Japan has heightened monitoring on the Island of Kyushu, in the wake of a 6.4 Earthquake. Kyushu is a highly volcanic region which includes a the Aira Caldera and Mount Aso, VEI-7 volcanoes. The last major VEI-7 eruption, the eruption of Mount Tambora, is associated with the year without a Summer, a period of widespread famine and crop failure which occurred in 1816.
Japan earthquake: thousands flee fearing volcanoes and aftershocks
At least 44,000 people evacuated following 6.4-magnitude quake that killed at least nine.
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from earthquake-hit southern Japan as dozens of aftershocks struck and officials monitored nearby volcanoes for signs of activity.
A total of 44,000 people were evacuated late on Thursday in the town of Mashiki after a magnitude-6.4 earthquake collapsed buildings and damaged other infrastructure. Nine people have been confirmed dead, ranging in age from 29 to 94. A further eight are in serious condition, and more than 850 were injured.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has warned there are likely to be strong aftershocks for the next week and advised people to stay away from any buildings that look unstable.
There are also concerns about volcanic activity in the wake of the quake. The island of Kyushu, where the earthquake happened, is a highly volcanic area. A level 2 warning – meaning people should not approach a volcano’s crater – has been in place for Asosan in Kumamoto prefecture on the island since November 2015.
If, and this is a big if, this situation develops into a Tambora scale explosive eruption, the results could be devastating, both for Japan, and potentially for the entire Northern Hemisphere. Modern transportation may mitigate some of the effects, by allowing food from the Southern Hemisphere to be supplied to regions experiencing crop failures. But the resulting spike in food prices would be likely to cause severe hardship for the world’s poor.
Meanwhile our politicians pointlessly fritter away their time and our money, conducting climate witch hunts, and plotting to bankrupt affordable energy suppliers.
Update (EW): Added information about Mount Aso / Asosan
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Worry! but at a geologic rate.
+1
++^2
Prior to 1826 in the USA and 1836 in Canada inter-connected railroad lines were unknown, and still visionary at that time. And trucks? What’s a truck? Grain elevators – never heard of that. Is it like an elevator in a mall?
Only corn in the left one, please
Unzen and Aso
Parks ain’t so-so.
=============
Uhm, isn’t this going a little bit too far? I mean, ok, there was an M6 quake 10KM deep and several aftershocks in the area, granted. But isn’t springing immediately to a Tambora scale event a bit much in this case? Do we even know that these quakes were volcanic in origin and not tectonic at this point? And even if it is a precursor to volcanic activity, jumping immediately to an event on the scale of Tambora seems somehow a bridge too far.
The BBC did quite a reasonable radio show on the Year Without a Summer, last week ..they hid it away on Radio 3 here
..And actually they have another science discussion prog about it on Thursday at 9am 1816, the Year Without a Summer
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of the eruption of Mt Tambora,
Apparently there has just been another, stronger quake, M7.1 in the same regions just now. Also 10km deep.
Ok, enough of this for today. Another quake- M7 – in Japan?
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us20005iis#general
Yes, just happened according to CNN.
Not good, pretty much a direct hit on the town of Kumamoto-shi. not town, but city – population 680,000.
Eric, while I appreciate your efforts, the historical record shows that the “year without a summer” is not identifiable in the temperature record by inspection alone. See my post Missing the Missing Summer, take the tests to see if you can spot it in the contemporary records. TLDR version? You can’t do it.
Regards,
w.
What do you mean by “contemporary records?” 19th century records in contemporary archives? Or contemporary eruptions, like Pinatubo?
If there was a super-eruption in 1810, it messes up the records.
The eruption of 1810 was mentioned (as being in the ice-core records) in the comments of this old post. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/1815-1816-and-1817-a-polar-puzzle/
I likely should get off my butt and research it more.
Looking at Google Earth, the quakes appear to be associated with a linear feature trending SW to NE along the SE side of the bay. Don’t know if that means they are associated with Aso or not, but they are definitely not right under it.
I live in Japan and have lived through many large quakes and have seen a few small volcanic eruptions during my travels around the country over the years.
There is irrefutable evidence between large quakes being precursors to large volcanic eruptions; especially if they occur near active volcanoes.
Since the huge Fukushima quake in 2011, Mt. Fuji has experienced some increased volcanic actiivty: magma displacement, small tremors, slight increase in gas emissions, etc., leading one famous Japanese seismologist (Dr. Kimura) to predict an imminent Mt Fuji eruption in 2015….
Dr. Kimura was obviously wrong on the timing, but by how much?…
Mt Fuji is actually a very active volcano that has had 16 eruptions over the past 2800 years, or one every 180 years or so. The last big one was in 1707, so we’ll likely get another one sooner than later.
I’m lucky to live on a beach about 150 Km south east of my Fuji, so I get to see a gorgeous view of Mt Fuji almost every day. During the 1707 Mt. Fuji eruption, my area was covered by about 1 meter of ash, so I’ll have a ring-side seat if Mt. Fuji goes off anytime soon..
Don’t forget the happoshu and popcorn. Sounds like you could sell tickets when it blows. /sark
Seriously, the longer it has been since an eruption, the more crowded the area around the volcano becomes. Same thing holds for major earth quake areas and fault lines. People seem to have very short memories for that sort of thing. They are pretty blase about it until it starts smoking or shaking exponentially on a daily basis. Then they panic.
Well, there is a significant difference between a normal eruptive event at Fuji and a Tambora scale event which would blow about a quarter of the mountain away.
SAMURAI April 15, 2016 at 10:34 am
I’d like a citation to your “irrefutable evidence”, thanks. The reason I don’t think it exists is that if such a strong association existed, it would be used to predict volcanic eruptions.
Instead, eruptions are predicted by something entirely different—swarms of “microquakes” caused by the magma filling the reservoir under the volcano.
In any case, a citation would be great.
Regards,
w.
Willis-san:
Here is a good paper from Japanese seismologist Dr. Kimura (whom I referenced earlier) regarding the link between large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
https://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/EPS/pdf/2004/5602/56020179.pdf
Please also review the references at the end of this paper for additional research papers on the subject.
I’m certainly not suggesting that all large quakes are precursors to large eruptions, but there is strong evidence (perhaps “irrefutable” was not the best word choice) that prior to large eruptions, there is increased seismic activity, often including very large earthquakes.
Current research on this subject involves identifying unique characteristics of large earthquakes that occur prior to volcanic eruptions and what critical state the volcanoes are in prior to large earthquakes occurring.
BTW, today, an additional swarm of large earthquakes have occurred in Kyushu around Mt. Aso, following yesterday’s original earthquake. Some gas venting at the base of Mr. Aso has been reported, along with some landslides.
a numbers of large buildings are collapsing, including the exquisite Kumamoto Castle, which is slowly being torn apart by all the quakes… The death toll has increased to 11.
FYI, there are actually 5 separate mountain peaks that make up Mt. Aso, of which, Mt. Naka is the most active with 7 eruptions over the last 70 years.
Cheers, mate!
Thanks, sensei. You say:
and
SAMURAI April 15, 2016 at 11:13 pm
Willis-san:
Actually, the paper says the exact opposite. It claims that large volcanoes are the precursors of large earthquakes … see Table 2. So whatever correlations you have drawn from your misunderstanding of the paper are all incorrect … but of course, that’s only IF the paper is correct. So if you think your conclusions are indeed correct … then the paper is wrong.
Not only that, but Dr. Kimura counts large quakes occurring as much as 11 years!!! after the volcano as being supportive of his theory.
Sorry, amigo. I’ll admit that I haven’t run the numbers … but his claims are simply not believable. For example, he says:
Oh, please, spare me. A correlation coefficient of 0.99 is almost never seen in the earth sciences, nothing in earth science works like that. In fact, he has divided eruption-volcano pairs into “related eruptions” and “unrelated eruptions”, and guess what?
The “related eruptions” are astoundingly well correlated, 0.99. Who knew?
Given the large number of earthquakes around Japan, and given that it is a volcanic island with lots of eruptions, I can see how somebody might think that A is a precursor of B … but he certainly has NOT demonstrated that with his data.
Best regards,
w.
5.3
18km NE of Ozu, Japan
2016-04-15 18:03:12 UTC8.3 km
about 15 km from the center of ASO
Is that the third local quake, or a restatement of earlier estimates?
It shows 5 in the last 30 hrs on the significant quake list for that area.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B%22feed%22%3A%2230day_sig%22%2C%22search%22%3Anull%2C%22listFormat%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%22newest%22%2C%22basemap%22%3A%22grayscale%22%2C%22autoUpdate%22%3Atrue%2C%22restrictListToMap%22%3Atrue%2C%22timeZone%22%3A%22local%22%2C%22mapposition%22%3A%5B%5B4.825105964032956%2C-237.84468591213223%5D%2C%5B52.2123993369472%2C-181.59468591213223%5D%5D%2C%22overlays%22%3A%7B%22plates%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22viewModes%22%3A%7B%22map%22%3Atrue%2C%22list%22%3Atrue%2C%22settings%22%3Atrue%2C%22help%22%3Afalse%7D%7D
I hope the link works.
How do the 1815 Tambora and 1980 Mount St. Helens events compare for total ejecta?
If Wikipedia is correct, Tambora ejected about 15 times what St. Helens did.
The Tambora estimate varies widely, as you might expect. In my first 1816 web page, I settled on reporting
Pinatubo was some 2.4 mile³s.
My brother collected ash from St. Helens on his car’s winshield in Colorado. I got moderatedly excited when I saw yellow ash on my windwhield in New Hampshire, but quickly determined that the Pitch Pine pollen season had started and I had no ash.
I have a quart jar full of Mt. St. Helens ash my dad scraped off his car 300 miles downwind in N. Idaho. It’s a very light gray color, almost white. He was right in the middle of the ash plume, and day turned to night.
Hah! You should have been here in Georgia a few weeks ago. Blowing and drifting pollen, with yellow-out conditions.
My thoughts go out to my many friends and associates in Japan.
The Japanese have a large experience base on earthquakes that they can draw from in dealing with these two very recent large earthquakes.
John
Another, more powerful one…
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36059487
A more powerful earthquake has rocked the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto in the middle of the night, after an earlier tremor killed nine people.
The magnitude-7.3 quake at a depth of 10km (6 miles) hit at 01:25 on Saturday (15:25 GMT on Friday), causing some damage but no casualties.
Volcanoes like these are intensively monitored through a number of means e.g. distortion measurements and seismic recording. Unlike earthquakes, volcanoes usually give plenty or warning of a pending eruption. The seismic patterns of the 2 events are different. The belly of a volcano starts to rumble, commonly weeks before. A major earthquake is caused by sudden release of static force. There is usually no prior seismic signal.
In this instance, if the 2 are related the Japanese would know about it
The Japanese have some experience with earthquakes.
http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/earthquake.html
Mac
The dangers of concentrated volcanic activity are clearly proven, yet the authorities pay scant attention to the problem and prefer instead to drone endlessly on about the (non-existent) dangers of Global Warming.If, With luck this will not be another Tambora but wittering away resources on illusions means that there is less money to deal with the real crises. The Southern Hemisphere certainly stands ready to help regions experiencing crop failures, but if money had not been so wasted on futile research, wind-turbines, solar furnaces and other bankruptcies, there would be more money in the North, available to meet the disaster.
Exactly. I don’t think the people in Japan are worrying about the damage their CO2 emissions are causing right now; they’re too busy dealing with a real catastrophe. And that’s what this administration should be focusing on – dealing with – emergency preparedness. Atmospheric CO2 is a non-issue.
A bigger problem is air pollution from China. The atmosphere is hazy – not what is normally the case in maritime islands
I agree – I’ve read that even we get their pollution 10 days after they emit it as well. No amount of regulation here will get rid of that.
But to get back to the focus on CO2 emissions here – when there are some other more imminent and greater threats – is sheer insanity. Our government needs to focus on real disasters. CO2 and climate change just don’t qualify as “catastrophes”. I’m also waiting for CO2 to get the blame for the earthquakes…:)
When the Japanese started fracking in 1813, they were warned to stop. But no, they just continued. It was great and the oil was plentiful. Then the predicted earthquakes were triggered, and the huge Volcanic eruption… Of course, it was all covered up that the Emperor’s scientists had developed fracking AND a use for oil. A lesson learned until the evil American oil industry stumbled across fracking 120 years later…. to doom us all. /s
heh
Nice fantasy you have there RobM, but it wasn’t 1933 that the USA started fracking:
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Real-History-Of-Fracking.html
And since Drake’s Well
http://www.drakewell.org/
was found on August 27, 1859, starting the use of oil in the USA, I doubt that there was much facking going on in Japan in 1813…
So IF you had a joke in there, it has flown the coop…
Note that in the USA fracking has been done since 3 years after Drake’s Well… Nothing new is going on other than the use of water instead of explosives…
E.M. Smith… I know, these days it’s tough to spot pure sarcasm because of the way what would have been obvious is no longer the case. So.. I put a /s at he end to ensure my purpose… and a Heh. Your points are well taken. Plus, the Japanese never drill for oil, they just took from the Dutch. Heh
Mount Aso volcano erupts following violent earthquake streak in Japan…
https://www.rt.com/news/339788-japan-volcano-eruption-quakes/
SMALL eruption on Japan’s Mount Aso after earthquake.
8 hours ago
small eruptions are desireable as they release pressure gradually rather than bigs ones
..That doesnt mean its over yet
2nd larger earthquake happened after that I guess
Eric, why oh why the alarmist headline?
If I am correct, Taupo in New Zealand was bigger than Tambora.
Eric wrote: “The eruption of Mount Tambora, is associated with the year without a Summer, a period of widespread famine and crop failure which occurred in 1816.”
Idiocy: Tambora didn’t cause any year’s without a summer. New England suffered an unusually cold summer that was worsened by no more that 2 degC of volcanic cooling. Regional seasonal temperature varies by 2 degC from year to year; the change produced by Tambora was nothing unusual regionally. It is unusually cold somewhere in the world every summer – it happened to be New England’s turn in 1816. Europe suffered from excessive rain that caused crop failures compounded by loss of resilience and manpower during the Napoleonic Wars.
Massive volcanic eruptions are local crises, not global ones.
I have lived here most of my 63 years, and have not once seen it snow in June, nor seen frost in July. 1816 was a terrible year for farmers in New England. Don’t downplay the history.
Also the only record I can find of icebergs grounding on the shores of Ireland comes from that time.
I’m not saying this necessarily proves volcanoes caused the cold, but the history shows it was not a “normal” time.
Caleb: From http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-late-season-snowfalls
According to the National Weather Service, the latest New England snowfall in selected major cities was 0.5″ in Burlington on 5/10/1926 and Boston 5/10/1977. However, before the NWS:
“The even Greater Snow of June 1842. It should be noted that June snowfall in the Northeast is not a unique event to 1816. On June 11, 1842 widespread snow fell over northern New York and New England and snowflakes were observed in Cleveland, Ohio; Boston, Massachusetts; and even Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (a low elevation site). Accumulations of 10-12” were common in Vermont, so this event was actually more extreme than the more famous snow of June 1816.”
According to one website, the average earliest frost in central Vermont can be 9/1 and the average latest frosts mid-June. And lakeside Burlington is milder than central Vermont. Furthermore, 1816 was during the LIA, when GMST was more than 1 degC colder than today, plus the 2 degC of cooling from Tambora.
http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/vt.html
To a first approximation, the effect of volcanic aerosols is global, not regional. Changes in regional weather for a season are caused by unforced variability (chaos). I’m suggesting that common sense tells us a volcano can’t “cause” unusual cold in one particular region, just cooler temperatures globally that enhance unusual regional cold.
Thanks for the information. I was unaware of the 1842 event.
I’ve read that the effects of a volcano influence land temperatures more than sea temperatures, and this in turn makes the jet stream more loopy or “meridenal”. I imagine it takes a very un-summer-like jet stream to bring cold air down to Vermont.
The huge discharge of sea-ice down the east coast of Greenland after Tambora (perhaps exacerbated by a big 1810 eruption) is suggestive of a jet stream so loopy that it creates a strong cross-polar-flow.
Lastly, I suppose a lot depends on the preexisting state of the jet stream. If it was loopy to begin with you likely would get a different reaction than if the jet stream was very flat and zonal.
All in all it seems more complex than a general world-wide cooling. I think there was a big convention of meteorologists up in Toronto back before the focus became Global Warming (1978?) to discuss the complex reactions to aerosols. Dr. Tim Ball would likely know more.
In any case, thanks for contributing to the discussion and getting me thinking.
Caleb: Note my phrase, “To a first approximation …” AOGCMs have explored El Nino vs non-El Nino year. IIRC, more summer cooling than winter, etc. Stratospheric volcanic aerosol produce tremendous warming in the stratosphere from the SWR they absorb. Could the consequences of changes in the stratosphere be be more severe at some latitudes than others? Absolutely. Effect the jet stream? Sure. Focused on New England?
Clive Best has a video showing monthly global temperature anomalies by grid cell for over 165 years. Regional natural variability is high. Notice the temperature scale. 20th-century warming is the smallest color change displayed (+1 degC). Aerosol cooling from Tambora (-2 degC?), two units of color change. Total natural variability displayed +/-10 degC. Clive points out that others use a logarithmic scale to emphasize GW and downplay unforced variability. Surprisingly, recent cold winters on the East Coast of the US don’t stand out. Try Moscow winter in Dec 1941, when the German advance was halted.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=6972
Ecuador just got hit with a 7.4 quake around 20 minutes ago.
franktoo April 18, 2016 at 1:52 am
Thanks, Frank, but you and I must have very different senses. Common sense tells me that the effect of any point-source disturbance will be greatest adjacent to the source, and will decrease with increasing distance. Consider volcanic ash or earthquakes or suboceanic vents as several of thousands of examples. All of them have the greatest effect on the immediate vicinity.
w.