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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Ack (02:14:51) :
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.
Don’t forget the comments you see are selected, the comments you don’t are rejected.
Don’t forget also that there are plenty of mouth frothing rants expressed by Americans on sites like Joe Romm’s.
Let’s not start slagging each other’s countries or continents down, there are ill informed people everywhere.
UK Skeptic
09 8 09 1300
Perhaps having a judicial ruling that Climate Change constitutes a religion is not such a bad thing.
Religion, by definition, is dependent on only faith and belief, not on fact. Science, on the other hand is (or should be) dependent on facts that can be demonstrated by repeatable experiments.
At least it draws a line in the sand.
It also means that the subscribers to this site can now refer to the *Religion* of Climate Change with authority, because there is an established legal precedent.
First Q – yes, if the NI was aimed at those with social science degrees.
2nd – I like to imagine that there are still little islands of sanity left. Like mould on bread. Though I can see why you might doubt us after reading that lot.
The rest of comments section will have to wait until the evening – I can only take so much in a single sitting. Alternates between disturbing and hilarious. Though I’m not sure that the hilarity isn’t simply a horror reflex as you begin to realise what kind of people AGW attracts.
A bit OT but again from The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/07/global-warming-religion
“Lord May, a former chief scientist to the government, said religious groups could use their influence to motivate believers into reducing the environmental impact of their lives.
The international reach of faith-based organisations and their authoritarian structures give religious groups an almost unrivalled ability to encourage a large proportion of the world’s population to go green, he said.”
There seems to be a movement that scientists consider themselves not merely scientists, but also moral human beings, and as such, they become more concerned with morality than with science. Funny how so often atheist scientists see religion as the opposite of science, and yet here we have a former chief scientist appealing to religious authority to help teach a new morality.
Personally I don’t have a problem with religion, and the point the chief scientist makes here is pretty valid–if you want to change the world, you’ll need the help of the world’s religions, simply because they have so much influence at present, but my problem with this person’s attitude is simply, wouldn’t he best serve the world by sticking to his speciality, namely science? Give us the scientific evidence. Let others deal with the ethical dilemmas.
There are many currents in religion that could just as easily undermine environmentalism as help it. For example, some schools of thought tend to downplay the importance of the material world (including the planet), and these are old traditions. So perhaps a naive scientists thinks he can persuade these old institutions to start teaching something different? It is a minefield, it is very complicated, and I don’t think your average scientist who has little or no experience of these issues should be implying we need religious authority to help green the world.
And yet, the green agenda keeps coming across as religious, particularly with all the doom and gloom stuff. Now tsunamis are going to get you, for your sins. Biblical floods indeed.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
A complete list of things caused by global warming
And yes its a long, long (as in longcat) list…
These indicate that when ice sheets disappear the number of eruptions increases, said Professor David Pyle, of Oxford University’s earth sciences department.
Note the implied causation by the use of the word ‘when’,
Disappearing icesheets -> volcanic eruptions
In fact its well established it’s the other way around. More volcanic eruptions = cooler climate and advancing ice.
‘When’ can mean both co-incident with and consequent upon or after, and this so called scientist is exploiting the ambiguity of natural language. Something real scientists strive to overcome.
Otherwise, climate change can cause tsunamis.
Bernhard Weninger et al (2008)
The catastrophic final flooding of Doggerland by the
Storegga Slide tsunami
http://sci.tech-archive.net/pdf/Archive/sci.archaeology/2009-05/msg00047.pdf
“He’s got HIS rice bowel …”
Coffee snort.
Worth it.
JimB
Oh decisions, decisions! Whether to laugh of cry I cannot say. It’s all so very embarrassing being a Brit at times, we gave so much to the world in the past, not least our sense of fair play, cricket, rugby, tennis, oh & that other rather silly game with a round ball, (what’s that all about?). Now all we export is gloom ‘n doom, based on lies & deceit, & just plane old rubbish science. I know I am no climate scientist, but I do feel rather angry that these guys talk to the general public as if everyone is stupid! Surely they must realise that we know it’s nonsense, they know we know it’s nonsense, we know they know we know it’s nonsense, they know………………..I’ll stop there I think.
Disgusting.
But I have to give The Guardian thumbs up for the title of their top news story in the Environment section (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment) today:
“In Pictures: Polar bear numbers increasing in Norway”.
OT, but still sort of “media madness”, the Isle of Man TT will hold it’s first “emissions free” race. WUWT? And here in Australia, Senator Fielding, the only senator to be bucking the political trend with regards to an ETS, apparently, suffered in his youth and still suffers “learning difficlties”!!!!!
Ack (02:14:51) :
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.
Guardian Reader = One who thinks he/she is better educated than the rest
They are merely understating the effects of global warming. It will be much more catastrophic thean they say. The entire earth will implode and we’ll all be done for. The oceans will boil, the core will emit its load over us, and we’ll be thrown out of orbit. We’ll be toast.
despite there were more volcanoes in the past and that we’re in stable times, even cooling somewhat, we’re doomed as the sky rains fire, and the oceans boil us to death as we know it.
i’ll be the only survivor, as I pay my bills and taxes on time
Actually last week. A Mag 7 event off Java sent a 20 mm tsunami ashore.
“Ack (02:14:51) :
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.”
Readers of the Enquirer know it is BS; readers of the Gruaniad think it is a paper for intellectuals.
PISA shows that Europeans are not better educated; maybe the above shows something about intelligence ?
Ack. here in Europe, this is and has been an entire propaganda campaign. Unfortunately, proficience in sciences doesn’t extend beyond engineering or biology, so climate centres, which should be a complex study ranging from spectroscopy (chemistry & physics) to geology and general basic physics, in fact turns out to be rather passive.
“Ram it in, ram it in!
Children’s heads are hollow
Ram it in, ram it in!
Still there’s more to follow”
Dr Whitehead (from the antediluvian past) said that if dogmas of religion are precisely like those of science, then we must believe that what is true of religious dogmas is true of scientific dogmas., and that reason, uncontrolled by observation, is no guarantee of such dogmas.
I don’t think this scientific temper exists across Europe however, as science is wielded for its use value than its veracity
With the publication of this article, the AGW crowd is arguably “jumping the shark”.
More on the Storegga Slide. Note another major landslide and tsunami can only occur after another ice age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/s0456225/Storegga.html
typos: *proficieny* in sciences
The best form of defence is attack and I would suggest contributors here make their comments made on the Guardian Web Site and Observer sites. But beware they have in house baiters who will insult you and then if you respond you will be moderated.
My suggestion would be to ignore the baiters, who act in concert, make the points and of course do not turn this into a left right argument.
As to earthquakes and tsunami’s I guess that if overnight the land ice melts then yes I could sea how earthquakes and tsunami’s could be generated due to the sudden release of pressure, however if (see below) hypothetically all of the land ice was to melt over a couple of hundred years then the stress would be dissipated. After all an earthquake is caused due to a sudden release of stress.
The word IF.
If my Aunty had testicles she would be my uncle 😉
@ACK
“The e 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.”
End
Ack don’t use the ACK ACK gun when commenting also it’s either the United Kingdom or Great Britain otherwise you will upset us Barbarian celts.
Below is a link to a group of scientists? Spot one of our cousins?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jpg
Take care and remember where most of the alarmist papers are coming from?
I am sorry we sent Our Gav over to you but please keep him?
Can someone please stop these idiots!
God help us……
Isn’t this the same Bill McGuire that says La Palma is going to slide into the sea and wipe out the US East Coast??
Why is it that pointing out a graph showing temperatures going down slightly since 1997 will almost get one sent to the gallows but some other pro-AGW zealot could say it’ll be 100°C in summer or melting antarctic ice caps will trigger underwater landslides causing worldwide tsunamis at a breakneck pace OR, better still, the methane-belching-out-of-the-ocean-causing-a-planetary-firestorm-incinerating-everyone-and-everything thing and NOT be called out on it by the ‘scientific community’.
It seems the prerequisite for being a credible scientist now-a-days is being a ‘Prophet of Doom’. The more ridiculous the prediction the more media coverage received and the more backing of the scientific community to follow.
I can’t wait to see RealClimate’s rebuttal to this trash…
Only if the earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions were to be caused by ice build-up on the ice sheets would one see a rebuttal…unless, of course, if this ice build-up was from more precipitation falling as snow in the arctic regions due to global warming. Then it would be completely plausible.
I also heard that clipping a bird’s wings makes them fly better too…
No, no, no, it is going to be much worse. The melting ice caps will cause the earth to spin off its axis and send us plunging into the Sun exterminating all life for ever. This is God’s punishment for us being so wicked as to burn a lump of coal to keep us warm in winter.
Sorry, the Guardian is a joke – worse perhaps than the BBC and that is saying something.
I tried to post on the comments for their article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/06/global-warming-natural-disasters-conference?commentpage=8&commentposted=1
And they were all deleted. These were reasoned arguments, with no ranting or abuse. I was also asked by one poster for further proof, which I supplied, but they deleted both the questions and my replies.
It is obvious that the liberal/left media DO NOT WANT A DEBATE on Global Warming, because they increasingly realise that they will lose the debate. (This, despite the cries of many posters saying “why will the deniers not debate with us.”)
This is no longer science, it is pure propaganda. All you need to do now is realise the true goals of these people (One Worldism).
Tatelyle
.
Scientists at a London conference next week will demonstrate that thinking about AGW has driven them “mad as hatters”. Clothing at the affair will be optional. However, attendees are encouraged to wear their official, tin-foil caps to all scheduled sessions. No one will be admitted who has not uttered the secret conference password: “We’re all going to burn up and die!”