Guest post by Steven Goddard
The Washington Post reports today:
An undersea volcano erupts off the coast of Tonga, tossing clouds of smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet (meters) into the sky above the South Pacific ocean, Tuesday, March 17, 2009. The eruption was at sea about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the southwest coast of the main island of Tongatapu an area where up to 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered
Besides the unusual feet to meters conversion in the quote above, I found it interesting because the SST maps show a warm anomaly in that region, and extending off to the east. Is that anomaly a result or coincidence?
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
How much influence do volcanoes have on local climates?
We know that the Antarctic Peninsula (advertised as the fastest warming place on the planet) is a volcanic chain which has seen recent activity.
Noted Antarctic expert Eric Steig tells us that Volcanoes under the ice can’t affect climate on the surface, 2 miles above! This is indeed true and interesting, because CO2 on the surface reportedly can affect the melting of the basal ice, two miles below.
According to some of the best AGW minds, increases of 0.0001 atmospheric CO2 concentration may be more powerful at affecting localized micro-climates than are 2000 degree volcanoes.
In another volcanically active area, the Gakkel Ridge, which was shown to have eruptions last year, the possibility also exists for localized warming. Here is a schematic of the Gakkel Ridge sea floor:
However in that case there is the claim by oceanographic experts that it is impossible for the sea ice above to be affected due to stratifed water layers and thus making the released heat “unable to communicate” to the surface.
Perhaps that is true, but does that stratification remain in a steady state? And is such an inability to “communicate” heat from the depths a feature of our oceans globally?
Ben – the crust of the earth is similar in ratio to the shell of an egg. At it’s thickest it’s 45km and thinnest is less than 10km. Below it are swirling currents of magma.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/structure/crust/index.php
Benjamin P. (17:41:11) :
this is why climate study is not right
the earths core is hot but has no effect on climate
my woman tells me we should suck up Canadian CO2 and redistribute it here in Michigan so we could then warm up! I like her thinking LMAO.
@ur momisuglyAdolfo: Is that an actual Earth shot behind the earthquake pins? Notice the bright ring around it.
@ur momisugly SandyInDerby: I believe you are correct about the SE tradewinds/westerlies cusp: http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue221/gilboy5.1.html
@ur momisuglyak: yes, thanks, I did check. Tonga is in one cell, the small hotspot is about 700 miles east by 500 miles south (roughly), and the quake is between them, but shifted west a bit. Certainly no evident connection as yet, but still very interesting. Also note that the Tonga Trench goes the opposite direction, SW to NE. But if I were in the vicinity, whether it’s 6 miles from the volcano or 130 miles from the epicenter, I think I’d still haul buns out of there, regardless.
@ur momisuglyvarious figure fudgers: released volcanic heat would rise by convection very rapidly, especially as the pressure fells below the critical point. The entire column of water (n km by n km) wouldn’t be heated, just the portion almost straight above the vent all the way to the surface, maybe as small as 100 meters in diameter. You are all-too obviously picking oversized volumes that will give the result you want at the surface.
Consider that water from the Juan de Fuca hydrothermal vents is about 700 degrees. Undersea volcanoes are estimated to pump as much energy into the oceans every hour as all humans on the planet consume in a day.
I think it would be silly to think that undersea hydrothermal systems have no impact on sea temperature. You cant keep pumping that much energy into the system day after day without it having an impact.
Shall I bring up the gaseous component of the gnat’s colon again? The ocean is mega HUGE and the volcanoes and vents are so small that most of them are not labeled, not even the known ones, on my ocean floor world map. They are too small to be printed onto this huge map I have. Pofarmer, go outside and stand in the wind. Any wind will do. That’s a big driver. Hell, the jet stream is a big one too. It’s so strong that a trip from Oregon to Chicago on a jet actually sets you one hour ahead of when you started. But coming back takes oh, about two days and a lot of heart thrubbing bumping as the plane fights the jet stream instead of riding it. Or take a trip to the pacific coast in Oregon. Do two things. Thing one. Feel the onshore flow of wind. Do this in the winter time so you get the double whammy of cold ocean spray and sand being blown into your every pore and orifice. Thing two, dip your toe in the water there. Then try to go to the bathroom right after. This is why many public bathrooms on the coast are heated, especially the men’s, and why the hand dryers come in two heights. This is the stuff that ends up ruining Al Gore’s photo ops in the East.
crosspatch says:
But this has likely been happening for some time. Unless you can find a mechanism that provides for an increase of energy to the oceans over recent times or a decrease, it would seem that we cannot use undersea hydrothermal systems as a causative explanation for climate cycles.
The average heat flow from the mantle is by definition fairly constant, but we are talking about volcanoes here. An explosive volcano may only erupt once every few thousand years, but when it does it releases a huge amount of energy which can (and often does) affect the climate of the entire world.
LarryOldtimer (18:25:36) :
The eruption was in April 1815, the Year without a Summer was in 1816, see my http://wermenh.com/1816.html for a New Hampshire perspective.
Arn Riewe (18:16:36) : I was wondering how we got to polar bears when we started with an under sea eruption half-way around the world!
Regardless, I say let them eat cake. Whoops! Sorry. That should be eggs.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215111303.htm
@ur momisuglyPofarmer (18:44:03) :
It is something, but its negligible in the “climate change” discussion. The sun has a much greater impact. Its a good thing that mantle convects though, because we’d likely not have life here on earth…at least as we know it.
@ur momisugly Steven Goddard (18:48:08) :
Steven, I understand that water and the rock are very different materials. What I am saying is that an eruption here and there is not going to change the oceans temperature on the whole of the ocean. Sure, within a few km, maybe, you’d get some warming, but that’s it. Essentially you can think of the input of heat from volcanism as constant, and mostly negligible with respect to climate. Yes volcanoes are hot hot hot, but its not going to change the average ocean temperature.
Also, the eruption of 1980 was MUCH different then the last eruptive phase of Mt. St. Helens. The latest phase was a dome building event, and the glacier that begin to form shortly after that 1980 eruption, was continuing to grow even while new rock was being emplaced within meters of the ice. I was right there to watch it. It wasn’t an analogy either…it was an example of areas with “high heat flow” with happy glaciation occurring side by side. I have seen more than once folks trying to attribute western Antarctic warming to volcanism.
@ur momisuglyjanama (18:53:41) :
Sorry Janama, you are interpreting the figure wrong. They are referring to the contour interval on the map with respect to the 10 and 45km numbers. The earths crust is thinnest in the oceans near the ridge access (less than a km) and thickest in the Himalaya (~80km). Also, scaling is a bad thing to do. While the ratio of the egg’s shell and the earth’s crust may be the same, they do not exhibit the same properties. Absolute values are much more meaningful. Also, below the Earth’s crust is solid rock. You do not find a liquid ‘swirling’ layer until you go down ~2900km to the core/mantle boundary.
Ben
janama (18:53:41) : METAPHOR ALERT! “…swirling currents of magma”
This phrase conveys the wrong impression. This is a very slow process. It is not at all like the swirling in a river or even currents in an ocean.
@Steven Goddard (20:00:56)
Sure, the big ones do mess with climate with the particulate matter they add to the atmosphere. They do not, however, warm the earth because of heat flow.
I think we are on the same page now?
I’ve seen documentaries where divers off the coast of Hawaii were swimming in the water where the overland lava was poring into the ocean. They said the water was hot, almost unbearable and that the temperature rose rapidly as you got closer to the lava.
Even with a description like that, its clear that the divers were very close to the lava, and were not cooking to death from the heat. The waters around Hawaii are cold to begin with so this would obviously help. I’m inclined to believe a single volcano event will have little to no effect on the water temperature.
@ur momisugly John F. Hultquist (20:29:08) :
And its not even a liquid at all 😛
“it would seem that we cannot use undersea hydrothermal systems as a causative explanation for climate cycles.”
Ahh, ok, I never meant to imply that it was a cause for global climate cycles. I meant to say that with about 2/3 of the world’s volcanic activity under the sea (in fact, the largest volcanic structure on the planet is completely under the ocean … the mid-oceanic ridge), we really have no idea what is going on and when. Only when we see something break the surface or happen to stumble across a vent in action do we even know it is happening.
We just don’t know, really, how much is happening. A single vent off the coast of Oregon is (according to something I saw on NatGeo) acidic enough to eat through aluminum. They can’t even sample the water. It is 700 degrees and about like battery acid. They have nothing with which to sample it that can stand up to the conditions.
But there was another article recently on the Eruptions blog about a recent trip to a undersea volcano off the coast of New Zealand that had apparently erupted a considerable amount of material since 2007 and nobody was even aware of it.
We really have no idea how significant it is or not. But in any case, you go dumping 700 degree water into the deep ocean 24x7x356 and I might expect that to have more impact on ocean temperature than a 1 degree change in surface air temperature. In fact, I believe ocean temperature is more likely to influence air temperature than the opposite.
We just have absolutely no idea how much is being pumped into the ocean. We don’t know if it was double one year what it was another year or only half today what it was a decade ago. No clue.
More people have been to the moon than have been to the Marianas Trench, for example.
It should be possible to work it out. If we know lava or pyroplastic flow is X-hundred degrees celcius, and we know it`s size, and we know the average surrounding air/water is X-degrees normally, it should be possible to approximitely calculate how much the surrounding areas will warm, and to what distance. Thermodynamics is a pretty understood science.
Crosspatch wrote: “I think it would be silly to think that undersea hydrothermal systems have no impact on sea temperature. You cant keep pumping that much energy into the system day after day without it having an impact.”
Then Richard Sharpe wrote: “Unless you can find a mechanism that provides for an increase of energy to the oceans over recent times or a decrease, it would seem that we cannot use undersea hydrothermal systems as a causative explanation for climate cycles.”
Isn’t an anectodal one staring us in the face? Or is that SST anomaly in the vicinity of the eruption only (and I emphasize only) from other causes??
No one is saying it is a “significant” impact to affect climate change (except in perhaps extreme events)…but that it does have (however minute even if locally) an effect.
Don’t throw the baby out with the localized-vocanically-induced-bathwater-temp bathwater!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
correction “anecdotal” LOL
Steven Goddard (18:48:08) :
Yeah, but while that melt & flood was a very energetic event, it was also very brief. By the time winter rolled around, I believe the crater glacier was already forming. During the 2004-2008 eruption, it got pushed around, and probably melted some, but overall kept growing.
But yeah, an active eruption has more in common with convective heat transport than diffusive.
Oh – I forgot to include a St. Helen’s link. Lotsa good stuff at http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Eruption04/
Results of volcanic eruption of Tuwae near Tonga,
Early in 1454, “it snowed for 40 days south of the Yangtze River and countless died of cold and famine.” Lakes and rivers were frozen, and the Yellow Sea was icebound out to 20 km from shore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwae
SandyInDerby (11:47:20) :
This is in the southern hemisphere just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The general pattern of winds would change throughout the year from Southeast Trades, to calm under high pressure, to Westerlies depending on how far the intertropical convergence zone shifts in this area. That’s the theory, anyway. So now the article says the winds are blowing away from the island and the activity is 10k off the SW coast. At this time of year the ITCZ ought to be north so these would be Westerlies. Winds at 5:00 PM LST in Nuku’alofa, Tonga were SW 9 mph. Seems the direction might have changed since the initial report. I’ve no personal experience or historical reference, so it would be nice to have a first hand report.
” GK (20:43:29) :
It should be possible to work it out.”
But the problem is that we have no idea what the volume of this stuff is. We have no idea how many of these are erupting at any given moment. If we can’t inventory them, we can’t calculate the volume of water or know the temperatures of them. The mid-oceanic ridge goes all the way around the planet, down the Atlantic and up the Pacific. There are literally thousands of these hydrothermal vents. And they change. Sometimes one will go inactive, another will spring up, get a moderate earthquake and the entire field changes … we have a much clearer picture of what is happening with the surface of Mars on any given day than we have of what is happening the surface of 70% of the Earth.
Heck, for all we know this year could see the dumping 10x more heat into the ocean than last year, we have absolutely no idea. We can’t calculate a thing and anyone who claims to know is probably suffering from a case of cranial rectosis.
That should have been Kuwae.
The current eruption is next to Hunga Tonga Island, although Google Earth resolution isn’t good enough to see the island.
Satellite image of the island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hunga_tonga.jpg
Off Topic
Is Global Warming a religious belief? A tribunal in the UK is being asked to decide.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5018302/Is-belief-in-climate-change-all-in-the-mind-or-a-fact-of-life.html