We knew, it was only a matter of time…

This is idiotic.
If the magma chamber is close enough to surface to be affected by the weight of the glacier, then it is already rapidly melting the glacier from underneath.

This is a good thing, right? Think of all the CO2 we’re saving from all these grounded airplanes!

The article looks like a late April Fool’s joke to me.
Europe is now getting free fertilizer plus a cooling effect.

I’m not a volcanologist and I don’t play one on TV, but I have to call BULL on this idea !

As I watched the news last night reporting on the Icelandic ash cloud I said to my wife “I wonder how long before someone blames AGW for this”.
Predictable. Add it to the Warm List.

C’mon, Anthony!
You’re making them up now!
Right?
Nice sense of the ridiculous, though.

“We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption,” he said of Eyjafjallajokull. “The eruption is happening under a relatively small ice cap.”

We say one thing and the opposite. That way we can’t be wrong.

***puts hand in face*** NOW they tell us!
/sarc off

It is a novel piece of research that considers that the mechanical strength properties of some 200metres or so of ice can keep the lid on the crust (given that typically the oceanic crust is 3 to 6 miles thick, contineantal crust 20 to 30 miles thick). I certainly never guessed that some 200metres of ice could prevent the movement of plate tectonics. Trace amounts of CO2 are surely powerful indeed.

I would think melting ice in Iceland would be akin to the butterfly effect compared to Tectonic forces. Yes it could have an effect but it would be lost in the noise… Kind of like AGW compared to natural cycles.

Uhmm,……geez……that’s…… volcanoes already erupt…..ice doesn’t stop…..the properties of magnum….. pressure from under neath……heat…….do people really believe……..?has the gene pool really …………?, I’m speechless.

I thought felt a draft… who left the door to Hell open again?

For the love of Pete.

changes in the flow of the earths magnetic field has more effect then a little ice melt.

It occurred to me this morning, as I read this and other articles about the eruptions in Iceland, that no has given thought to the idea that maybe what is happening in the North Atlantic is a shift in magma in the area which is resulting in a localized warming of the land in Iceland, Greenland…. and that is what is causing the melting of the glaciers. This is just speculation on my part. I am far from a scientist and definitely not a climatologist or geologist, but I do read and think about what the implications are beyond just the surface information.
One of you, who is more skilled in this area, may want to do some research on this topic.

Sounds like “negative feedback” to me. The ash from the volcanoes will act to cool teh atmosphere. Add this to this year’s Al Gore prediction that global warming will bring more snow and things are looking a lot less dire 😉
–t

This is simply ridiculous. I watched The National last night on CBC here in Canada and they had a prominent geophysicist on explaining exactly why this volcano in Iceland is erupting. As a matter of fact, it has been erupting for 50 Million years and it is not going to stop according to him. It is not global warming causing this, it is a rift in the Atlantic Ocean sea floor that is pulling a part releasing magma to the surface. The series of Volcanoes stretches from Iceland all the way down to the tip of Antarctica. What a horseshit article on behalf of Scientific American.

Its PNS.
Make wild claims that might be true, and yet, might not.
Keep the agenda going.Doesnt even matter whether it has any relevance, or is highly likely, or not.
And it obviously works. Has worked for 20 years now.

There’s no crying in Science!*
There’s NO CRYING IN SCIENCE!*
What is happening to the world’s scientific population? It can’t be genetically modified food additives, hormone injections, or smog, it’s much too specific to PhD’s. Where do these people come from?
This is worse than the 1930’s!
When people get this stupid you can bet something BAD is going to happen. And THIS is worse, MUCH worse!
((For most of my life we blamed the USSR for all this crazy evil stuff. They were poisoning the water in N/America & Europe. etc, etc.. I guess the Chinese are doing it now;-( Isn’t there some Board that can revoke the PhD’s of idiots like this?))
* Unless you’re a Chemist. Then it’s OK, sometimes.

Anthony, the link to Scientific American gives a:
Error–Page not Found
You may have received this page for the following reasons:
The page requested has been moved.
The page has been taken off the site.
The page address was typed in incorrectly.

AGW proponents are throwing everything they have into the fight — including the kitchen sink.
And the mask has come off.
Oil companies are cautiously setting the stage for supporing the U.S. carbon regulation bill in the Senate — and other large business groups are posturing for a “compromise”.
It’s not just the left who support CO2 regulation — large business interests are lining up, too — they’ll figure a way to “work” the system, whatever it is.
It’s the middle-class that will pay for the whole thing with higher energy costs and job killing regulation.
Senate climate bill to be unveiled April 26:
“(Reuters) – A long-awaited compromise bill to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming will be unveiled by a group of senators on April 26, sources said on Thursday.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63A0UW20100415
If you want to stop this carbon bill start contacting your senators, now.
And any business memberships you belong to.
The fight has begun!

LUNCH WITH AL – A short skitt
Waitress to AL: Can I take your order please?
AL: Yes. You will believe in AGW and if you don’t we’re going to lock you up with Watts, McIntyre, Corbyn,…………………….just kidding! I’ll have a BLT.
GUEST: Can’t wait till your friends at the UN pass EGO-cide.
AL: ECO-cide! Lets say grace….Dear Lord…………Amen.
GUEST: “Hey….who stole all the silver ware?”
THE END

WOW! They have discovered the final cure for teenage pimples!: Just to paste over them a thick layer of make up and…Voila!
Shame on them!, fool “post normal scientists”. Just enable USGS on your Google earth and anyone can see the many “dots”along the plates’ edges, those are earthquakes: Plates are now moving ya know? and much more in these “interesting times”, and those Iceland volcanoes, as shown a few posts ago, here in WUWT, are located precisely where the american plate and the european plate meet. The rest is simple common sense.
BTW, you will also see a recent swarm of low intensity earthquakes in the US midwest.

If ice loss was capable of uncapping magma chambers, I think such a phenomenon would have been evident at the end of the last ice age some 10,000 years ago.

Anyone have more detail on that “door to hell?”

Gee, was that the case when this thing erupted back in 1821? Who wudda thunk it?

I wonder if anyone bothered to actually check the temperature records in Iceland before making these ridiculous claims. Here’s Reykjavik, where the temperatures today are the same as during the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=620040300000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1

Interestingly, there seems to be a linkage between volcanism and solar activity (something I’ve been wait ages to ask Leif about) that has been postulated to be indirect via (for example) ice-melting causing crustal disturbance causing volcanic activity. This would seem to be a fairly interesting negative feedback if it is real.
Something fun to think about.
bob

Manufacturing ghosts and demons. What kind of sacrifices are being called for now?
And how do they explain volcanoes before the industrial age?

Well there you go – Great spin. Good old MSM!
Talk about voodoo science.

Isn’t that Gaia’s belly button?

The increasingly large volcanic erruptions in areas formerly under permafrost conditions will melt even more ice, causing even more and larger volcanic erruptions, which will melt more ice and cause yet more erruptions, causing a never-ending death-spiral for the planet.
WE ARE ALL DOOMED!
/sarc off

It’s all due to the solar/lunar tides!
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2010/03/why-do-long-term-periodicities-in-enso.html

well, this works in antarctica maybe. greenland can have quakes and uplift from ice shifts. iceland? doubt it. also, it’s a poor argument for mayhem but the gaia fags might latch onto the EQUILIBRIUM involved: more warming, less ice, more seismicity, more ash plumes, lower temperatures: situation normal, all freaked out.
vomit launch are from chico aren’t they?

Let’s all completely ignore the fact that volcanic eruptions add particulate matter to the atmosphere which increases the earth’s albedo. Let’s not suggest that volcanic eruptions could possibly be earth’s natural response to warmer temperatures. No, let’s not explore any of those facts or theories, instead let’s just continue the alarmist drumbeat…. bum….bum….bum… boogeyman coming to get us!

I might add that the recent Meteor seen in Wisconson was likely caused by the increased warmth of the Earth attracting the meteoroids from the frigid ranges of the Kyper belt.

It’s all our fault and we’re doomed.What have these people been smoking.The ice isn’t shrinking its back to normal and growing.

Earth warms, ice melts, volcanoes erupt, ash reflects sunlight, earth cools… problem solved.

Hmmm…could result in a material increase in events producing stratospheric aerosols. What then?

Beyond hysterical! Icelandic people never seemed that funny but I guess we just didn’t hear them with right material. Freysteinn Sigmundsson needs a reality show but of course it needs to be on a religious channel.
One a side note, you think the Church of Scientology congregation breathes a collective sigh of relief every time the Church of Climatology zealots out wacky them?

He left out the Heartbreak of Psoriasis.
meanwhile, that “Gateway to Hell” in Uzbekistan is pretty interesting, hadn’t seen that one before. Looked it up, and it’s clear that it’s just another Communist-era industrial accident that they never bothered to clean up.
They mentioned it was caused by a drilling rig, so obviously they were drilling a relatively shallow nat gas reservoir and had an underground blowout, which created a sinkhole. (not difficult in the right geology) After the sinkhole collapsed, taking the rig with it, they set it on fire since they couldn’t figure out what else to do with the gas reservoir they had stupidly punctured.
hey guys, ever hear about RELIEF WELLS? which is what western oil and gas operators do if any similar situation threatens to arise??? Without that, it will continue to burn until the entire gas reservoir leaks out through the hole – who knows how many decades that will take.

The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose
Is this false? If so, why?
I mean, fine if you’re content with “wow, that seems really unlikely, so it can’t possibly be true,” but you have to admit it’s not a particularly strong counter-argument…

The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.
Spookily enough man first started lighting fires round about then!
Do I get the Nobel Prize

I have actually been waiting for someone to link earthquakes to global warming, as impossible a feat as this seemed. Impressive how Pagli snuck that in there.

‘Missing’ Heat May Affect Future Climate Change
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100415141121.htm
“Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a “Perspectives” article in this week’s issue of Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn in the new study that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this “missing” heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system.”
Hmmmm. Sort opf like dark matter.

Tim Clark (08:19:17) :
Anthony, the link to Scientific American gives a:
Error–Page not Found
You may have received this page for the following reasons:
The page requested has been moved.
The page has been taken off the site.
The page address was typed in incorrectly.
Anthony/Mods
I’m serious here.
I can’t find this article anywhere in Scientific American back to Jan 2010, and nowhere on the Reuters site as well. I think it’s a hoax, and they found out and removed it.
[Reply: Anthony notified. ~dbs]

It is known that particular parts of the world, such as Tohoku in Japan, will have an extremely cool summer after a very big eruption (according to Dr. Junsei Kondo, Prof. Emeritus, Tohoku Unviersity). This causes, for instance, a poor crop of rice there.
We should prepare against it if the present eruption is really a big one.

gcb (08:39:16) :
Problem solved then! The volcanoes will release lots of aerosols, which will reflect sunlight, and the Earth will cool back down, right?
Right!, but make the simple exercise of thinking how many suv exhausts would equal the exhaust of this volcano, it it evident that all, all the green policies are a scam. The many years of green policies, enforced by european countries, spoiled by a single burp from a “politically biased” volcano and all the clean air so hardly gotten goes to the sink, not forgetting all the jobs losses that these so smart green policies have caused and all the broken economies,the empires destroyed (like UK’s), etc.etc
WARNING: FORBIDDEN TO CONTAMINATE MORE THAN A VOLCANO

Tim Clark (09:23:35)
Here it is on the S.A. site
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ice-cap-thaw-iceland-volcanoes#comments

You know, if a volcano blows it’s top while a glacier is sitting on top, you get a nasty mud slide (St Helens anyone?). It’s only a matter of time before such a mudslide decimates Seattle (Rainier anyone?)-let’s hope AGW melts the glaciers on the most glaciated peak in the lower 48 in time!

D. King (09:38:28) :
Tim Clark (09:23:35)
Here it is on the S.A. site
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ice-cap-thaw-iceland-volcanoes#comments
Thanks, sorry for the trouble.

When an ice cap disappears the solid Earth deforms in response to these load changes, as observed e.g. at Glacier Bay, Alaska [Larsen et al., 2005] and at the Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland [Pagli et al., 2007], where mass balance measurements indicate concentrated thinning at the edges of the ice cap and a total volume of ice loss of ~435 km3 in 1890–2003 [see Pagli et al., 2007, and references therein]. GPS measurements of glacio-isostatic deformation in the area have been used in the past to evaluate the underlying Earth structure [Pagli et al., 2007a]. An axisymmetric finite element Earth model with an elastic plate over an isotropic, incompressible Maxwell viscoelastic half-space with Vatnajökull modeled as a circular ice cap explains the observations well [Pagli et al., 2007]. The ice retreat history assumes isostatic equilibrium in 1890 and gradual thinning of the ice cap between 1890 and 2003. A viscosity of 8 × 1018 Pa s, assuming an elastic plate thickness of 10 km, gives a best fit to the data. Using this model, the stress tensor due to glacio-isostasy at Vatnajökull for example can be calculated. The tensor is taken as positive in tension and the pressure, P, is obtained as the mean of the normal stresses (see Pagil et al. 2008 for more information).
Does anyone on here not believe in isostatic rebound? Because places like the great lakes and Hudson bay are still rising in response to removal of the ice from the last ice age.
The article did not state that global warming caused the recent eruption. The article is actually not well-written, and it’s unfortunate that the media tends to do a poor job communicating science. The media probably wanted a story, that’s all and there’s nothing more to make of it except that.

John Egan (07:58:47): Does global warming cause male pattern baldness?
Yes it does and I have the “hole in the ozone layer”-like thin patch on my head to prove it! There is no other possible explanation. I haven’t looked into any, but I’m reasonably sure that my robust method of possibility nullifications might be the key to a future type of research that may be useful to potentially come up with possibilities to link AGW to all sorts of possible human health and appearance concerns. There is consensus among all of us who do this research, so we know it’s correct. Me myself and I have reviewed each other’s work and concur.
I’m not sure if I feel like an official post modern scientist after spewing all that gobbledeegook or if I just feel dirty. Perhaps some grant money and more research are needed…

I fear for the Swiss.

Oh, spare me, it’s probably too late in the thread to post this, but…
We sailed up the coast of Cape York in 1991 and the results of Mt Pinatubo in the sky were spectacular sunsets, lots of porphry in the water, interesting colours in the water at night.
When we returned home 2,500km south, our local beach was covered with porphyry from the Pinatubo eruption, which we still have as a nice Japanese-style rock garden.
In 2006 we were sailing in islands north of Fiji and passed through an amazing huge floating field of porphyry which we later heard was an underwater eruption that resulted in a new island just where we hade made our passage.
How good’s that?
But these things happen in the areas we have named “Vulcania” all the time, and if it happens under water in 5000m, you don’t know until the evidence surfaces.

Caroline Pagli: YAOOYFM!

“He said that melting ice seemed the main way in which climate change[s], blamed mainly on use of fossil fuels.”
So the ice ages and interglacials, the Minoan, Roman, Medieval and Modern warm periods, and all the cold periods in between are due to the use of fossil fuels?

gregg2213
Anyone have more detail on that “door to hell?”
———-
[snip sorry we don’t discuss Art Bell and other similar venues here]
For details see this, which is easily found by anyone using Google
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derweze#The_.22Door_to_Hell.22
– Anthony

OT-
Perhaps we could get together and help these “scientists” find the “Missing Heat”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/15/ocean-missing-heat-global-warming

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
It’s the end of the world!

I expect the White House to blame the eruption on George Bush’s climate policies.

What has this got to do with CO2 thinning icecaps leading to angrier volcanoes? Where is the evidence? Pure, speculative drivell from a bunch of rent seeking charlatans.
“We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption,”
Then why open your mouths? Funding!
Hot magma against ice and hot magma wins eventually.

“Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades,”
and then…after that…somewhat smaller eruptions or less
frequent eruptions in Iceland….So says Mafesto!

Caleb:
…In the late 1700’s a Swedish scientist poking around the Viking settlements in Greenland noted that the places where the Vikings had docked their boats were under water, which showed the land was sinking. (This was notable to a Swede, for back in Sweden the coasts were rising.)…
—-
Quite right. Some of the Thule archaeological sites in northern Greenland are now underwater. But so is Roanoke colony in Virginia. Anyway, yes, it is happening, Helsinki is rising and the Kola Peninsula on the White Sea is sinking, Australia is also doing this table-dip thing. Greenland is probably more than a single landmass ringing a bowl-shaped depression filled with ice, it’s probably many small islands and several large with multiple large outlets to ocean at a rebounded, zero-ice state. But for it to have zero ice and rebound, the entire geography would change and it would probably look more like a very large atoll of rocky islands around a shallow sea with some mountains sticking out of it.

Dark matter is based on observation. A galaxy continues to rotate at the same speed out towards it’s edge as it does just off the central hub. It takes matter to constrain it from flying apart. Observational data supports dark matter/dark energy surrounding spiral galaxies.
Dark Warming is based on model assumption. The models predicted runaway warming, and it did not happen. It’s a travesty because the observational data does not support dark warming/dark heat surrounding or hidden in Earth.
So, what do the warmers come up with? Fudged observational data to support the model.
Take as much budget allocation as you want from NOAA and GISS and give it to a worthy cause: NASA Space. Let NOAA and GISS operate with dark funding.

Anthony, you might have found the reason why the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been rising non-stop… for 35 years!

Greenpeace will surely now be all over this and try to turn that fire off. It’s fossil fuel burning non-stop in there…
As for my earlier remark… it might not be Gaia’s belly button if sulfated methane comes out of this hole… ooopppsss!

Ref – hippie longstocking (09:55:40) :
“John Egan (07:58:47): Does global warming cause male pattern baldness?”
Yes it does and I have the “hole in the ozone layer”-like thin patch on my head to prove it! There is no other possible explanation…
__________________________________
I hate to be the one to pass this on but the exact opposite is true of women. DO NOT TELL ANYONE ABOUT THE LATEST DISCOVERY IN ANTHROPROGENIC CLIMATOLOGY AND GENETICS BUT GLOBAL COOLING DURING THE LAST GLACIAL PERIOD CAUSED WOMEN TO DEVELOP SEVERE PATTERN BALDING.
At the beginning of the last glacial period men and women had the same amount of body hair AND muscle mass. There is something in an Ice Age that seems to make women more attractive and men get less so and more hairy.

Related to earthquakes:
USGS Newsroom
Is Recent Earthquake Activity Unusual? Scientists Say No.
Released: 4/14/2010 2:55:24 PM
source: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2439
“China’s tragic magnitude 6.9 earthquake on April 13 and the recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Mexico, and elsewhere have many wondering if this earthquake activity is unusual.
…
“With six major earthquakes striking in the first four months of this year, 2010 is well within the normal range. Furthermore, from April 15, 2009, to April 14, 2010, there have been 18 major earthquakes, a number also well within the expected variation.
“While the number of earthquakes is within the normal range, this does not diminish the fact that there has been extreme devastation and loss of life in heavily populated areas,” said USGS Associate Coordinator for Earthquake Hazards Dr. Michael Blanpied.

If that’s the *real* Door To Hell, then where’s the Road Paved With Good Intentions?
*gratuitous straight line provided at no additional charge*

Just say it.. AGW causes everything.. take our money now.. before we sin again.
ps humm shouldn’t you be burning that evil money instead of living like a King?

Tim Clark (09:43:15) :
Think about it.
Good advice, I’d recommend you try it. Your response was not “a particularly well thought out” one.
Geologically speaking, what exactly is around the same time? Perhaps the volcanoes blasted off and precipitated the ice age.
10000 years is not relevant to the geologic timescale, which is generally measure in millions, not thousands of years. But no, <a href="http://geoleoedocs.sub.uni-goettingen.de:8080/dspace/bitstream/gledocs-108/1/Andrews%2BGudmundsson.pdf&quot;)vulcanism increased in Iceland after the start of the current interglacial. You could have investigated that yourself with one Google search if you were really interested.
Volcanism causes global cooling by the emmission of reflective ash and aerosols, sulphur compounds in particular.
Explain how would that end an ice age?
The hypothesis is not that the vulcanism ended the ice age. You’ve got it exactly backward, clearly because you haven’t even bothered to read the article.
If you’d followed the link and read it rather than skimming the edited excerpt above, you’d have seen that Dr. Pagli theorized that the weight of the ice prevented rocks from expanding and turning into liquid magma. “As the ice melts,” she explained, “the rock can melt because the pressure decreases.”
Of course, you can always try to argue against something you haven’t even read, but it’s hardly persuasive.

sphaerica (10:10:25) :
Tim Clark,
You have it backwards. The surge in volcanic activity did not end the ice age, but rather the end of the ice age increased volcanic activity (which is further evidence supporting the scientist’s claims).
References please. The authors coincide.

Elizabeth (Canada) (09:08:43) “I have actually been waiting for someone to link earthquakes to global warming, as impossible a feat as this seemed. Impressive how Pagli snuck that in there.”
I haven’t brought ice variables into this study yet, but it’s clear that there is some kind of multivariate coupling at play:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/SAOT_Lunar_aa_SOI.png
More details here:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/VolcanoStratosphereSLAM.htm
The coupling could be a very big deal as the coupling direction appears to vary by timescale (which means this is going to be a serious pile of work to sort out – i.e. the usual assumptions thrown into conventional decompositions might be a joke inviting hearty laughter).

Ot but climategate II?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/16/actons-eleven-the-response.html

If I understand the logic here, the current ice caps are pushing down ground. But doesn’t this mean that the ground is rising/bulgingsomewhere else? Thus causing problems somewhere. Then when the ice melts the trouble is under the old ice and the bulge problem somewhere is reduced. The AGW people truly can have it both ways. My apologies to the English enforcer and anyone who is rational.

Another remarkable effect of AGW, it fries the brain of climate scientists.

Paul Daniel Ash,
” Dr. Pagli theorized that the weight of the ice prevented rocks from expanding and turning into liquid magma. “As the ice melts,” she explained, “the rock can melt because the pressure decreases.”
The earth’s crust is on average 100km thick. Given that the density of rock is 2.5 times that of ice, the 100km of rock is equivalent in pressure to 250km of ice. That seems like a lot of pressure already. How much difference will another kilometer of ice make?
Colour me sceptical on that one.

Vincent (11:09:30) :
How much difference will another kilometer of ice make?
Colour me sceptical on that one.
Good! Being skeptical would necessitate that you investigate claims, rather than blindly accepting or rejecting them.
The researchers actually address your question right at the beginning of their 2008 paper (http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~earcpa/2008GL033510.pdf):

We calculate the rate of change of pressure decrease in the mantle due to the present thinning of Vatnajo ̈kull (Figure 3a). The largest rate of pressure decrease is 1700 Pa/yr beneath the ice cap. It is an order of magnitude smaller than the inferred pressure decrease during the deglaciation of Iceland at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, that was up to 19000 Pa/yr [Jull and McKenzie, 1996]. A pressure change of 1700 Pa in the mantle corresponds to pressure change due to removal of 17 cm of water, or removal of about 5 cm of rock. The influence of present ice thinning produces therefore decompression equivalent to material upwelling of up to 5 cm/yr.

1 Pascal = 1 newton per meter squared (a newton is the amount of force required to accelerate a kilogram one meter per second per second)
They agree with your assessment of the pressure exerted by rock as being about 2.5x (17/5) that of ice, but your guess of the thickness of the Earth’s crust is off. Continental crust is mostly 35 to 40 km. The researchers note that “crustal thickness in Iceland varies from 15 to 46 km.” For this study, they “use an average thickness of the crust of 25 km.”

“Boudu (08:21:30) :
I see Kevin Trenberth has lost some heat.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/is-there-missing-heat-in-the-climate-system-my-comments-on-this-ncar-press-release/
”
Thanks for the link! Tremendously important post by Pielke!

Do you realize that Global Warming has been causing the New York Yankees to win the World Series? The correlation between increases in temperature and increases in their wins is almost 1.00 for those with a scientific frame of mind. As proof, just check their record for the last thousand years and it has been relatively flat. But starting in the 1920’s, about the time the internal combustion engine became popular, the percentage of times they’ve won the WS has sky-rocketed. If plotted it even looks like a hockey stick. Why in only a few years unless something drastic is done, they will be winning it more than twice a year! As a Mets fan I find this intolerable. Where is the IPCC when we need it? Or more importantly, where can I file for a grant to look into this phenomena more closely.

Melting glaciers have nothig to do with increased volcanic activity. If weight was removed from above volcanoes, then certainly, weight additions from lava deposits would have the reverse effect and seal off the volcanoes, wouldn’t they? Since the latter does not happen, how do these geniuses conclude that melting glaciers increase volcanic activity?
When Mt. St. Helens blew, it tossed a fifth of a cubic mile of Earth out of its way like balsa wood in a cyclone. Do you really think a few dozen or even hundreds of feet of ice are going to hold back a volcanic eruption?
Where do these guys get this stuff? What are they smoking?

Tim Clark,
First, a minor apology, I mixed memories of some previous studies (which involved changes in ice mass on land and water mass in the ocean, thus affecting tectonic plates) with this one (which appears to have more to do with actual ice caps on volcanoes, although I hesitate to believe anything these days until I’ve seen the original scientific paper, because the journalists are rather pathetic at getting these things even close to right).
But, to your point… you are reading too much into the word “coincide.” The exact quote from the article, included in the WUWT post above, says (emphasis mine):

The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.

Note the use of the phrase “because huge ice caps thinned,” as in the ice age ended, so the ice caps thinned, so there was a surge in volcanic activity.

When this volcano is done spewing, what’s left? I guess like Al Gore, just an ash hole?

“227 years ago a far more devastating eruption occurred wiping out a fifth of the island’s population – as well as tens of thousands across Europe.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8624791.stm
It’s all happened before

Magma and pressure can blow the top of a mountain (seriously close to where I was working at the time) clean off. That takes a lot of muscle. That last bit of snow and ice on the top, even if it had been much thicker, was a cotton ball compared to the amount of boulders, rocks, dirt, and debris that got blown off.
Have we lowered the Ph.D. bar that much?

At last… a new example of hyper ventilation !
Scientific American is once again a leader in the soft core of
climate science:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ice-cap-thaw-iceland-volcanoes

Henry chance (11:42:51) :
She appears to be out of her mind. To give her benefit of my doubt, has she conducted an experiment to test this?
Off-the-wall suggestion here: how about you do some reading?
http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~earcpa/2008GL033510.pdf

Unbelievable how backwards some AGW believers are becoming. They simply can not see straight by ounce again putting the cart in front of the horse…
Seems to me that Earth’s direct contribution to climate is presently underestimated as our planets geothermal dynamics are vaguely known. If the case, variability in surface crust temperature will play a role in the release of GHG’s especially from the Ocean’s depth and permafrost regions. There is an enormous amount of unmonitored underwater volcanic activity aside from the continental fire belts we know off.
Climate does not produce volcanoes it’s more likely the other way around…

Richard Lynch (12:07:48) :
By that line of reasoning, the Earth is well on it’s way to a big cooldown.
Now, if we can only cure Al Gore Warming fever.
2012 approaches, and it’s not the Earth that is ending, it’s the sanity of our leadership.
Pam: Here’s the bar for PhD: Just get out your loudspeaker and proclaim something that Global Warming causes, and you’ll be instantly knighted.

Dennis Hand (08:04:21) :
It occurred to me this morning, as I read this and other articles about the eruptions in Iceland, that no has given thought to the idea that maybe what is happening in the North Atlantic is a shift in magma in the area which is resulting in a localized warming of the land in Iceland, Greenland…. and that is what is causing the melting of the glaciers. This is just speculation on my part. I am far from a scientist and definitely not a climatologist or geologist, but I do read and think about what the implications are beyond just the surface information.
One of you, who is more skilled in this area, may want to do some research on this topic.
——–
REPLY: Dennis, you show good scientific insight! WUWT discussed this a while back:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/25/surprise-explosive-volcanic-eruption-under-the-arctic-ice-found/
Who knows?? I am sure that the AGW community far underestimated the negative feedback effects of volcanism in their models.
This puppy in Iceland may continue to belch ash for years, which may either (a) reduce global temperatures by increasing the Earth’s albedo and creating sulfur dioxide aerosols, or (b) increase polar ice cap melting if the darker ash settles onto the ice.
Anybody’s guess at this point, I’m willing to bet that we have a nice period of cooling to go along with our ongoing solar minimum.

Back a long time ago when I was young and stupid (instead of being old and foolish!), I used to read the Scientific American. But as I got older I found more and more liberal talking points disguised as “science”.
If I want liberal talking points, I can get bumper stickers for free at the Democrat Party HQ. The rest of the magazine, I found that I could not trust. Like the National Geographic.
I no longer waste my money on either.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack

Yeah, yeah, yeah…
Why are these guys given honor and “degrees”?
The “standard geologists” for years waved their hands and talked about the “continents” sinking because of accumulation of sediments, and this causing the formation of “sedimentary basins”.
PURE UTTER RUBBISH! Eventually satellite’s showed the actual MOVEMENT of the continents…and plate techtonics and continental drift was ESTABLISHED AS FACT.
As far as “sediment” causing the land to SINK…RUBBISH! What’s the DENISTY of basalt versus “sedimentary rock”? 2:1? SO sedimentary basins sank, and some “magic” process, uplifted the BASALT mountains (don’t take this for GRANITE, look it up).
SO LIKEWISE a MINOR coating of ICE is going to “push down” the basalt that forms ICELAND? Again, RUBBISH.
Now if these clowns had said 9 months ago, “There is a lot of activity in certain plate planes and joints, and there will be a major eruption in the spring of 2010, I’d be impressed.
This did not happen.
Max

Jounalism is dead in America and science is almost dead.

Ok in all seriousness, is there anything that can happen on planet Earth that these fanatics won’t claim is related to global warming? I mean anything?

Sooooo; as long as the world’s oceans keep rising cos of all that nasty melted ice, the increased weight on the sea floor ridges and thermal vents (where 70% of the world active vocanoes live & breathe) should basically shut down 70% of the largest single contribution of non-AGW CO2
Wot’s the problem?
Gaia has struck, we’re back on track for cross country skiing in Florida and Saint Paul of the 70’s global cooling gig has been vindicated and might now get a richly deserved Nobel gong too

I think that the weight of the B.S. being piled on by the AGW proponents more than makes up for the loss of ice weight, so there is no way that volcanoes are going to erupt more frequently, if fact they will likely erupt less frequently, and the earth will be more fertile as well from all the fresh excrement.

Jon Jewett (12:47:33) :
Back a long time ago when I was young and stupid (instead of being old and foolish!), I used to read the Scientific American. But as I got older I found more and more liberal talking points disguised as “science”.
———-
That became most obvious when they launched their tirade against Bjorn Lomborg’s book ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist.’
As for National Geographic… LOL. Nice photos though.

The 8 comments on the Sci Am site to date are all negative.

Paul Daniel Ash (11:27:20) :
Thanks again for the link, seriously. It was an interesting topic to explore on a Friday. Be informed, I consider 90%+ of the conclusions drawn from otherwise reliable empirical data (not just AGW conspired) to be tunnel-vision garbage. But that aside here are some assumptions involved in that paper:
The ice retreat history assumes isostatic equilibrium in 1890 and
gradual thinning of the ice cap between 1890 and 2003.
We must believe that the ice only began melting in 1890. umm…
Allen et al. [2002] indicate that crustal thickness in Iceland varies from 15 to 46 km. We use an average thickness of the crust of 25 km.
Good compromise.
We also assume that the melting is restricted to the area underneath the Vatnajo¨kull ice cap, where ice thinning influences the melting regime.
2007b], when 0.45 km of magma erupted.
Sounds good, continuing:
Based on the variation of eruptive activity and lava composition after deglaciation, the vertical ascent velocity of melt in Iceland is inferred to
be >50 m/yr, without a well defined upper limit [Maclennan
et al., 2002].
Which is in line with the eruptive activity of 5,000 – 10,000yr post-ice age from your earlier citation ( 25 km / 50m/yr = 5,000y).
Coupled with:
Our inferred melting rate due to present day glacial thinning is over 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the inferred melt production rate during deglaciation [Jull and McKenzie, 1996], that was about 3.5 km3/yr over an unloading interval of 1 kyr.
Don’t know where the 1ky comes from because the previous paper you referenced estimated that volcanism started 5-10 kyr after initiation of ice melt. Regardless, they actually admit that we can expect volcanism solely from the current ice melt rate to began approximately 5,000yrs (lower end of 5,000 – 10,000 estimate) X 100 (2 orders of magnitude) = 50 kyr.
Now that’s a time frame that scares me to death. Oh there’s some uncertainty involved:
This estimate is, however, uncertain as a large part of eruptive products
accumulate sub-glacially, and volumes of sub-aerially deposited tephra are not well known.
And lastly:
Glacio-isostasy may thus have facilitated or triggered the anomalous sequence of reverse faulting earth-quakes from 1974 to 1996 at Ba´rdarbunga, although a prior event at the volcano is likely to be the original source of a compressive stress field.
Hmmm… So this proposed effect only functions where there is already volcanic activity at the location. Well, how much effect does this mechanism have?
In order to generate 30 km thick crust over the 300-km north-south length of Iceland spreading at 1.9 cm/year, a magma generation of 0.17 km3/yr is required. Thus our inferred magma volume increase of
0.014 km3/yr corresponds to 10% increase in magma production.
Which is in line with my previous calculations indicating this effect contributing to volcanism in the year 52,010 A. D. Wake me up when it happens.
Oh but there’s more:
In any case, our model indicates that a significant volume of additional magma, as high as 1.4 km3, could be produced every century under
Vatnajo¨kull due to present day glacial retreat, suggesting that increased volcanic activity may be expected in the future.
So, to sum up;
1. volcanism exists already in Iceland regardless of surface features.
2. we can expect increased volcanism in the future,
3. our estimated effect adds 10% of activity.