This is in addition to 47 already known about and eruption would melt more ice in region affected by climate change
This is in addition to 47 already known about and eruption would melt more ice in region affected by climate change
Saturday 12 August 2017 18.11 EDT Last modified on Saturday 12 August 2017 20.08 EDT
Scientists have uncovered the largest volcanic region on Earth – two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica.
The project, by Edinburgh University researchers, has revealed almost 100 volcanoes – with the highest as tall as the Eiger, which stands at almost 4,000 metres in Switzerland.
Geologists say this huge region is likely to dwarf that of east Africa’s volcanic ridge, currently rated the densest concentration of volcanoes in the world.
And the activity of this range could have worrying consequences, they have warned. “If one of these volcanoes were to erupt it could further destabilise west Antarctica’s ice sheets,” said glacier expert Robert Bingham, one of the paper’s authors. “Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.
“The big question is: how active are these volcanoes? That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
The Edinburgh volcano survey, reported in the Geological Society’s special publications series, involved studying the underside of the west Antarctica ice sheet for hidden peaks of basalt rock similar to those produced by the region’s other volcanoes. Their tips actually lie above the ice and have been spotted by polar explorers over the past century.
But how many lie below the ice? This question was originally asked by the team’s youngest member, Max Van Wyk de Vries, an undergraduate at the university’s school of geosciences and a self-confessed volcano fanatic. He set up the project with the help of Bingham. Their study involved analysing measurements made by previous surveys, which involved the use of ice-penetrating radar, carried either by planes or land vehicles, to survey strips of the west Antarctic ice.
The results were then compared with satellite and database records and geological information from other aerial surveys. “Essentially, we were looking for evidence of volcanic cones sticking up into the ice,” Bingham said.
After the team had collated the results, it reported a staggering 91 previously unknown volcanoes, adding to the 47 others that had been discovered over the previous century of exploring the region.
These newly discovered volcanoes range in height from 100 to 3,850 metres. All are covered in ice, which sometimes lies in layers that are more than 4km thick in the region. These active peaks are concentrated in a region known as the west Antarctic rift system, which stretches 3,500km from Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf to the Antarctic peninsula.
HT/Gary Meyers
UPDATE 8/14/17 8:39 Pacific time.
The Mail has gotten into the story and of course these volcanoes may actually be being exacerbated by the dreaded Climate Change thingy.
Dr Bingham’s fear is that the Antarctic ocean’s meltwater outflows will cause sea levels to rise.
‘We just don’t know about how active these volcanoes have been in the past.
‘The most volcanism that is going in the world at present is in regions that have only recently lost their glacier covering – after the end of the last ice age. These places include Iceland and Alaska.
‘Theory suggests that this is occurring because, without ice sheets on top of them, there is a release of pressure on the regions’ volcanoes and they become more active.’
Significant warming caused by climate change in west Antarctica has already affected its ice sheets.
If they reduce significantly, this could release pressure on volcanoes lying below.
This would lead to eruptions that could further destabilise ice sheets and enhance sea level rises, something Dr Bingham is keen to monitor.
‘It is something we will have to watch closely.
Read the full Daily Mail story here.
HT/lewispbuckingham
They’d have found them sooner had they read all the comments on this blog about West Antarctic volcanoes over the years.
And what are they going to do anyways? Prevent them from erupting? The self flagellating of these people is tiresome. Especially when they are pleasuring themselves at my expense.
Tax ’em!!!!!! Seems to be the popular trend.
The self flagellating of these people is tiresome.
Welcome to the good old Medieval Times.
Mick
that bid did make me laugh. The damn things have been there millions of years, but now’s the time to panic!
I wonder what this discovery does for the planet’s ‘carbon budget’. If they are active and belching out loads of CO2, does this mean humanity is off the hook for the 2ppm we add to the atmosphere in a year?
Guardian now carrying an “opinion” piece by self confessed wire-fraudster and probably forger Peter Gleick.
I emailed the editor pointing out his record and suggesting that this was an inappropriate source, even if published as an “opinion” piece, for which they have very lax standards.
I got a reply that this was an “editorial choice” and they were “comfortable” using his opinion articles.
I did not bother reading the text because the paper will not accept or publish factual corrections for “opinion” pieces.
So the Guardian is “comfortable” to publish factually incorrect material from a self-confessed fraudster. Though the link has disappeared from the front page of the website.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/14/poison-flowed-americas-waters-trump
There’s an interesting feedback mechanism triggered when ice loads are reduced, which in turn reduces the static load on the magma chamber. This reduces magma density and viscosity, which in turn can cause an eruption. The eruption reduces chamber pressure and the volcano goes back into sleeping mode. However, if multiple volcanoes start erupting we could see a cooling phase if the ash cloud and sulfates reach the stratosphere.
Despite that fact that mainland Antarctica has seen none of hte supposedly “global” warming they have often tried to say that ice loss in WIAS was due to warmer waters melting the under side of the ice and that this warmer water water was due to AGW …. thus it’s still AGW even when there is no warming in Antarctica.
This work shows the whole string of previously unknown volcanoes along the edge of the WIAS which very likely is cause of the warmer water under the ice.
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ringoffire1.jpg
They can now join the dots, and stop pretending the warm water is due to AGW.
Regulate them. Fine them if they refuse to erupt. Send The Guardian down to report on the outcome.
Here is a more detailed map of volcanic activity and tectonic plates. We can see how well these recently discovered volcanoes complete the ring of fire.
http://www.geoware-online.com/GeowareRobinsonWorldMap.jpg
Exactly… “That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
Why? Oh yes, more grants.
Well, in the good old heroic days of oil well drilling, maybe they could have called in Red Adair to cap one of the offending eruptive volcanoes.
They’re not erupting they are under the ice. The magma will certainly be a source of heat.
The lower part of this map is about the same longitude as New Zealand, and the top aligns with the tip of S.America. This is basically the southern end of the Pacific “ring of fire”.
“The magma will certainly be a source of heat.”
By definition.
and they would have included them in the models and then the models might look a teensy weensy bit more like reality…
M Seward
Careful, please.
“and then the models might look a teensy weensy bit more like reality…” is a potentially6 grant – and so income -stopping phraseology.
Do you really want to put the likes of M. Mann on food stamps?
Mods – here that is /Sarc. Of course.
Auto.
Must be a slow/no news day; this information was published back in May 2017
[ A team from the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, has identified 138 volcanoes, 91 of which were newly identified, under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet; The volcanoes are especially concentrated and orientated along the >3000 km central axis of the West Antarctic Rift System.
http://www.scar.org/features/1115-antarctic-volcanoes-identified
Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries, Robert G. Bingham & Andrew S. Hein, A new volcanic province: an inventory of subglacial volcanoes in West Antarctica, from Exploration of Subsurface Antarctica: Uncovering Past Changes and Modern Processes. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 461 (May 2017).
Abstract –
http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/a-new-volcanic-province-an-inventory-of-subglacial-volcanoes-in-west-antarctica(53d5003b-838f-4ba0-ac03-ffafafe5efa5).html
http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7 ]
Full paper here:
http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/specpubgsl/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7.full.pdf
No models, no reference to CO2? They are obviously not after funding.
One of the discoverers is an undergrad. No audience for funding at that level 🙂 Wait until he gets his PhD.
Patrick, I wish you were right, the discovery of new volcanoes could not go untouched without this…….
Yet they don’t know anything yet to make such a bold statement…..
……….what if they were more active in the past? They never thought of that did they? Ooops.
Skeletor, a much underestimated philosopher, could have writtten a book about what they don’t know. Here he gets straight to the point with insult #1 in the first few seconds.
Skeletor! I love that guy!!!! He should run for the Senate, Al Franken got in.
The Democrats were able to find enough missing votes in car trunks to get Franken in. Finding enough to get Skeletor in would be a snap.
They certainly are…
” That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
Wouldn’t the cooling effect of aerosols and ash clouds create a counter effect to the heat of the magma? The heat would be more centralized to the eruption area and the cooling effect uopn the surrounding area creating more ice.
Exactly! Volcanoes have a well known cooling effect on a global scale, if they are big enough. There are a lot of kilometers of very thick ice between these volcanoes and the sea. Water can get only so hot, and it would likely refreeze within a fraction of the distance to the ocean. If the eruption was big enough to get melt water to the sea, we would have much more to worry about than a tiny rise in sea level. In fact sea level would begin dropping as we were plunged into a new glaciation period.
The effect of high latitude volcanic eruptions is different from those of the tropics. And size matters. A lot.
and the effect of underwater eruptions has no visible local atmospheric effects anyway
how active are they NOW? and if they are melting the ice, it destroys 2 narratives at once, not least of which is the ‘science is settled’- not when they miss a hundred volcanoes it ain’t.
(i said 100 to invite some lamer to quibble over 91 cuz that forces the lamer to acknowledge the 91 out loud, eh.)
And what of that biggest meteor crater in the Antarctic that most likely created this giant volcanic aeea. I would guess most of these are dormant and have been dormant since those millennia ago. Other’s brought it up in the article about the Wilkes Creator and the timeline of the Siberian Traps possibly being related. The active volcanoes are mostly off the Antarctic Continent in the ocean heating the water that is causing melting. But the effect is creating more ice inland. This paper is just another Alarmist Theory to use scare tactics to push the agenda that we have to do something or else massive flooding will occur.
That’s true, Gloateus. I may haveoverspoke the global implications. Still, it would take a truly massive one to get melt water to the sea or destabalize an ice sheet, if that is even possible. One that big would block out a whole lot of sunshine down there for many years to come. The startospheric cloud may not have much of an impact in the lower latitudes or the Northern Hemisphere, but it would make the coldest continent on Earth a whole lot colder and likely ice positive in the long run.
The Yellowstone caldera heats the ground above it quite noticeably, and the amount of heat flow is not constant.
Is there any mechanism by which the heat flow from this field could be measured and monitored?
There is the geothermal effect, similar to the warm blob which moved around the north Pacific a few years ago.
I’ll hazard a guess, these volcanoes had something to do with deglaciation at the LGM.
“The big question is: how active are these volcanoes? That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
Gadzooks! I thought that was funny!
The main reason we want to know when volcanoes are going to erupt is so we can evacuate the area. In this case…MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Weather these volcanoes are active or not, there isn’t a darn thing we can or would do about it. Of course, if he can convince the money people that this really is important, then I guess Mr. Bingham and his friends will stay well employed for the foreseeable future.
Translation: My grants run out this year so I need money FAST!
Now that you mention it, Forrest, there is something we can do. It turns out that Gaia likes cash, and she has appointed me to collect it for her (who’d a thunk it?) She assures me if the world sends her enough cash (through me), she will go easy on humans for a little while longer.
…except the sinners, of course!
Hold on a damn minute! I am pretty sure Mother Gaia designated ME as the collector of cash in Her name. I might see my way to cutting you in for a percentage if you show you can pull your weight, just don’t be trying to muscle in on my grift, thank you very much.
If you need help collecting all that cash. I’m up for the challenge.
They can’t have been virgins as they never stopped a volcano from erupting.
Society has marched on from the days of sacrificing virgins to appease the angry gods.
Now we sacrifice Third World children on the altar of the Great God Gaia, who is angry because of our scratching her surface to obtain hydrocarbons to burn and turn into wonderfully useful things.
Patrick MJD
‘no true virgin’ is lots more fun than ‘no true scotsman’, eh?
Sacrificing virgins maybe out of the question, but environmentalists love to kill babies, particularly brown ones.
I propose Lava Credits which will be purchased by those who contribute to the demand for igneous rocks. These “Lava Offsets” will be printed and sold by our superiors with proceeds distributed among themselves as happened with the previous “Carbon Credits”.
Will ” Lava Credits” have the desired effect? Of course they will: a few insiders and corporations will retain healthy profits.
No such thing as an effing alarmist virgin.
There’s a factory somewhere that stamps out prefabricated, pre programmed alarmists. Blame the Chinese!
Yeah, maybe…..But one problem is that this may be in Pachamama’s territory. She may have a hissy fit and blow off a lot of steam if she decides that Gaia might intrude.
Did anyone see any indication of how many of these ‘new’ volcanoes are actually old and dead volcanos that may have been inactive for more than, say, 25 million years or so? The peaks of the volcanoes have been preserved in ice, I reckon.
For the amount of cash demanded by the Green Climate Fund, I’m starting to think it would be much simpler/easier/cheaper to just sacrifice a few virgins. Provided we can find one, of course.
““The big question is: how active are these volcanoes? That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
Gadzooks! I thought that was funny!”
I thought that was pretty funny myself.
Just when we thought that “the Science was settled”, they go on the make further monumental discoveries. This is most unsettling!
unsettleding?
BRAVO! I am just awaiting the left-wing spin on that. Maybe it would be that volcanoes are the result of global warming. Does anyone have any idea of just how much money, worldwide, has been wasted on this fraudulent idiocy of anthropogenic induced global warming?
Yeah, but don’t forget that even though it may be absolute waste, because of the way GDP is measured, compiled, calculated and reported by governments, the absolute waste shows up in the economic data as GDP growth for whichever nations are the most prolific wastrels.
The world’s politicians can pat themselves and each other on the back and congratulate their enlightened economic policies.
Is the absolute waste maybe actually funding another step in this (globalist) direction:
The End of the Nation-State | Mises Wire
https://mises.org/blog/end-nation-state
You should celebrate The United Nations, by golly.
I am in absolute shock the gaurdian would actually report this! Bet by tomorrow, 03:00 EST, they will disavow the article and fire who ever was dumb enough to attach their name to it.
The paper is here. They have no idea whether these “edifices” are active or not. They are just shapes that look like they might have been volcanoes. We have several of those in Victoria.
The thing with the talk of volcanoes or geothermal heat under the Antarctic ice sheet is that, even if it has an effect, there is no reason to believe that it has changed in any way in recent decades, or is likely to.
Exactly what I was thinking Nick. They haven’t even any magnetic data to suggest composition. And even if they are volcanic cones it may simply be a field such as in Auckland NZ which has 50+ basaltic volcanic centers, almost all of which were active for only a short period.
“there is no reason to believe that it has changed in any way in recent decades, or is likely to.”
Given that plates constantly move, I believe there is no reason to assume that this area has remained in exactly the same state over the past few decades.
Every other active volcano is changing all the time. Some on the order of centuries, some on the order of years.
Well said, Nick.
Volcanoes take the path of least resistance. Volcanoes that have been dormant for thousands of year’s without any activities of out-gassing or heat are dead. If there is magma close to the surface it’s unlikely to push through all that rock and find a new path of least resistance. I forget the site that is for volcano watchers that list something like 500 active volcanoes ranging from ones that vent gasses to full eruptions. These act as vents for the pressure in the magma and reduce the chamces for stronger volcanoes erupting. It takes a tectonic plate shift to cause new volcanoes and older currently active volcanoes to erupt with any power. A grapth online shows that since 1815 to 2015 volcanoes have multiplied in the last century to where in 2000’s there are more active volcanoes tham in all of the 1900’s combined.
Kinda have to side with Nick on this one. Sounds like it’s a topographical analysis. So – an inference on top of an inference buried under up to 4km of ice. The probability that there were, are, or will be volcanoes in those areas is fairly high. But I’m not sure it rises to the level of “irrefutable evidence”. Nick’s also right that, based on this paper, there’s no reason to think things have, are, or will change significantly.
…and know way to know it has not changed. Although their exists reports studies showing increased sea water warmth from volcanism in the area.
Nick obviously knows nothing of hard science, it has a name called the look-elsewhere-effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look-elsewhere_effect
However this is climate science and we all just make up our mind what things are related and Nick has declared it can’t be related because he is the chief judge, so it must be so.
‘….there is no reason to believe that it has changed in any way in recent decades, or is likely to.’
Agreed, but surely geothermal heat flux is a hugely underrated climate change mechanism?
We will never know because you just declare it ain’t so in climate science and you have no data to conclude if anything has or hasn’t changed. These people are supposed to be scientists not clairvoyants.
In God we Trust, all others bring data .. W. Edwards Deming
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Edinburgh University researchers have announced that there is a future for doom prognosticators and predictions!
Just hitch your doom laden future to the latest catastrophic volcanic system under Antarctic ice! There is enough potential disasters for all.
It would be kind of fun to “watch” one of those smaller volcanoes blow a hole through several kilometers of ice, and then see how long it takes for that hole to smooth over after it goes dormant.
When Grimsvotn in Iceland erupts, it’s pretty similar to your scenario. Tends to do so every decade or so. Last time was in 2011, and then the eruption had to melt through 450m of ice cover to reach the surface. Before it breaks completely through the ice, the melting causes massive subsidence of the glacier into crevasse ridden bowls.
http://volcano.si.edu/showreport.cfm?doi=10.5479/si.GVP.BGVN199609-373010
It might be difficult to distinguish volcanos from peaky hills and mountains in this Antarctic setting. Read the count of nearly a hundred with care. Geoff
Happily, this valuable cultural artifact was not located near a volcanic region:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/14/543389016/photos-almost-edible-106-year-old-fruitcake-found-in-antarctica
Ironic that we now find a fruit cake possibly left behind by Scott, who died of starvation on the trip home from Antarctica. From the looks of it, that fruit cake might have given him a few more weeks!
I don’t know, a lot of people really hate fruitcake.
Unfortunately, it was left behind. Maybe they planned to consume it in celebration of their return from the Pole.
If only they had eaten their ponies on the way back, as Amundsen did his dogs.
That’s not a fruitcake, it’s a petrified alarmist. It just reverted to it’s natural form.
Sorry, I think the find of Shackleton’s left behind Scotch is much more valuable.
The causation chain is laughable. Discover volcanoes and then claim they might -add- to man made CO2 warming. Any honest researcher would have said the volcanoes might be the cause of warming -instead- of CO2.
Indeed, particularly when considering the pattern:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2008/images/Antarctica_temp_trends_lrg.jpg
This map of Antarctica shows the approximate boundaries of areas that have warmed or cooled over the past 35 years. The map is based on temperatures in a recently-constructed data set by NCAR scientist Andrew Monaghan and colleagues. The data combines observations from ground-based weather stations, which are few and far between, with analysis of ice cores used to reveal past temperatures. (2008 Illustration by Steve Deyo, UCAR.)
first thought that came into my mind is if we accept these temperature change patterns how can the ones shown in ref be caused by GLOBAL warming
If the latter was so would it not be reflected in the whole of Antarctica showing warming not just the peninsula ?
“The big question is: how active are these volcanoes? That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
Humm: Let me take a crack at it. These volcanoes are under 2 KM of ice. That’s what – a 150,000 years of accumulation? I suspect that the ice wouldn’t be there if there had been active eruptions during this time. So I’m going to go out on limb and conclude the volcanoes are probably dormant.
It is perfectly possible for volcanoes to erupt subglacially without ever breaking through the ice. Gaussberg in East Antarctica is an example. It is rather common in Iceland, especially during glaciations. Google “móberg” and “Jökulhlaup”
Yes … check the origin of palagonite.
Never ask a Geographer, What is the Theory of Geography?
Astronomy has a theory!
Biology has a theory!
Chemistry has a theory!
Geology has a lot of Theories!
Geophysics has the correct theory, of the earth.
Physics has a Theory, The Standard Model, it covers just about everything … a few pesky items yet to be tamed.
Yet, … Geography.
I almost ended a Graduate student career TWICE by using that question.
I now have both M.S. and Ph.D. in Geophysics.
That the surface of Earth is measurable and subject to analysis.
Planet Earth is thin at one end, much, muck thicker in the middle, and thin at the other end. Or am I getting mixed up with dinosaurs?
138 volcanoes is no small matter. That is a lot for any place on the planet. Any time anything unusual happens in Antarctica, we are obligated to ask the question of whether an eruption caused the event.
Now one needs to have evidence and not just speculate but that is still a lot of volcanoes.
Hasn’t it been understood for some time that West Antarctic is a volcanic island arc, comparable to Japan?
The Transantarctic Rift is a big place. It has lots of ice (surprised?). It would take a lot of melting. Even in active volcanic fields not all the mountains and hills are actually volcanoes. So the news seems to be somewhat overhyped to me (a rather cynical geologist).
The North Island of NZ has more volcanoes than is suggested in the article for Antarctica. The North Island is tiny by comarison. Even in the North Island the volcanoes are concentrated in fairly confined areas. Don’t let the hype get to you. It is not as bad as it seems.
Bill Illis – August 14, 2017 at 7:49 pm
I guess it’s OK to say ……… “That’s a lot of volcanoes” …… if one is referring to a specifically named “geographically bounded” area, locale or location on the earth’s surface, such as Antarctica, Japan, Puerto Rico, France, etc., ……. without denoting the geographic size in miles or kilometers.
Thus said, when one looks at this graphic of the Antarctica continent, to wit:
It would be a normal response to say …… “That’s a lot of volcanoes” ….. because it looks like those volcanoes are stacked and/or packed pretty close to one another.
But when one looks at this 2nd graphic of the Antarctica continent, to wit:
It becomes obvious that those volcanoes are spread out over a 6,000 kilometer “Ridge of Fire”.
6,000/138 = 43.4 kilometers (26.9 miles) per volcano
Oh my god, we’re all gonna die. Maybe if we let Algore run the world there won’t be any volcanoes. Oh my god!
Seriously, I hope these guys get to continue studying their ice covered volcanoes for as long as they want. It is interesting stuff. It’s just sad that every Earth scientists is now compelled to find some connection between their research and man-made climate change, no matter how silly that connection may be. They are also compelled to find some equally ridiculous reason why their research is incredably urgent. I can think of few things less urgent or less conected to man-made climate change than ice-covered, extinct volcanoes in Antarctica, but that is no reason for them to be left unstudied. Why do good scientists need to turn into con artists and creative writers just to keep doing science?
Love it.
I think it is long past time to add qualifiers to thevrerm “climate change”, for instance,
“So called climate change”
or
“alleged manmade climate change”
or simply
“climate change” in scare quotes.
Same with “global warming”.
The climatocracy was allowed to hijack the issue with nearly 0 challenge.
If it wasn’t for the preposterous nature and vast lack of evidence the consensus is pushing, they would have won the issue completely.
As the multiple independent lines of evidence converge to show that the climate catastrophe the consensus is pushing is bogus, let’s at last stop granting them credibility they do not deserve.
There are lots of other areas in the world with a high density of volcanoes. It would be great for them to provide a map of their region so we can compare it to the Pacific Northwest, or Sunset Craters or your favorite area.
“The big question is: how active are these volcanoes? That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”
Others have noted the self-serving attitude that prompted this statement. But this is worse than self-serving. It is ridiculous.
Indeed. It is truly ghastly. The hubris and ego of these people has left the Galaxy.
So these volcanoes are all going to erupt at once and drown us under melt water?
We’re doomed.
From the full article:
However, he pointed to one alarming trend: “The most volcanism that is going in the world at present is in regions that have only recently lost their glacier covering – after the end of the last ice age. These places include Iceland and Alaska.
“Theory suggests that this is occurring because, without ice sheets on top of them, there is a release of pressure on the regions’ volcanoes and they become more active. And this could happen in west Antarctica, where significant warming in the region caused by climate change has begun to affect its ice sheets. If they are reduced significantly, this could release pressure on the volcanoes that lie below and lead to eruptions that could further destabilise the ice sheets and enhance sea level rises that are already affecting our oceans.
“It is something we will have to watch closely,” Bingham said.
There’s the ‘money’ line, Folks. Iceland and Alaska glacial melting may have been natural but Antarctica glacial melting will be due to Climate Change, releasing the 91 headed volcanic hydra lurking below! Ohhh Noooes!!!
But wait. How “recently” is recently? The end of the last ice age? Isn’t that like 10,000 years ago? They call that recently? We are stressing over temperatures during the last 40-50 years and now we are calling the end of the last ice age a recent event that could somehow impact something in our generation? That is preposterous!
“Send us more money!”
Mr Watts and readers,
In 1992, it was thought that volcanic degassing released something like 100 million tons of CO2 each year. Around the turn of the millennium, this figure was getting closer to 200. The most recent estimate, released this February, comes from a team led by Mike Burton, of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology – and it’s just shy of 600 million tons. It caps a staggering trend: A six-fold increase in just two decades.
Live Science. Robin Wylie, University College London | October 15, 2013.
…Sager said other, bigger volcanoes could be awaiting discovery at other oceanic plateaus, such as Ontong Java Plateau, located north of the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean. “Structures that are under the ocean are really hard to study,” he said.
Live Science Sept.5 2013. William Sager. Geologist. University of Houston.
Note that a 2017 study by alarmist Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel approximates a figure of .649 billion tons…adding that… although the total number of emitting, tectonic areas are unknown.
Live Science JUN 6, 2017.
Somewhere in the early IPCC reports I saw a graph that essentially told me that the uncertainty on the natural sources and sinks of CO2 were substantially larger than the total estimated human production. These new volcanic estimates tell me that those uncertainty numbers were understated, and causes me to think that the human contribution is even more trivial. I can hear the warmest response already saying that sinks and production were in balance till we humans perturbed that balance. Is that an assumption or a fact? How do you know that if you have only been measuring for about 50 years? I am not willing to go with best guesses.
When it comes to climate science, facts are in the ‘nice to have’ category.
Dave S, I’d say that for climate science, “facts are essential to avoid”
Lol. I would say climate science is like the legal field” There is no such thing as a clear law”
Interesting info, thank you
“Significant warming caused by climate change in west Antarctica has already affected its ice sheets.”
Documentation please.
The Ross ice shelf was surveyed by Scott in the 1901 expedition and is now 14 km shorter. Please see the recent most southernly sailing record by the MV The World
@ur momisugly Dave
August 15, 2017 at 8:08 am:
1901 last decade of a cool oceanic cycle (c.64yrs).
2017 1st decade after peak of a warm cycle (half of the above 64yrs).
Oceanic lag, but it is cooling, and was covered in 60miles extra sea ice to north this summer from those ‘Quiet sun’ meridional gales.
We resupply the Ross area bases, and had to wait for the biggest US icebreaker to do so. But we were there in 1901, too.