explosion (as in literal BBBBBOOOOOOMMMMM!!!) due to global warming. I hope we bear in mind that this guy is a crank of the finest kind before we pin his “flavor” of science on more mainstream guys.
Interestingly, though, there used to be a theory that hurricanes striking a seismically active area could trigger an earthquake, based on the weight of the storm surge flooding the crust in that area. It’s discussed for a bit in “Isaac’s Storm,” by Erik Larson.
Earthquakes have already been blamed on global warming:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0715glacierquakes.html
As has everything else:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Awwww it is just ironic justice. In the 20th century the US was the worlds greatest producer of CO2 and there for the worst quakes and now it is China/India and they have the worst quakes. Perhaps it isn’t the how much but the where it counts.
then again if the poles melt the Greenland ice melts and the the earth rebounds to the lessening of the weight of the ice it may well cause shifts in pressure along the Teutonic plates. The only problem is you have to have the melting of the poles and Greenland first.
I think this is just clutching at straws. If there is any causation it will probably be more of a gravational change. Perhaps the density of the sun or the alignment of planets or solar systems. Pieter to me seems to be on the correct path.
Bill Derryberry
I have what to you scientists is probably a silly question: If the sun increases in power, will it warm the earth causing more activity from the core?
I think it’s about time we rename climate science to climate scientology….
It is interesting how there is no explenation of how this link may function, just the usual statment of religious like fath. It would appear that anything natural that is bad for humans is coused by Global Warming.
Speeking of bad and natural, any news on that Volcano in Chilli?
How anyone can put his name to such a document when he/she could not give a plus minus of 1,000’s of how many active volcano’s there are under the oceans, and the activity of sub ocean volcano’s over the past 10/5 or even one year? This is another contender for the BLIND SCIENCE AWARD.
ironically, this belief about earthquakes may be the most credible of chalko’s publicly promulgated ideas. google him, it’s enlightening. he is a devotee of the “thiaoouba prophesy” given to a writer by aliens. it covers human spirituality, astral projection, auras, levitation, and other “interesting” topics. he and some others act as gurus for this odd “sect”.
chalko seems to run their website…
When scientists on government money depend
they will crawl out
on the stupidest limbs.
Where did I put my saw?
You don’t have to adhere to every crackpot theory supporting it to believe in global warming any more than you have to believe in every crackpot theory that challenges it.
Meanwhile the arctic ice is melting faster, despite global warming ‘allegedly’ ending in 1998 and low solar activity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7461707.stm
Does anyone suppose that earthquake activity, like temperature, could possibly “fluctuate” over time ? (to paraphrase J.P. Morgan’s comment about stock prices)
“as the solar system passes through the galactic equator in 2012. ”
The Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Perhaps there is something the Mayans knew that we don’t.
Désolé mais cet article c’est du n’importe quoi!
en voit bien qu’en 1900 il y avait plus de tremblements de terre sans qu’il n’y ai aucun réchauffement!
Le GIEC ne sait plus quoi inventer pour faire croire aux gens qu’il y a encore un réchauffement alors que cela fait 10 ans qu’il n’y en a plus eu!
http://laterredufutur.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=740&mode=&order=0&thold=0
La forte intensité viendrait du soleil qui actuellement est très calme.
Désolé tout est en français mais vous pourrez traduire sans problèmes!
MM.
On the other hand thinking about it intelligently, when glaciers melt, the weight of that ice being released will cause the land under it to rise (and also to fall a good distance away) as anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of geology knows. And the faster the glaciers, melt the more likely earthquakes are to occur. But I don’t believe it could cause earthquakes outside of that area.
My god whatever will they come up with next?
Incindentally since the top graph shows only mag 6 and above i wonder if the real TOTAL energy release, including all the smaller mag earthquakes, has gone up too or did they just pick 6 and above because they knew they were going up. I know that there are many many more smaller earthquakes going off all the time, maybe they have increased too. i seriously doubt it though and reckon this is just some crackpot idea cooked up by some global warming alarmist loony.
PS: Wonder what Gore thinks about this. probably loves it.
When there are fools
(as a general rule)
it’s a result
of the government schools.
Here’s a SWAG for you: There is a LOT of methane sequestered in shallow, poorly consolidated ocean sediments as frozen hydrate, or gas clathrate deposits. They exist in a zone that is very near the triple point for methane, and I would not be surprised if increased seismic activity were to potentially mobilize and release large volumes of the stuff from the sea floor into the atmosphere.
So there, earthquakes cause global warming, not the other way around!
This is not about quakes.
This all about quacks.
Wow! Is that Junk Science or what! I’d bet earthquakes, like volcanos, go in cycles because of plate techtonics… give some idiot a computer and have him crunch numbers and voila… GIGO
Leon Brozyna,
I don’t know if you realize it or not by Chalko is the domain owner of nujournal.net among others
“Its baloney and frankly these media outlets should be hanging their heads in shame.”
They can’t. Their shame organs were surgically remove when they were infants. The procedure is called a shamectomy. It was necessary to achieve their parents’ dream of making them journalists. They are the modern equivalent of castrati.