Guest Post by Steven Goddard
The Guardian image below taken this week near Iceland has the caption “Smoke and ash billows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland Photograph: Ingolfur Juliusson/Reuters”
The Guardian caption is for the most part incorrect. Note that the volcanic cloud is largely indistinguishable from the other clouds, except for it’s shape. The reason for the similarity is that the vast majority of the volcanic plume is water vapour, not ash and definitely not smoke. Where would smoke come from??? There aren’t any trees on Iceland to burn.
The abundance of gases varies considerably from volcano to volcano. However, water vapor is consistently the most common volcanic gas, normally comprising more than 60% of total emissions. Carbon dioxide typically accounts for 10 to 40% of emissions.
70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. Where did that water come from? It is generally believed that most of it outgased from the interior of the earth during the first 700 million years of the earth’s existence.
Steam from the interiorToday most authors believe that early steam from the hot mantle but already cool atmosphere, caused the oceans in the very early stages of the planet. They reason from studies of chondrites (space rocks) in space that under compression, enough water could be released to form an ocean. Today one can observe the gases escaping from active volcanoes, and these too contain water. In this scenario, the oceans would still be increasing in size, a gradual process that would never really end.The amount of water stored in rocks of the primary lithosphere is estimated at 25E21kg (Hutchinson G E, 1957), whereas the water in all oceans is 1.35E21kg, so it is quite possible that all this water emerged slowly after rocks were compressed and heated while the atmosphere had cooled already.
We know that the oceans could not have condensed out of the early atmosphere, because even a 100% water vapour atmosphere would only contain 10 metres of liquid water. People have hypothesized that the oceans came from comets, but the hydrogen isotope ratios in the oceans are different than that seen in comets Halley, Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp.
The only plausible origin of the oceans is from the interior of the earth. So why don’t we see oceans on other planets and the moon? Liquid water only exists in a narrow range of temperatures and pressures. Other planets are too hot, too cold or too small to hold liquid water, though some of the moons of the giant planets may have liquid water.
Why is the relationship between volcanoes and water important? Because steam pressure is the primary driver of explosive volcanic eruptions.
Below are some images of potentially explosive eruptions :
Mt. St. Helens 1980 : Mostly steam, some ash, almost no smoke.
The video above shows the moment of the big eruption May 18, 1980
Mayon 1984 USGS photo : Steam rising, ash cloud falling down the sides of the mountain.
Fourpeaked Volcano, Alaska 2006 USGS photo : 100% steam
Tungurahua 2006 NASA EO image : Steam, ash and lava
Eyjafjallajökull 2010 NASA EO image : Steam, lava, ice
Below are USGS images of non-explosive eruptions at Mauna Loa, Hawaii
Note in the image above that there is some smoke on the left side – from burning trees, and a little steam at the summit. So what is the difference between explosive and non-explosive eruptions? The difference is mainly due to the presence or absence of water. Water mainly enters volcanoes from two primary sources.
- Subduction on the sea floor, and transport upwards into a magma chamber. (Mt. St. Helens)
- Melt from snow and ice above. (Eyjafjallajökull and Mt. St. Helens)
Mauna Loa on the other hand has very little water mixed in with the magma, as it is neither near a subduction zone nor is it covered with snow most of the time. So eruptions from Mauna Loa tend to produce lava rather than steam and ash.
Looking at the mechanics, it becomes clear that explosive volcanic eruptions can not occur in the absence of large amounts of steam. Liquids (like magma) have very low compressibility and can not store enough mechanical energy to cause an explosion. Gases on the other hand are extremely compressible and can store vast amounts of energy. Steam has the unique property that it is liquid until it comes in contact with the magma (or the overburden pressure becomes low enough to allow it to switch to vapour phase) – then it converts thermal energy into mechanical energy very efficiently. The world used to run off steam engines based on this principle.
Most modern power plants still use steam to convert thermal energy into mechanical energy. Same principle that makes volcanoes explode.
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Here’s a pretty stunning photo of the eruption:
http://i.imgur.com/U7UY1.jpg
As far as steam being a component of the explosivity, this very much echoes what our (Icelandic) volcanologists have been saying. By now, much of the ice that is likely to contribute towards the ash plume has already been melted (about 10% of the glacier), so things should hopefully start to calm down a bit. But you never really know, things can change extremely fast.
According to the NOAA website, “Climate scientists and climate modelers from around the world use the Mauna Lao data to project the state of the Earth’s climate.”
That seems farcical to me but can anyone explain to me how taking measurements of carbon dioxide on top of a volcano in the middle of an ocean has anything to do with man’s emissions of CO2?
stevengoddard (09:17:35) :
Einar Kjartansson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office explains what is happening :
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE63H0OV20100418?type=marketsNews
Here’s part of the problem, this guy is a geophysicist (one who studies the earth through geofantasy). The article is also from Reuters (need I say more).
…the plume of ash that is choking the upper atmosphere with tiny particles of glass and pulverised rock…
The composition of the ash is andesitic (57-58% SiO2). Andesites typically do not produce explosive eruptions. Rhyolites (>70% SiO2) typically produce explosive eruptions because of the high silica content and the high water and gas content.
This eruption is explosive (in regards to ash production because the andesitic magma is coming in contact with the glacial meltwater and pulverizing the resulting cooling magma into very tiny particles of volcanic glass called ash.
Another reason why basaltic and andesitic magmas do not produce explosive eruptions is due to the relative low viscosity of the magmas which allows the gases to escape from the magma prior to eruption. The viscosity of rhyolitic magmas is high enough to prevent the release of the gases until the magma nears the surface and the internal pressure of the gases in the magma exceeds that of that of the overlying rock at which point, the gases (and magma) break through the rock pulverizing the cooling magma and overlying rock into ash. These same super hot gases are what causes the pyroclastic flows that destroyed the forests around Mt. St. Helens.
After re-reading your post above, I guess we are basically on the same page, other than the fact that the source of the water appears to be in dispute.
http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/volcan&magma.htm
Henry chance (09:06:04) :
The Iranians have nothing on westerners when it comes to superstition.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041802725.html
“A British friend sees this as “judgment for the bad things we have done to the Earth.” Another thinks this is the beginning of many years of volcanic activity, thus heralding the end of civilization as we know it.”
Icelandic Volcano May Be No Weather-Changing Pinatubo (Update3)
Everyone place your bets…
enneagram:
Well….i’ve read that link and it’s like an ‘Iron Sun’ ala Oliver Manuel site I think. I just don’t know enough about it but like Oliver and Tallbloke but don’t see Tallbloke here and Oliver got booted off. I do know that Leif and Scarfeta agree that there is a solar-earth connection at a low level. The problem is that the variability of the sun from very angry to spotless is @ur momisugly .1K (don’t know what the ‘K’ stands for) What is missing is an input of upto 1K to driver the earth’s climatic variability. That ‘gap’ was back filled in by Gore & Co. with manure: their CO2 AGW theory, absent anything else, to explain the warming trend seen in the 80s and early 90s. Now, the sun has stopped, the temperature rise decoupled from CO2 (15 years ago). From what I can tell, Piers Corbyn & Co think that the sun drives weather and makes bet money out forecasting the met office in London. The climate however, seems to cover over solar driven weather anomalies with it’s own systems of equilibrium. I think that is what they mean when they ‘detrend’ the data they see a link but in small ways. So, The race is on to account for the ‘gap’. That’s my take on where we are.
If the electric model could answer it, it’d get a massive boost. Does it?
What are we missing about the sun, or it’s TSI, or the photon itself, that would account for this deficit?
ps. We shouldn’t steal the thread here but here is a clip from Levy Walks thread @ur momisuglyWUWT:
————————————————————-
Leif Svalgaard (07:44:04) :
Nicola Scafetta (06:48:29) :
We have already proven in our subsequent papers […] We have also proved that a decadal and bidecadal temperature oscillation have solar origin.
I don’t like the proven bit. That is much too strong. And even if there is a 0.1K 11-year period [which we expect], that is such a small part of the 1K long-term trend, that one cannot claim that 60% of that is due to solar activity.
Could you comment on the ‘Science Nugget’: http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/Waiting_Times_of_Solar_Hard_X-Ray_Flares and Aschwanden’s paper.
19042010 Leif Svalgaard (08:23:45) :
————————————————————-
Mike Kelley (21:46:42) : My favorite definition of an expert is “some guy from out of town”.
At one point in my life (a couple of decades, actually…) I was a “consultant”; which we defined as “Someone from more than 50 miles away; with a briefcase.”…
Consultants are clearly more important than Experts, as they have a briefcase 😉
Per magma, rocks, water, etc.:
Please remember that a very many kinds of rock have chemically bound water in them (all sorts of chemical hydrates). As these are subducted, you get many kinds of chemical and physical changes. More than enough to put water INTO the volcanos in the first place. That water comes out of present day volcanoes does not say much about “where it came from” 4 billion years ago.
IMHO, it didn’t ‘come from’ anywhere. It was always here. We find it in space all over the place. It’s only the moon that’s dehydrated (and that is likely due to it being a melt artifact of planetary collisions). So the whole question of “where did the water come from” is a “Mu” question (ill formed). The real question is “Why is is liquid now?” (i.e. not chemically bound in rocks nor frozen) and that is fairly easily answered by “Solar warmth and volcanic rock decomposition”. Both, eventually, driven by nuclear energy of one end of the spectrum or the other… So we’re at a proper balance point between fusion (solar) and fission (U and Th in the planet core). That’s all…
IIRC the “us vs Volcano” CO2 number has been calculated many times and it’s “Us by a lot”. Which does not surprise me at all. We dig up far more coal and oil than volcanos do in a given year. I also don’t think it matters at all. The total carbon on the planet is a constant (modulo a few rocks falling from space and a few spacecraft launched each year). All that happens is the form changes a bit between us, trees & plants, volcanos, and rock formation / decomposition (think limestone). To think we have any significant impact is sheer hubris. The real ‘race condition’ is with plants, and they can beat us any time. Do the math… fast growing species can completely deplete ALL the CO2 in the air column above them in a single year… Measure the tons / acre of wood ( cottonwood can add 50 tons / acre of ‘wet wood’ per year…) and compare to the tons / acre of CO2 over it. I did.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/of-trees-volcanos-and-pond-scum/
i’m a consultant…..lots of money and none of the responsibility! 🙂
E Gardarsson (09:51:31) :
Here’s a pretty stunning photo of the eruption:
http://i.imgur.com/U7UY1.jpg
That photo looks like the one taken to the Chilean Chaiten Volcano eruption:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SjBd7nY9Kp0/SCfJktNsxUI/AAAAAAAAAnQ/PBdoV_8D9-4/s400/Chaiten.jpg
Which is shown, also, in : http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Quite an electrical display!
“So what is the difference between explosive and non-explosive eruptions? The difference is mainly due to the presence or absence of water. ”
That is true to some extent but another is the silica content of the magma. While water and other gases certainly do have an impact on the explosive potential, the type of magma determines how it reacts to the rapid depressurization. Magma that is silicon rich like that in the Cascades in the US erupt explosively. Magma that is silicon poor such as in Hawaii and flood basalt eruptions is more “runny” in consistency and tends to create fountains like those seen in Hawaii and early in the recent Icelandic eruption.
The current eruption in Iceland became more of an ash generator when a new vent opened that re-melted more evolved magma from a 17th century eruption that is richer in silicon (andesitic vs. basaltic). Basaltic eruptions can produce tremendous amounts of gas (including water vapor) with very little ash.
Paul Hildebrandt (10:08:34) :
Mt. St. Helens is made up of layers of andesite and basalt, yet it is known to have rather explosive eruptions from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens
The largest explosive volcanoes, like Long Valley, Valles, and Yellowstone do contain Rhyolites. The reason that they store so much energy is because they are low temperature (viscous) magmas with lots of volatiles that can’t easily escape.
I am learning quickly about volcano physiology!
I posted a comment recently that I had been told by two vulcanologists that there are two types of lava (or volcanos – not sure which since that was 40 years ago) with the Hawaiian names a’a and pahoehoe. Now we have a debate between two knowledgeable people regarding the chemical make-up of the basalt. Is it andesites vs rhyolites or just the presence of water and makes the difference?
On the water hypothesis, I question the recent posting that “This eruption is explosive (in regards to ash production) because the andesitic magma is coming in contact with the glacial meltwater and pulverizing the resulting cooling magma into very tiny particles of volcanic glass called ash.” My feeling is that the presence of ice / water outside the volcano is incidental and that the explosive nature is due only to the pressure of water and gases inside the magma. Rightly or wrongly, I picture this like the making of puffed wheat and puffed rice, in which wet wheat or rice is placed in a vessel in which the pressure and temperature are built up and then quickly released, causing steam within the wheat / rice to expand rapidly. Those of us of “a certain age” will remember Quaker Oat’s advertising that their puffed wheat was “shot from guns”. I suspect that volcanic explosions may be similar.
IanM
We don’t know where all the water in Earth’s oceans came from. Multiple sources, almost certainly, but how much from where, still much debated. And the water has been through a lot of “processing”, which makes it’s origins hard to nail down. Certainly some of it had to have been in the original accretion material, and some from infalling material of various kinds, at various times.
OT: Current sunspot number=0
Not OT: The Chilean city of Concepcion moved three meters to the west after the earthquake of magnitude 8.8 on the Richter scale that struck Feb. 27 central and southern Chile, according to a study released today by the University of Santiago
http://www.latercera.com/contenido/739_252611_9.shtml
The rise in CO2 levels was predictable: CO2 lags temperature by around 800 years….it’s been that long since the MWP.
Just a head’s up that there is a really interesting to and fro on Dr. Pielke’s Sr. blog between him, Dr. Trenberth and Dr. Willis.
Such as – “….You should also note that Karina’s paper suffered from errors in the altimeter data that were still not corrected at the time of her paper. These errors tended to make the altimeter time series show too much global sea level rise, and after correcting them the trend in globally averaged sea level since 2004 or 2005 is significanly lower.
Finally, I do not think that any of the techniques used by various groups should be supressing the global warming signal in the data over the period from 2005 to the present. As I mentioned above, the Argo data coverage during this period is such that any reasonable interpolation technique should do. Capturing the trend over 50 years, however, is another story.
Cheers,
Josh”
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/further-feedback-from-kevin-trenberth-and-feedback-from-josh-willis-on-the-ucar-press-release/
Simplicio (10:00:03) writes:
According to the NOAA website, “Climate scientists and climate modelers from around the world use the Mauna Lao data to project the state of the Earth’s climate.”
That seems farcical to me but can anyone explain to me how taking measurements of carbon dioxide on top of a volcano in the middle of an ocean has anything to do with man’s emissions of CO2?
———–
It produces the desired result.
” E.M.Smith (11:40:17) :
[…]
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/of-trees-volcanos-and-pond-scum/
”
ChiefIO, interesting essay, but one word re the “one generation short of CO2 depletion”: Lack of CO2 would cause a plant die-back and release some CO2 again; a forest fire would do the same, rotting trees do the same so the game of life can always continue – albeit on a nearly depleted atmospheric level of CO2 – always just short of starvation if you will…
Ian L. McQueen (12:18:46) :
a’a and pahoehoe are both types of basalt.
The larger categories are Basalt, Ryholite and Andesite – which is essentially a mixture of Basalt and Granite. The difference between Ryholite and Granite is that Ryholite made it to the surface before cooling.
crosspatch (11:58:50) :
The reason that high silica magmas can be explosive is because they contain a lot of water. The compressibility of liquids and solids is much to low to store the energy required to create a large explosion.
Hawaiian basalts are not explosive because they don’t come into contact with much water, unless the lava flow pours into the sea.
PDF document on Concepcion city movement to the west:
http://www.usachaldia.cl/images/stories/pdf/terremoto-chile.pdf
“70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. Where did that water come from? ”
The “Water Fairy”, you dolt! Didn’t your mother teach you ANYTHING?
FOR
Walter M. Clark (20:33:36):
And there was evening and morning the first day…
The old Hebrew words for morning and evening were the same agricultural words for opening a furrow to plant (morning) and closing the furrow (evening). So the words evening and morning can be argued to mean God’s starting the “planting” and finishing it.
Also, the word to create, in Old Hebrew “barah” means to create from nothing. God “barahed” the heavens and the earth. the Bible uses the O.H. “asah” for the days of creation meaning to create, as a sculptor from clay, from some material already present.
“There are various types of volcanoes. Let’s remember the story of Pompeii, for instance, where the entire city was buried under streams of lava. But Icelandic volcanoes are unique, and their eruptions are completely different,” Fyodorov explained.
“These volcanoes are dry, because ashes ejections are dehydrated to 0.5% unlike, for instance, Indonesia volcanoes with the level of humidity at 8%. Since dry volcanoes emit small amount of haloid acids (HCl; HBr), chances of acid rains after the eruption are very slim. However, ejected ashes may form a “hot cloud” which is a mixture of ashes, gas and water steam that transform into a heavy vapor suspended matter and blanket flatlands.
http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/disasters/19-04-2010/113073-volcano-0