Click image for the story. h/t to WUWT reader “Eric”.
I’m always amazed at the lack of historical perspective some people have related to natural disasters. It’s doubly amazing when reporters who work in newspapers, who have huge archive resources at their disposal, don’t even bother to look. Here’s some excerpts from the story:
“There is certainly some literature that talks about the increased occurrence of volcanic eruptions and the removing of load from the crust by deglaciation,” said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta. “It changes the stress load in the crust and maybe it opens up routes for lava to come to the surface.
“It is conceivable that there would be some increase in earthquake activity during periods of rapid changes on the Earth’s crust.”
Other scientists, however, believe that tectonic movements similar to the one that caused the Japanese quake are too deep in the Earth to be affected by the pressure releases caused by glacier melt.
…
Some experts claim that jump can be explained by the increased number of seismograph stations — more than 8,000 now, up from 350 in 1931 — allowing scientists to pinpoint earthquakes that would otherwise have been missed.
But this does not explain the recent increase in major earthquakes, which are defined as above 6 on the Richter magnitude scale. Japan’s earthquake was a 9.
Scientists have been tracking these powerful quakes for well over a century and it’s unlikely that they have missed any during at least the last 60 years.
According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey there were 1,085 major earthquakes in the 1980s. This increased in the 1990s by about 50 per cent to 1,492 and to 1,611 from 2000 to 2009. Last year, and up to and including the Japanese quake, there were 247 major earthquakes.
There has been also a noticeable increase in the sort of extreme quakes that hit Japan. In the 1980s, there were four mega-quakes, six in the 1990s and 13 in the last decade. So far this decade we have had two. This increase, however, could be temporary.
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A couple of faults in the argument, from the NYT, 1879:
As many as 200,000 people died in the 1855 quake.
And again in 1896:
and also….1923
h/t to Steve Goddard, who has been doing a lot of historical research here: http://news.google.com/newspapers
Tsunami is a Japanese word. Japan is also known as the “land of the tsunami”.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/fkrauss/tsunami/word.html :
“The term “Tsunami” comes from the Japanese word for harbor (tsu) and wave (nami). The origins of the word are not surprising given that the majority of tsunamis occur within the Pacific Ocean and vicinity of Japan.
The term is said to have Originated with Fishermen when, upon returning to port, found the area surrounding the harbour devastated, even though they had not been aware of anything out of the ordinary while fishing in the open ocean”
As an example of the poor understanding of the public on this issue, see this letter to the Daily Telegraph today:
“SIR – Boris Johnson (Comment, March 14) should not dismiss the idea that mankind’s extraction of coal and oil from the Earth’s crust could be affecting seismic activity.
Global warming due to increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere – resulting mainly from the combustion of oil and coal – is melting the ice caps. As the polar ice melts where it rests on the earth’s crust, the pressure is reduced. Magma previously held in check then fluidises in ways that can lead to volcanic eruptions.
Professor Bill McGuire, a vulcanologist at University College, London, says we can expect more seismic activity as a consequence of global warming.”
Whatever the melt state of the polar ice caps, no amount of melting of the Arctic ice cap would have any impact on the earth’s crust – Greenland perhaps, but not the ice cap.
The lint to the letter in the Telegraph is:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/8383860/Fukushima-crisis-in-Japan-is-no-reason-to-drop-our-nuclear-programme.html
I’ve heard everything from global warming, melting ice caps, nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s, and oil and gas extraction. [snip]
I guess the idea of continental sized sheets of the earth’s crust grinding against, shooting over, and running under each other isn’t dramatic enough. All you need to do is look at Japan’s geography to know that it is going to get hammered by volcanos, earthquakes and tsunamis… and of course it has for ages eternal.
Maybe the earth is getting ready for the massive pole shift of >50 degrees that will exterminate all life as we know it in 2012? :>)
The self-centered mind is limited only by its perspective.
Absolutely agree. If geomagnetic storms play any part, and that is by no way certain, at least they are predictable anything up to 48 hours in advance. Not much of a help if location of a fault gone ‘critical’ is not known, but every additional information is a step forward, and that is what science should be about.
I shall update info as often as possible and eventually it will become clearer one way or the other, or not at all.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKOv45euGxU&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0%5D
I’m beginning to believe that “fear of Global Warming” will become a legitimitate mental illness (at least a phobia http://phobialist.com/) that will appear in future editions of the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
It was a dark and stormy night.
I plugged the center of the road, pulled him over peaceable, and put it to him fast: “License and registration.”
“What’s the problem officer” he said, wallet digging – like he didn’t know.
“You know your gas mileage?” I asked.
“I think it’s about 10.” said the perp, starting to look scared.
There it was – planet death by warming – right in my face. So I ran him in, accessory to tsunami.
It was a bad business and the night was young.
ej: Just how many glaciers are in northern Japan, and how much have they melted?
“Several days ago an earthquake expert on the BBC stated very clearly that there is no trend in the global incidence of earthquakes.” Chris Wright
That would be more reassuring if I hadn’t spent the last four days listening to “experts” tell me that Japan’s nuclear power plants are blowing up, and it’s out of control, and we’re all gonna turn pink, bleed from all our orifices and die a slow, painful death.
I don’t know if the trend in earthquakes is significant. The numbers sort of look that way, but my mastery of statistics is no where near the level that would allow me to tell if that sequence is possibly due to chance. What I do know is that the vast majority of earth motion and probably virtually all large quakes are caused by the slow, inexorable motion of tectonic plates. And I don’t see how current human activity can significantly affect those motions.
Someday we might possibly be able to induce quakes on some faults and thereby convert a large earthquake into a number of smaller ones spread out over many years. But that day looks to be many decades away.
I blame George Bush.
Since time began, tidal activity has moved trillions of tonnes of the oceans water twice a day across the surface of the earth, a weight movement which might in itself affect what is happening beneath the earths surface. We cannot change that, and any variation of weight through a relatively minor ice melt, which has in itself being going on since time began, will therefore have no impact whatsoever on whats going on beneath the earths surface.
Yes it could all be due to global warming!!
(dodge some rotten eggs and boos)
Seriously there’s more to this than normal stupid alarmist rubbish and if anyone doubts me I did some calculations which you can see here:
http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/global-warming-and-earthquakes/
It really is undeniable that a warming globe would not suffer from earthquakes … it just takes an awful long time.
” AGW causes earthquakes ”
Nah, it’s aliens
sarc/
ej:
“I’m not sure how any of your recent historical information applies to the pretty well understood process of isostatic rebound.”
And that, young Skywalker, is why you fail.
For the record, climate change also causes male pattern baldness and hemorrhoids.
IT”S THE PLATE TECTONICS PEOPLE!
http://www2.nau.edu/rcb7/globaltext2.html
Stupidity knows no bounds.
Once again, scientists are trying to explain something that is normal…
….by first describing it as abby-normal
“The resulting Black Sea Flood filled the entire Euxine in no more than forty days,…”
Where have I heard that 40 days stuff before?
Suppose that it is theoretically possible that glacial melt could trigger more earthquakes by adding marginally more weight to the ocean’s waters.
If that is true, then the people who study volcanos (by looking as volcanic ash layers) should be able to tell us, if not now then fairly soon, whether there was a very large increase in volcanos in the period about 13,000 years ago when the huge ice caps in North America and Scandanavia melted and raised sea levels about 300 feet (not the one foot per century of the 1900s, which is also the current rate).
Let’s let science settle this one.
George Lawson says:
March 16, 2011 at 4:54 am
Since time began, tidal activity has moved trillions of tonnes of the oceans water…
You forgotten to factor in that the moon has been steadily moving away from this planet. So, the exertion from the moon is weaker and weaker over billions of years.
and also… 1928
It should read 1923, not 1928.
REPLY: fixed thanks-A
There is perhaps a glimpse of sanity, http://www.detnews.com/article/20110316/AUTO01/103160336/1148/auto01/House-gets-bill-to-bar-EPA–Calif.-from-limiting-emissions
The Washington Times has a solid editorial on the question today:
More here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/15/justifying-japanese-judgment-day/print/
/Mr Lynn