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.
======================================================
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
I’m a bit ashamed to be Canadian today. I’m from Calgary but did not see this story because I NEVER READ THE HEARLD and nonsense like this is the reason why.
Joe Laonde: “The simple explanation is that with less atmospheric pressure exerting on the planet surface, centrifugal force under the planets crust exerts out. A balance of pressures and gravity in a physical mechanical format.”
Really where did you get that less atmospheric pressure was exerted? Read Leroux!
Doesn’t this mean that if we enter a global cooling phase that increased ice would accumulate more stress and pressure on the underlying crust leading to stronger, more frequent earthquakes? After all, if I weigh the surface down so that it’s harder move, then when it does move, it’s going to have a lot more stress built up. Global warming though causes global cooling too, so I guess in the end, it’s still global warming that’s to blame.
Oh come on Mr. Marsden! Everybody knows that the rate of earth-quakes increase when a black hole is approaching!
I am surprised that the Calgarians who commented did not catch this considering half of the city thinks the person who “reported” this is one of the greatest people ever borne there. When I saw the “journalist’s” picture in the top right corner and saw her first name, I had to go to the official site to verify her last name. With my suspicion correct, I went to her Bio on her official web site to verify. The reason that she did such a crappy job of verifying her facts is simply because she isn’t a journalist and has had no education what so ever to become one. She is a Canadian Rock star, and not a very good one in my opinion. this is just another case of a celebrity said something and we should just shut up and believe it because they are a celebrity.
[if you look at the page again you will see that the article was written by a man called William]
Leif Svalgaard says: March 16, 2011 at 7:22 am
…………….
As a scientist you should know that one always can find an exception either in favour, against or non-conclusive, as far as some event is concerned.
I am not looking for a particular case of evidence for, against or neither, but considering a regular survey of all cases above certain intensity.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
That is how science was done, before the AGWs and some others came on the scene, but again I should know that you think that no rule should have an exception.
Well of course global warming could cause earthquakes.
According to the latest in Teracomputing models, if the earth had no way to get rid of excess energy, the Temperature would go to 800,000 K in a billion years; you can bet, that would result in some earthquakes.
How much global warming, did they say in this informative article; remember that the total Temperature range on earth these days, only goes from about -90 deg C to about +60 deg C. I don’t know what the average Temperature coefficient of Expansion is over that Temperature range, for the earth.
No! It’s the moon! Locked out of free rotation by its quadrupole moment the moon takes revenge by moving huge masses of water daily and creating appreciable ripples in the earth’s crust.
Seriously though, what are the (rhythmic) forces of the moon spread over entire tectonic plates as compared to glacial redistributions?
Should we remove this offending body?
I’m shocked. Shocked that it took several days after the earthquake to blame it on global warming. Chicken Little seems to be off his game these days.
vukcevic says:
March 16, 2011 at 10:00 am
As a scientist you should know that one always can find an exception either in favour, against or non-conclusive, as far as some event is concerned.
This problem has been extensively studied by geophysicists and no solid evidence has been found [as with many other things, there are many claims, of course]. Some references here: http://geomag.usgs.gov/downloads/publications/Thomas_et_al_Loma_Prieta_PEPI_2009.pdf
vukcevic says:
March 16, 2011 at 10:00 am
As a scientist you should know that one always can find an exception
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/faq/?categoryID=6&faqID=343
Some good stuff and some quackery. For one, the Younger Dryas was about 12kBP, not 5. SO4? Pretty silly. Maximum adjustment is presently occurring south of the Great Lakes, where little seismic activity. Not so long ago Lake Michigan drained into the Mississippi, and it is likely the Caspian once drained into the Arctic. LOD (sidereal) is best (or at least easiest) secular proxy for GIA: about .3ms/century acceleration due to GIA, opposite 1.7ms/century tidal deceleration. Since atomic clocks deceleration is arrested on secular scale, suggesting insignificant loss of land based polar ice, and placing limits on possible sea level rise.
One or two possible mechanisms for solar radiation/earthquake correlation: solar influenced electromagnetic core/mantle coupling leading to “toroidal jerks”; zonal winds contribute to atmospheric coupling and have a strong seasonal effect on LOD, but probably produce instantaneous torques of orders of magnitude less than earth tides and core/mantle jerks.
Adjustment to Greenland is overwhelmed by continued adjustment to the LIA and Last Glacial Maximum, where it is easily measured, if not easily attributed to one or the other. LOD indicates ice loss at the end of the LIA but cannot distinguish between LIA and LGM rebound without guesswork. Groundwater depletion leads to considerable local subsidence, and may have triggered a quake or two–of course the continents ride on top of the plates, and surface events have no effect on the plates themselves–we’re talking triggers only–not quake frequency. We must scrupulously distinguish between the two: earthquake prediction versus quake frequency.
Leif Svalgaard says: March 16, 2011 at 11:17 am
…………..
I think you got it all wrong again.
I didn’t say ‘there is a link’, I said ‘if there is a link’
There is a difference between two. I may find out that definitely there isn’t.
Can’t understand why you are so bothered. You can look at the last fortnight data
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
it is not long enough to start speculating if there is or there is not.
You can do your own survey.
Print that Calgary article in Japanese and they’ll wonder if all “gaijin” are really so stupid.
afraid4me says:
I’m shocked. Shocked that it took several days after the earthquake to blame it on global warming. Chicken Little seems to be off his game these days
Not really. It was already being bandied about at “Grist” later the same day. Check the WUWT archives.
Idiots. Where does the word “tsunami” come from?
Careful! Don’t be a denier of Anthropogenic Earthquakes! (Also known as induced seismicity.)
In the 1960s, the U.S. Army induced many hundreds of tremors in the Denver, Colorado, area by injecting liquid chemical waste 12,000 feet under the Rocky Mountain Arsenal weapons plant. Two or three were of magnitutde 5.0 – 5.3.
– Overviews by the USGS and U.S. Army.
– Articles in Journal of Geophysical Research (pdf) and Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (abstract).
– Significant Denver earthquakes in the 1960s.
– Induced Earthquake Bibliography
– USGS Earthquake website.
vukcevic says:
March 16, 2011 at 11:56 am
it is not long enough to start speculating if there is or there is not.
Geophysicists have studied this for a hundred years and found nothing. Yours is just the usual armchair alarmism.
You know, I used to frequent this site quite a bit and have questions about global warming and climate change myself. I was able to get clear answers to those questions from some rather friendly geologists and climatologists within the UMASS Amherst geosciences department. Then I come back here and question the logic behind a post and I’m ridiculed by people for even having the audacity of speaking against what Watts might say. That doesn’t even include the misunderstanding of geology and physics included in some of those replies.
I’d say it’s you guys who have the religion and unquestionable dogma. Good luck ignoring anything you don’t agree with.
ej clairm says:
Then I come back here and question the logic behind a post and I’m ridiculed by people for even having the audacity of speaking against what Watts might say.
Your first post can hardly be characterized as “questioning the logic”. You started off with an attack of a political nature. Then you expect everyone else to NOT respond in kind?
It seems to me that you’ve used questionable logic yourself…
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 16, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Yours is just the usual armchair alarmism.
No it is not, I have initiated an innovative and new research, not done before.
Sometimes you write load of nonsense. It would be useful if you red what you are commenting on.
Quote: It is not claimed that geomagnetic storm is a primary cause of any earthquake. However if conditions for an earthquake are ‘ripe’, then solar storm could be a trigger (not the cause) for it, and bring it forward for few hours or days.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
Let me explain in simple terms what that means:
If Japanese earthquake was ‘ripe’ for occurring, i.e. geological fault has gone critical, it may have occurred instead of the last Friday on Sunday or yesterday. There was a large solar flare in mid week, geomagnetic disturbance occurred some hours later, late Thursday evening-Friday morning ( I recorded it here http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Japan.gif ). A small trigger was enough to bring whole thing down just few hours or days earlier then it would happen otherwise. So if during one solar cycle there is x of eqs, this is not going to make any noticeable difference to total number or strength.
So of what use is this?
Well, there were few pre-shocks, we were not to know that a major quake will follow, but there was a possibility. Since we knew that there was a strong geomagnetic storm going on ( I actually posted this on WUWT some 8 hours prior to the quake:
vukcevic says:
March 10, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Currently geomagnetic field is getting seriously shaken:
(WUWT link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/sol-is-finally-waking-up/#comment-617659 )
then all areas with tremors during the previous 12-24 hours could get an alert.
Not an ‘armchair alarmism’ but a possibly useful additional information.
So your obfuscation and continuous negative attitude to any progress, is to put it mildly damaging and even deplorable.
ej clairm,
I didn’t see anyone denying the possibility that isostatic adjustment might cause earthquakes….at the time and in the area where the isostatic adjustment took place. Jeez, man, the subduction zone off the coast of Japan has no connection to the isostatic adjustments that took place at the time the glaciers and ice sheets melted in Asia and No. America. And if you are using the tortured logic that somehow melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica is causing subduction zone earthquakes in Japan, I tip my hat to you. You going to have to have some proof for that assertion, not just a feeling.
As for the possibility of slip fault man-made earthquakes, that is well documented, and recently there was an earthquake swarm in Faulkner Co., Arkansas, that was likely caused by two injection wells.
There is only one explenation for these recent earthquakes.. Comet Elenin a.k.a. Planet X, also known as Nibiru.. It is comming.. 🙁
[Reply: I approved this comment on the off chance that it is sarcasm. ~dbs, mod.]
vukcevic says:
March 16, 2011 at 2:08 pm
No it is not, I have initiated an innovative and new research, not done before.
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=12&month=03&year=2011
“COINCIDENCES: Many readers have asked if this week’s terrible earthquake in Japan was connected to the contemporaneous geomagnetic storms of March 10th and 11th. In short, no. There is no known, credible evidence of solar activity triggering earthquakes. Moreover, in the historical record, there are thousands of examples of geomagnetic storms without earthquakes, and similar numbers of earthquakes without geomagnetic storms. The two phenomena are not linked.”
[Reply: I approved this comment on the off chance that it is sarcasm. ~dbs, mod.]
Well, i hope i am wrong and that all i have read and seen outside of the mainstream media (wich seems to be a total black out) is complete false and just utter BS.
All i have seen is that a brown dwarf with 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter is closing in to our solar system. It will pass pass earth on 0.232 AU mid October this year. The Chili and Japan earthquake fall together with allignments in planets, the Sun and “comet” Elenin.
Here is a NASA source to view its path.. IF this is true, we are in for some nasty times and the Japan earthquake is just the beginning..
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=elenin&orb=1
Hope u let this comment through mod.