When the ice melts, the Earth spews fire
GEOMAR researchers discover a link between climate and volcanic eruptions
It has long been known that volcanic activity can cause short-term variations in climate. Now, researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), together with colleagues from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) have found evidence that the reverse process also occurs: Climate affects volcanic activity. Their study is now online in the international journal “Geology”.
In 1991, it was a disaster for the villages nearby the erupting Philippine volcano Pinatubo. But the effects were felt even as far away as Europe. The volcano threw up many tons of ash and other particles into the atmosphere causing less sunlight than usual to reach the Earth’s surface. For the first few years after the eruption, global temperatures dropped by half a degree. In general, volcanic eruptions can have a strong short-term impact on climate. Conversely, the idea that climate may also affect volcanic eruptions on a global scale and over long periods of time is completely new. Researchers at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) and Harvard University in Massachusetts (USA) have now found strong evidence for this relationship from major volcanic eruptions around the Pacific Ocean over the past 1 million years. They have presented their results in the latest issue of the international journal “Geology”.
The basic evidence for the discovery came from the work of the Collaborative Research Centre “Fluids and Volatiles in Subduction Zones (SFB 574). For more than ten years the project has been extensively exploring volcanoes of Central America. “Among others pieces of evidence, we have observations of ash layers in the seabed and have reconstructed the history of volcanic eruptions for the past 460,000 years,” says GEOMAR volcanologist Dr Steffen Kutterolf, who has been with SFB 574 since its founding. Particular patterns started to appear. “There were periods when we found significantly more large eruptions than in others” says Kutterolf, the lead author of the Geology article.After comparing these patterns with the climate history, there was an amazing match. The periods of high volcanic activity followed fast, global temperature increases and associated rapid ice melting.
To expand the scope of the discoveries, Dr Kutterolf and his colleagues studied other cores from the entire Pacific region. These cores had been collected as part of the International Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and its predecessor programmes. They record more than a million years of the Earth’s history. “In fact, we found the same pattern from these cores as in Central America” says geophysicist Dr Marion Jegen from GEOMAR, who also participated in the recent study.Together with colleagues at Harvard University, the geologists and geophysicists searched for a possible explanation. They found it with the help of geological computer models. “In times of global warming, the glaciers are melting on the continents relatively quickly. At the same time the sea level rises. The weight on the continents decreases, while the weight on the oceanic tectonic plates increases. Thus, the stress changes within in the earth to open more routes for ascending magma” says Dr Jegen.
The rate of global cooling at the end of the warm phases is much slower, so there are less dramatic stress changes during these times. “If you follow the natural climate cycles, we are currently at the end of a really warm phase. Therefore, things are volcanically quieter now. The impact from man-made warming is still unclear based on our current understanding” says Dr Kutterolf. The next step is to investigate shorter-term historical variations to better understand implications for the present day.
Reference:
Kutterolf, S., M. Jegen, J. X. Mitrovica, T. Kwasnitschka, A. Freundt, P. J. Huybers (2012): A detection of Milankovitch frequencies in global volcanic activity. Geology, G33419.1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G33419.1
Models and simulations are not a bad thing, all of the electronics around you is designed and simulated with models. But these models are actually validated in a lab on a test bench and we understand how the components in the design work together. We don’t have this level of understanding with weather/climate.
mpainter says:
December 21, 2012 at 5:10 am
Re: Mt. St. Helens video:
This has video, talking heads, and diagrams. [7.5 mins.]
http://gallery.usgs.gov/videos/234#.UNSTGuRHToI
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
There has been significant volcanic activity during cold periods on the planet, it was less clear what the connection is, this paper ads to the discussion and the discovery or a true connection.
Try putting the horse in front of the cart !
Earth as 2 million cubic miles of fisssionable material under high heat, high pressure and variable particle bombardments from solar and galactic cosmic rays. This results in variable fission with two by-products, heat and elemental atoms. Heat causes expansion and the daughter elemental atoms take up more space than the single parent atom, with both forces causing increased mantle pressure. The climate/tectonic signal is then masked by offsetting self-buffering systems at the surface. For example, the internal mantle warming from tectonics is hidden by atmospheric ash that reduces solar insolation. Since CO2 is one of the natural elemental compounds formd from this variable fission, this change is also reflected with a six month lag period in atmospheric level changes. The ice pack rebound hpothesis hardly applies to the vast number of ocean and tropical volcanoes that have not be buried since the Popcycle Planet era. Earth’s baseline temperature is set by variable mantle fission, and tectonics is a real time reflection of those changes.
Thanks John H. didn’t get back to my computer to answer mpainter..
It certainly seems to be true that adding or shifting millions of tons of weight at different points on the earth’s surface can cause earthquakes; Matt Ridley recounts that the cause of the 2008 quake in China which killed 80,000 people was the added 300 million tons of water behind a large new hydro dam:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/seismic-risks-depend-on-location-not-technology.aspx
If the added weight of so much water can cause earthquakes, then it should be able to affect volcanos. Many Central American volcanoes aren’t far from where one set of tectonic plates go under the plates on which the volcanos lie. If you cause tens of meters of land to all of a sudden become covered with water, which is what happens when an ice age goes to an interglacial, you cause some land to sink with the extra weight, you are changing the forces that allow magma to travel toward the surface, or so it seems to me.
Whether that has relevance to today is unclear, we aren’t going through a period of increasing sea levels by almost 400 feet, which is what happened when the ice ages turned into the interglacial. Suppose that sea levels rose two feet in a century: would that cause added vulcanism? That is what the issue will be for science (as opposed to the PR firms).
Faux Science Slayer says:
December 21, 2012 at 9:31 am
Earth as 2 million cubic miles of fisssionable material under high heat, high pressure and variable particle bombardments from solar and galactic cosmic rays. This results in variable fission with two by-products, heat and elemental atoms.
Faux indeed…
Geoff Sherrington said @ur momisugly December 21, 2012 at 3:28 am
I took the first year geology course at UTAS nearly ten years ago. While Carey’s work wasn’t covered in the formal lectures, there were several optional lunch-time lectures provided, one of which was a presentation of expanding earth theory by one of Carey’s students. As your link also demonstrates, access to Carey’s ideas is available not only through the school (which he founded), but also by the availability of the papers from the expanding earth symposium. How is this “lock[ing] out dissent”?
Much expanding earth info here:
http://www.expanding-earth.org/
As usual there is a difference between the abstract matter of fact and the lyrical press release…
Here is the much more constrained and sober abstract:
“A rigorous detection of Milankovitch periodicities in volcanic output across the Pleistocene-Holocene ice age has remained elusive. We report on a spectral analysis of a large number of well-preserved ash plume deposits recorded in marine sediments along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Our analysis yields a statistically significant detection of a spectral peak at the obliquity period. We propose that this variability in volcanic activity results from crustal stress changes associated with ice age mass redistribution. In particular, increased volcanism lags behind the highest rate of increasing eustatic sea level (decreasing global ice volume) by 4.0 ± 3.6 k.y. and correlates with numerical predictions of stress changes at volcanically active sites. These results support the presence of a causal link between variations in ice age climate, continental stress field, and volcanism.”
Since the superb pioneering work by James A. Clark, W.E. Farrell and W.R. Peltier “Global Change in Post glacial Sea Level: a numerical calculation in Quaternary research 9, 265-281 (1978):
“The sea-level rise due to ice-sheet melting since the last glacial maximum was not uniform
everywhere because of the deformation of the Earth’s surface and its geoid by changing ice
and water loads. A numerical model is employed to calculate global changes in relative sea level
on a spherical viscoelastic Earth as northern hemisphere ice sheets melt and fill the ocean basins
with meltwater. Predictions for-the past 16,000y explain a large proportion of the global
variance in the sea-level record, particularly during the Holocene. Results indicate that the oceans
can be divided into six zones, each of which is characterized by a specific form of the relative
sea-level curve. In four of these zones emerged beaches are predicted, and these may form even
at considerable distance from the ice sheets themselves. In the remaining zones submergence
is dominant, and no emerged beaches are expected. The close agreement of these predictions
with the data suggests that, contrary to the beliefs of many, no net change in ocean volume
has occurred during the past 5000 years. Predictions for localities close to the ice sheets are
the most in error, suggesting that slight modifications of the assumed melting history and/or the
rheological model of the Earth’s interior are necessary.”
Mitrovica has worked with Peltier in the past. Although the 1978 paper was using a model, we have to remember that by then, science was not dictated by ideology and it was the disparity of seemingly contradictory observations that prompted Clark’s reflection, not the model forcing itself upon real science. Clark explained these observations elegantly.
This sentence in the new paper “Our analysis yields a statistically significant detection of a spectral peak at the obliquity period” gives the order of magnitude of the phenomenons and time scale that is discussed by these authors and de facto kills any alarmist interpretation of their result.
The principles are sound for the end of an ice age. A 125m rise in sealevel and enough continental ice loss to generate 25m of isostatic rebound in the Arctic (personal observation, Banks Island) does create a large change in tectonic stresses.
What does have a large impact post-glaciation on volcanic emissions is the loss of mountaintop glaciers in volcanic regions, though The extra mass stops volcanic eruptions that would otherwise have happened. The Champagne cork popping concept. As seen on Mt. St. Helens and beneath Antarctica. This is a local, not a regional or global event, however much the ashfall is seen globally This goes on for thousands of years after the principal deglaciation ends.
While technically correct, this report will be seized upon by Romm-McKibben-ist warmists, however, to support their extreme events (new term?), i.e. the volcanic portion, connection with a 2.1 mm/yr GMSL and 0.15C/decade global temperature rise.
I’ll put money on it.
P.S. Post extreme weather, how about “extreme events”? Population migration, wars, crop failures, election of Repubican governments …. all evidence of Global Warming from CO2.
I find such ideas hard to evaluate because geologists are still operating on a faulty and incorrect paradigm or model of the geological history of the shift from Pangea to the Present continents.The current theory of Continental Drift made a big splash in the 1960’s when subduction zones were found so scientists could understand how continents could move around on the surface of the planet, thus finally explaining that “Atlantic River,” as an airline ad once had it.
But the continents did not just skate around on the surface of the planet. The diameter of the Earth itself has increased. Part of the separation of the continents was caused by expansion of the globe. Now that is a startling idea from a very weird source (a young-Earth Creationist!)–but it is easily and cheaply tested.
Inflatable globes are easily bought on the internet (or sometimes, from toy stores) for just a few dollars apiece. I started with just two of them, inflated one to represent the current Earth, and started cutting the other one up to recreate Pangea, beginning with taping America, Europe and Africa back together. I saw how edges matched, and how many river systems and continental edges were consistent with the idea of expansion from an originally smaller diameter (roughly 2/3 current diameter). Antarctica fits into the Pacific neatly enough, but what about the Arctic? That part puzzled me for a while until I noticed its corkscrew shape, and realized that it had twisted open.
The Cambrian and other early eras are deep ocean life. That is because Pangea was entirely underwater. There was no land until the end of the Devonian.
More recent eras are especially scrambled up. We know this especially from the Piri Reis map, which dates from before Columbus and shows lands that were then unknown.These were depicted in greater accuracy than then-currently-known areas. Among other things, Antarctica is shown as it would appear without ice. I do not believe research that requires the Antarctic ice sheet to be more than perhaps 100 000 years old.
Does Willis Eschenbach’s post of July 30 2012 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/30/new-data-old-claims-about-volcanoes/ not cast some doubt about the linking of volcanic eruptions with falls in global temperature?
@ladylifegrows, inform yourself on the differences between Wegener’s Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics…
RE: St. Helens, @tgmccoy and mpainter: the blast caused the landslide. According to the photo-sequence and a bunch of other geologists who were there, the landslide started first and “uncorked” the blast a few seconds later. Pressure and magma movement caused a large, weakened bulge on the north face. That eventually gave way reducing overburden pressure on the magma chamber and then the gases in to expand it a near supersonic blast.
Look at this video of St. Helens from Raging Planet.
1:00 – 1:16 “Just after 8:30 that morning, the last of a series of earthquakes hit … triggering one of the largest landslides in recorded history.”
1:16 Start of Video of north slope as it slides.
1:16 to 1:22 there is only landslide. No ash.
1:23 is the moment of the first jet of ash venting just below the peak
1:26 cut to 1st person observer talking. “entire north face was sliding down.”
1:36 cut back to the video: Black ash plume 90% up the peak, grey ash plume jetting laterally about 50 % up near the top of the slump.
1:42 plumes accelerate
1:49 end of video.
4 panel diagram of the St Helens slump-eruption.
http://www.mt-st-helens.com/images/image013_1_.gif
[]
My God! They discovered isostatic adjustments, again.
mpainter, I don’t know where the movie is but here is some discussion, http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/
That volcanic cooling is complete nonsense. it stays up there in the stratosphere and never reaches the troposphere. Pinatubo cooling is simply a misidentification of a naturally occurring La Nina cooling as volcanic cooling because its timing just happened to coincide with that expected from the eruption. Same is also true of other so-called “volcanic” cooling incidents. But what happens when the timing of the eruption is wrong? What happens is that an El Nino warming takes place and there is nary a sign of any cooling. This is what happened to El Chichon in Mexico – no cooling after it, just an El Nino warm peak. There are also intermediate cases. Read my book “What Warming?” pages 17-19.
Aside to a degree. My Ex-Brother in law thought it a good thing to take wife and kids to St. Helens
for an “Educational experience” they were on the south east side when they camped out near Cougar reservoir they noticed no frogs croaking or birds singing.I have both Appalachian, Ozark and Western Kansas roots. Signs like that would set my ‘ol “Cherokee Radar” (as my Pop called it) off.Get the heck out of Dodge and take cover.. Well somehow they evaded the “Red Zone”
roadblocks and restrictions and were right on the south edge of the blast/slide.
He had pictures that were every bit as good as the most famous of them- from the south.
they barely escaped..
Never got caught…
No one knew they were also….
His middle name was, I kid not, Darwin….
By same logic, mega hydro dams are changing earths orbital wobble and will cause volcanoes where none have been before. What are we to call the 3rivers volcano in china?(sarc)
Interacting dynamos could be physically modelled to get a rough estimation of change in solar activity= what change in earth effect.
However the abstract is interesting speculation and it can be tested, how? Wait for paywall to drop?
Dearest Leif
Radon has a half-life of only 3.8 days. Radon is an inert gas and can only come from nuclear decay. Earthquake monitoring well frequently report Radon spikes just prior to events. Nuclear decay produces vast quantities of heat and loose Neutrons and Protons which then form daughter “elemental” atoms. The combined volume of these daughter atoms would occupy a larger space than the parent atoms. Please provide the Leif approved explaination for the obviously non-constant tectonic activity. And AGW is not the only faux science that needs to be slayed.
Humble Science Monk
The Raging Planet video, while well done, is a photomorph of the photo sequence from Gary Rosenquist. Here is a youtube video by “theoutofdoors” that maintains the stills and puts time on them to the second.
It is still a photo superposition, but it is much clearer to see the original data. Rosenquist took at least ten photos, but only 5 mosaics are shown here.
0:08 8:32:21 am. pre slide.
0:10 8:32:47 am slump in progress.
0:13 8:32:53.3 am peak and mid mountain ash jets in progress.
0:16 8:33:05.7 am bigger ash cloud to top of photo, not yet to foot of slump.
0:20 8:33:18.8 am ash above top of picture, overtaking slump foot.
0:24 end of photo sequence
Last one: Voight 1981 annotate image from Rosenquist. 8:32:47
Annotating Landslide I (at the base), which initiated Landslide II (near the top), and the white are in the center is “ice avalanches.”
http://www.sedimentaryores.net/Cascades/MtStHelens/Eruption_sequence_fig3_600.html
Hmmmmm.
Can’t help but think that if there is something to this, then it’s a small factor.
The Earth system is somewhat complex – I think that’s agreed..
WUWT readers and contibutors have combined to produce a list of scores of [possible to somewhat probable] factors in climate variation.
I have no idea what weights to give all these factors.
No one factor, I think, is likely to be preponderant.
Whether Kutterolf et. al. have highlighted a new factor or not – nd whther this has any weight at all – it has provided some debate – much heat, some light. Appreciated.
@DirkH
“Rogue Star” by Frederik Pohl has your sentient star.
Lady Life Grows said:
“The diameter of the Earth itself has increased. Part of the separation of the continents was caused by expansion of the globe.”
This was a theory that we all had to endure as undergraduates back in my day, simply because it was a theory that several scientists had, just as Velikovsky had a bunch of theories that also flew in the face of physics and are now considered to be nonsense. By the time I did my graduate work over thirty some years ago this was no longer something considered as possible. With the advent of fantastic satellite information it can be proven, which it has been:
Wu et al, 2011, Accuracy of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame origin and Earth expansion, Geophysical Research Letters, V 38, l13304, 5 pp.
A quote from the abstract that says it all:
“Here, we use multiple precise geodetic data sets and a simultaneous global estimation platform to determine that the ITRF2008 origin is consistent with the mean CM at the level of 0.5 mm yr−1, and the mean radius of the Earth is not changing to within 1σ measurement uncertainty of 0.2 mm yr−1. “
Lady Life Grows also said:
“The Cambrian and other early eras are deep ocean life. That is because Pangea was entirely underwater. There was no land until the end of the Devonian.”
Where do you get off posting this pseudo-science BS as if you speak from authority? Have you not heard of Gondwanaland? Large parts of Africa, Middle East, Antarctica, China were all land areas throughout the Cambrian through Devonian.
This is well-understood science based on countless published information.
God save us from liberal educations.