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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Benfield Hazard Research Centre… hmmm.
Benfield is an insurance company with a large energy practice, insuring oil rigs and offshore facilities amongst other things. I work for an oil company, we pay premiums to these people. So this lunatic is errr… funded by big oil.
Funny old world innit??
Shame Prof McGuire didn’t make the effort to do a sense check with any geologists or geophysicists working in the real world before spouting this idiocy, or maybe they were just ROFLing too hard.
For what its worth, another company in the same space, happy to take $$ from the oil industry is Caitlin, a favourite of many posters on WUWT .
Must be good publicity and PR for “responsible” insurers to be sponsoring populist AGW enviro causes, however wacky the output.
Staying with insurers, I stumbled across AonBenfield’s racily titled “Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report 2008”. Scrolling excitedly to the exec summary, in anticipation of wild horrors, unstoppable feedback loops and tipping points, I was kind of let down when it started off with the following:
“The year 2008 was unremarkable from an insured natural catastrophe loss perspective. May’s earthquake in China and September’s Hurricane Ike brought the most coverage from the news media, but these events
proved to be mere sideshows when compared to the capital stresses put upon insurers and reinsurers from the credit and liquidity crisis.”
Oh well. Surprisingly, its not too bad a read, available on their website, with a reasonably balanced hurricane / cyclone / typhoon section despite the alarming title. Seems that the San Andreas fault is keeping them awake much more than than GW when it gets down to the $$$.
All,
Somewhat OT but still in the “You can’t make this stuff up” department…
You may recall that Seattle, Washington, city council passed a law banning all plastic drinking bottles in public buildings. This occured about the same time as banning campfires in parks for the CO2 they would throw in the air.
OK, typical greenish activity for that part of the world. A friend visited us this weekend from Seattle, and told us not only the small plastic bottles were banned, but also the large filtered water containers for “water coolers”. The stands were plumbed into the nearest faucet.
Luckily lakes are plentiful there so when the council took the “plunge” they didn’t have far to drive, uh walk…
Mike
Is this from the “Daily Onion”?
No, they have better standards.
What is Bill McGuire’s educational background? Does anyone know?
His Benfield CV lists his interests, TV programs and that he runs a graduate program for insurance adjusters…
The UCL Dept. of Earth Sciences shows that he only teaches a freshman Geology class…
The Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre isn’t even an actual geoscience program…
Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre (ABUHRC) is Europe’s leading multidisciplinary academic hazard research centre. The ABUHRC comprises three groups: Geological Hazards, Meteorological Hazards & Seasonal Forecasting, and Disaster Studies & Management. The Centre is based at University College London, one of the UK’s top three multi-faculty teaching and research institutions.
The ABUHRC is sponsored by Aon Benfield, the premier reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor.
Just like John Holdren’s Berkeley Energy and Resource Group and Jerry Sachs’ Earth Institute at Columbia University… ABUHRC is just another “touchy-feely” interdisciplinary program for non-scientists.
Here are the ABUHRC’s entrance requirements for their Geophysical Hazards
masters degree program…
“Degree topics are likely to have been in”… WTF is that? And… “Where the qualifications are of a lower standard, a student may be admitted if evidence of an adequate academic background and experience in an appropriate field can be shown.”
This guy is a joke!
The future, directed by Michael Bay
I’m a lifelong left-winger –
And I have been repeatedly removed from the comment section at the Guardian.
I have attempted to point out to them that such nonsense will do progressive issues no good – and that they are really working overtime to make sure that Labour comes in third place in the next general election.
I guess that I am a rather rare beast – a critic of the “climate change” movement from the left. I go not advocate wasting resources or polluting the planet, but doubling the utility bills of the working poor and demanding that people in India continue to drive donkey carts is hardly progressive.
Stacey,
“… 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…”
Not being a geologist probably makes this next comment suspect, but I’ll go with it anyway.
According to what I’ve been told not quite true. There is at least one example of a good quake waiting to happen – in Utah, Salt Lake City to be exact. Lake Bonneville once covered a great part of the American Southwest. Over time, it has evaporated, leaving the Great Salt Lake. The removal of all the water weight is putting tremendous pressure on the Wasatch Fault – which is ripe for a major quake. (Just search for Wasatch Fault – Wiki has a good summary on it)
When (in geologic time) it does, it ain’t gonna be pretty…
(I just finished putting a target on me, so “fire when ready Gridley!”
Mike
“torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion”
A few months ago, it was supposed to become a Mediterranean climate with vinyards in Scotland and deserts in southern England and France according to forecasts by the Hadley Centre (sorry, don’t have a link)
LOL“Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something,” added McGuire
Sure it is!, it says SHUT UP!
This made up stuff sounds very much like the stuff made up by the alarmists in the late Michael Crichton’s novel “State of Fear”.
Life again imitates art.
The 100 degree increase by 2080 (cited above) seems like the most extreme prediction I’ve ever heard. I think I would be amused by a ‘Top 10’ for these sorts of things.
It seems most of these theories, being predictions, are not currently falsifiable. And the theories that made predictions that have now been observed/tested have been falsified. Nor are they reproducible, i.e. a copy of all source code and data files on a public website.
I am not a practicing scientist, but aren’t these attributes necessary for a theory to be scientific? Or does it just have to be provide a better explanation? What about all those proprietary methods .. is a theory/program less scientific just because less people are allowed to examine the method and data?
Is it hard to attack this as being unscientific because we often trust secret computer models?
Nogw (06:08:56) :
If we were to search for the English people….we could not find them in contemporary England… It is a lost species.
Being English is about a cultural mindset…. not about genetics nor a geographic location… I discovered that concept by reading Jeremy Paxman’s book The English: A Portrait of a People while living in Spain… so now I understand how I got here… and I have to thank Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for telling me the answer to life, the universe and everything… which happens to be 42..
My guess is that Captain Kirk was in the Guardian newsroom when he said these immortal words:
“”Beam Me Up, Scotty, There’s No Intelligent Life Down Here””
John Egan, 7:16:15
Well, bully for you. I have a great deal of respect for liberals who are climate skeptics; you have a hard row to hoe. Another such fellow is Thomas Fuller, available in the right sidebar. His commentary is always thoughtful.
==========================================
John Egan,
“I’m a lifelong left-winger –
And I have been repeatedly removed from the comment section at the Guardian.”
Well, here’s the rub. You see modern eco liberals don’t like traditional socialists (if there are any left) because they are all for increasing the prosperity of the poor, which is obviously antithetical to their ideology of universal impoverishment.
BTW I’ve also had a comment removed from the Guardian, just because I said they should close down to stop their own CO2 emissions. What did I say wrong?
IanP (23:46:07) :
I had to follow that link you provided, as I was sure that what you posted was a typo. Surely no one could actually be predicting a 100C rise in temperature. That’s just absurd.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what the article said. I did a ping and rdns search to be sure it wasn’t some sort of spoof site. Sure enough, it really is a .gov.uk website.
In all fairness, if these people really and truly believe in their predictions then they have a moral obligation to sound the alarm. Think about it, a 100C rise in temperature could well mean a lifeless planet. Barely habitable anyway.
I just find it difficult to believe that anyone with a sound scientific background, in almost any field of science, could believe such things.
How can you take someone seriously when he says the earth speaks to him?
Mariss
So the “Anthropogenic Continental Drift” satire has indeed become “science”?
Incredible.
Read the comments, it’s a hoot!
My current favourite is
englishhermit
06 Sep 09, 6:30am
I recall being blasted by the planetfuckers in these very columns over a year ago for having the temerity to suggest that a redistribution of water across the face of globe would change the pressure on the earth’s crust leading to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Now the predictions of this hermit have been validated by qualified scientists, although anyone with ‘O’ level physics could have worked it out for themselves. So I am going to say ‘Told you so. Nur Nur Nur’.
Unless that is clever satire, of course.
I suggest a competition for the most hilarious comment on this thread…..
Anthony … its true .. you couldn’t make this stuff up. A few years ago (about 20) one of the British tabloids (maybe News of the World or the Sunday Sport) had a story about how a WW2 bomber had been found on the moon – complete with photograph.
This is in the same vein .. except its in the Gaurdian.
(^^^^ BTW, as someone with ‘A’ level physics myself, and a computing degree)
Great breakthroughs in science have been always accomplished by unfunded individuals, never by funded bureaucrats.
I have tried to post comments here before, but the last one merely pointed out the acidity of the insults against sceptics, and that was deleted. I ask you…
Maybe I should try ‘An Open Mind’ ….
Ralph: Like Enron, the Greens will eventually run out of scare stories that anyone believes, and their empire will crash, burn and disappear without trace.”
But – that’s the problem. ENRON may have disappeared, but it destroyed thousands of people.
Lets hope (!) that when the empire of Greenies disappears, the shockwave from that disappearance does not destroy all that classic conservation has achieved since the 1800’s.
I have said it many times, it will be this type of reporting and research that will completely marginalize the AGWers, alienate the moderate environmentalists and annoy the populace at large, they cannot help themselves.
As they feel the message slipping away they will do the only thing they know how, make even more dire and ridiculous predictions of peril.
This is a good sign that the end is nigh…. for AGW as the disaster de jour.
Mariss Freimanis (07:54:30) :
How can you take someone seriously when he says the earth speaks to him?
This seems to becoming an English characteristic…. which explains a lot…
I just come and talk to the plants, really-very important to talk to them, they respond I find.
Prince Charles
http://www.allgreatquotes.com/prince_charles_quotes.shtml
Prince of Wales talked to plants: scientists test if it works
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/5080991/Prince-of-Wales-talked-to-plants-scientists-test-if-it-works.html