You can’t make this stuff up. It’s worse than we thought. Related: Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are Not Collapsing
Climate change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters
Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain could face being struck by tsunamis
Robin McKie The Observer, Sunday 6 September 2009
Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way – by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions.
Reports by international groups of researchers – to be presented at a London conference next week – will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.
Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.
At the same time the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth’s crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future – and a fiery one.
“Not only are the oceans and atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms and floods, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too,” said Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, at University College London (UCL).
“Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something,” added McGuire, who is one of the organisers of UCL’s Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards conference, which will open on 15 September. Some of the key evidence to be presented at the conference will come from studies of past volcanic activity. These indicate that when ice sheets disappear the number of eruptions increases, said Professor David Pyle, of Oxford University’s earth sciences department.
“The last ice age came to an end between 12,000 to 15,000 years ago and the ice sheets that once covered central Europe shrank dramatically,” added Pyle. “The impact on the continent’s geology can by measured by the jump in volcanic activity that occurred at this time.”
Read the rest here at the Guardian
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Nothing to worry!!
Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, at University College London (UCL) only makes publicity for his activities:
Earthquakes
Floods
Landslides
Tsunami
Volcanic Activity
Windstorms
Climate Change
Disaster Studies
Geographic Interest
Publications
Alert
Issues in Risk Science
Hazard & Risk Science Review
Technical Papers
Catastrophe Reports
Working Papers in Disaster Studies & Management
(From the BHRC website)
pkatt (23:25:20) :
‘Is there nothing that they cant blame on global warming? Oh the humanity!!’
Not much! have a look at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm.
Its also very funny.
“… NS (00:08:22) :
When it gets cooler, or stays the same, it will be blamed on global warming “in the pipeline”
…Yes, exactly. They keep referring to the “underlying warming” trend when trying to explain why the weather keeps getting colder. As the roof of Broadcasting House collapses under the unimaginable weight of an advancing glacier, they will still be insisting that this is the behavior of a climate with an underlying warming trend.
These vibrations and bioresonances (which are caused by SUVs and the unwillingness of some people to recycle and change their lightbulbs) are even now creating ripples in space/time. These ripples will undoubtedly shake loose meteoroids and rogue comets, which have heretofore remained in stable orbits.
Oh yes, brothers and sisters, make no mistake… a reckoning is coming…
J/K
Mike
These projections are approved by the IPCC…
I hear a lot of understandable exasperation here, but nobody’s commented (that I’ve seen) that it’s COOLER past climate times that have seen more seismological events – earthquakes eruptions and tsunamis.
Also there’s the insurance factor. Damages suffered (or paid out for by insurance) due to tornadoes and hurricanes have risen. But that reflects lots more building in vulnerable places, not lots more wind. Someone did a paper on how this is used to misrepresent the state of hurricanes and tornadoes – who was it?
Also, Roger Knights @ur momisugly WUWT on Pielke (6 Sept, 20:09:44) : Why Smart People Fall for Fads is pertinent.
“Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something,” – absolutely spot on except that something is being lost in the translation.
I hear it saying – please take care of me but stop all that silly nonsense about co2! I hear it saying LOOK at the ice, look at the patterns of negative feedback, look at the patterns that have always been there.
I hear it saying – aren’t you listening you silly silly people?
Clearly by babel fish is not a climatescientist approved version.
So that’s fire and brimstone then.
Bring on the Weathermen of the Apocalypse !
Right, but the thing here is that they are making predictions based on unrealistic predictions. Where is the empirical data that should be the foundation of science if both your input and your output data are computer generated instead of observed data?.
Al Gore (internet tubes inventor) said in 2007 that the Arctic could (or will, i am not sure) be ice-free in 2013. By looking at this year’s ice extent that doesn’t seem possible, so UN secretary Ban Ki-Moon postponed the melted north pole disaster to 2030. It is the disappearing south pole and Greenland ice sheets by 2080 prediction what seems unlikely. More so when all the research groups failed in predicting this year’s Arctic ice melting. (see previous blog entry)
So, if they weren’t able to predict this year’s ice melt, don’t expect me to believe they can predict 2080 ice melt.
Poor Professor McGuire must have felt left out in the cold (so to speak) with all the attention being lavished on the Drought guys and the Flood guys and the Firestorm guys and the Hurricane guys and the Polar bear guys. It must be difficult being a poor relation, a mere irrelevant (to AGW) Tsunami guy.
He’s got HIS rice bowel to protect after all, just like his more important colleagues.
The Guardian is England’s version of the National Enquirer? Reading some of the comments from that link are…disturbing. I thought Europeans were better educated.
Let’s see, how many tsunamis have we had this year?
When was the last time we had a tsunami?
When did science start manufacturing high-tech crystal balls?
I missed that technological breatkthru.
For many decades, geologists have searched in vain for clues to predict Earthquakes.
And now, through the magic of Global Climate Models, we can now tell Los Angeles and San Fransico when the Big One wil hit. We can tell when the next Volcano will pop long before the harmonic tremors hit.
There are plenty of countries willing to pay a handsome sum for the next mudslide, avalanche, tsunami, hurricane, killer drought, flood, earthquake etc advance warning.
Just tell us where & when the next event your GCM predicts is , and let the good times roll.
But, this is like a bag of Lay’s Potoato chips, isn’t it? Betcha can’t nail just one.
No, you can’t do that.
That’s too bad, really. The world surely needs something like that.
. If it sound too good to be true….
Gunnar,
“I´m sceptic of manmade climate change, but actually when ice sheets disappear, scientists in Iceland have said for years that less pressure on earth´s crust do trigger volcanic activity under the glaciers.
Greetings from Icelands”
Don’t you mean IF the ice sheets disappear.
IF the earth is struck by a comet, it will trigger volcanic activity.
IF the earth is approached by a black hole, it will trigger volcanic activity.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Yes, all this takes place if we continue to have above 350 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. Then coral reef will die, and also almost half of the species until year 2050. Of course wildfires which destroys every forest and tree, large parts of the world will be flooded — except where forest burns the eternal fire — and so also tsunamis will attack us and the sky will virtually fall down on us. (Otherwise not 10 millions a year will die from AGW, which may be the number of people dying from starvation.) AGW will also makes us poor and have lack of energy I predict.
So now let us let politicians take control with carbon credits and without the inefficient democracy and free market model we have that our predictions show us has failed. Otherwise we will not get below magically dangerous 350 ppm.
So with abolition of cheap fossil energy and plan economy we will of course avoid a downturn in economy as well as the energy crisis. Believe me!
Al Gore agrees.
http://i666.photobucket.com/albums/vv22/David-C-King/al-gore-prophet-of-doom.jpg
That is supposed to be The Sun, not The Guardian.
Ever notice how when one of these really insane AGW stories comes up, the warmists seem slow to defend their own? (I guess I mean more insane than usual.) Where’s Flanagan?
REPLY: In Brussels, he’s sprouting alarmism there. 😉
From the article:
“Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.”
All very true. I’ll have to remember to set my alarm clock for 11,000 years after the melting starts so I can set my shoes up off the floor, secure the teacups in the cupboard, and put the cat outside.
IIRC, that’s approximately how long it will take for the Greenland ice sheet to melt according to the experts.
(Help me out here. Should I set the alarm for 11,000 years a.m. or 11,000 years p.m.? And do you think that in 11,000 years they can finally get the clock to stop blinking 12:00 after power is restored?)
Global Warming responsible for male-pattern baldness, erectile disfunction, middle age spread, menopausal hot flashes, vericose veins, cellulite, arthritis, near-sighteness, dyslexia, ADHD, restless leg syndrom, the seven year itch and halitosis!
Come on, everyone, join in with your favorite malady caused by global warming!
Our media are full of stuff about sport, the arts, religion and politics. Rarely is there any science and if there is it’s about global warming. It’s been like that for decades and I wonder if anyone would understand if they did start reporting science.
And, what annouys me know is how foolish I was to take seriously any of what they did report. Arrrrgh!
Actually, earthquakes are caused by hyro-electric power projects.
No, wait, earthquakes are caused by underground nuclear testing.
We’re just a gang of fleas arguing about which way the dog should go.
You all know that it is nonsence, but how other could know?
I have feeling that you are playing in your own playground (with some exceptions, of course). Sometimes you try to influence other scientists, policymakers with some result (unfortunatelu not great). Have you tried to teach somebody else?
Next week I am going to local primary school to make presentation about ‘Natural disasters’. Teachers were delighted when I offered my help, but, I think, they expect something different, not what I am going to show to children.
I think working with ordinary people is very important, maybe more than trying to influence top ones.
Crosspatch
09 08 2009 0135
I agree with you. It so smells of PR you can almost feel the grease.
I have recently read “Flat Earth News” by Nick Davis. It is written from a UK perspective, but also applies to the States, I think. But be warned. If you read the book, you will never trust anything you read in newspapers again.
Gunnar Th. Gunnarsson.
I have no problem to believe you may be right. But I’m not sure, and the ice isn’t retreating more than it does within normal variations. The whole Arctic sea has before periodically been ice free. Probably even this interglacier, in the holocene optimum:
http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/Aktuelt/2008/Less-ice-in-the-Arctic-Ocean-6000-7000-years-ago
Maybe less ice also can make conditions stable? Does every scientists say what you claim, or is it a hypothesis — or simply newspaper alarm?
I would like the best referenses, because I’m skeptical towards everything. Also I remember that large volcanoes erupted in the 60s and 70s on Iceland (I was a child then), and that was in the end of a cooling period. Islands popped up from the ocean. I think you know about these events. Surtsey, Vestmannaeyjar etc; isn’t it calmer recent decades?
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/en/iceland.html
MAgnus (Sweden)
After seeing him on quite a few documentaries I had a lot of respect for Professor Bill McGuire as he seeemed to know what he was talking about. Then I came across a youtube video in which he described sceptics as ‘climate change deniers’. It’s obviously designed to sound like ‘holocaust deniers’. As well as insulting, it’s also mindlessly stupid, as a major sceptical argument is that the climate is always changing. If there are climate change deniers then it’s the IPCC and its followers. If you think about it, the whole essence of the Hockey Stick is climate change denialism.
Now I feel nothing but contempt for the man.
Chris
NS (00:08:22) :
I am losing hope for western european society.
In the west, I hope America at least sees sense
Jim Hansen – American Resident
Al Gore – American Vice President (ex)
But anyway, it’s not a ‘nations’ thing. It’s a supranational coalition of money jugglers and their minions we are up against.