No, Mainstream Media, Climate Change Didn’t Cause a ‘Landslide’ and ‘Mega-Tsunami’

On September 13^th, National Public Radio (NPR) published an article, titled “A landslide linked to climate change ‘rang’ the Earth for 9 days, researchers say.” Other media outlets chimed in with headlines similar to the The Guardian’s, “Entire Earth vibrated for nine days after climate-triggered mega-tsunami.” While the part about seismic activity being detected worldwide for 9 days is true, the attempt to link the landslide to climate change is false and easily refuted by anyone who checks history.

“A landslide and mega-tsunami in Greenland in September 2023, triggered by the climate crisis, caused the entire Earth to vibrate for nine days, a scientific investigation has found,” The Guardian wrote.

While NPR said:

The signal was traced to a massive avalanche along the Dickson fjord in eastern Greenland, triggered by glacial melting due to climate change, according to research that Svennevig and nearly 70 co-authors published in the journal Science.

Some 1.2 kilometers (3/4 of a mile) above the remote fjord, a mountaintop collapsed, driving more than 25 million cubic meters of rock and ice into the water. The volume of material was enough to fill 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the researchers say.

The tsunami in question was towering: 200 meters — 656 feet — in height, according to the researchers. Because the wave’s energy was trapped in a rocky fjord, the water sloshed back and forth in a phenomenon called a seiche — and the scientists traced the seismic signal that was detected on sensors from the Arctic to Antarctica to that pattern.

Facts rebut the scientists’ assertion that the avalanche was tied to climate change, for example:

1. Glaciers, melt, calve, and make local tsunamis. It’s what they do and have been doing for millennia. Same for rockslides. Nothing new here. No climate change is needed.
2. Seismic waves from glacier calving are nothing new, in fact in Antarctica they happen “all the time” according to the University of Leeds. At best, this is a novelty because the signal lasted nine days.
3. The press release from the University of San Diego that sparked this story and many others, was embellished to play up the drama and alarm and play down the science. Linking the event to climate change in the press release is highly misleading, especially since no mechanism was proposed other than glacier melting, which happens every summer. They also made use of the phrase “mega-tsunami” for dramatic effect.
4. The “mega-Tsunami” and seiche (with continued seismic waves) only occurred because the narrow fiord meant the kinetic energy had no place to go. If it were calving to the open ocean, it would have just been another normal blip on the seismic radar.
5. And finally, the most important point, mega-tsunamis are nothing new. They have occurred throughout recorded history. Wikipedia lists a number of examples:

Examples of modern mega-tsunamis include the one associated with the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (volcanic eruption), the 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami (a landslide which caused an initial wave of 524 metres (1,719 ft)), and the Vajont Dam landslide (caused by human activity destabilizing sides of valley). Prehistoric examples include the Storegga Slide (landslide), and the Chicxulub, Chesapeake Bay, and Eltanin meteor impacts.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are the most common causes of mega-tsunamis triggered by landslides. Of course, receding ice and snow that no longer supports a rock face can also cause a landslide, as was the case here. But how can the researchers be sure that climate change is to blame? Normal short time-scale weather events can also cause landslides. The United States Geological Survey lists these common causes for landslides:

Landslides can be initiated in slopes already on the verge of movement by rainfall, snowmelt, changes in water level, stream erosion, changes in ground water, earthquakes, volcanic activity, disturbance by human activities, or any combination of these factors.

Climate change isn’t listed.

It isn’t listed, because there’s no connection to landslides whatsoever. In the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent scientific assessment they report finding no emerging signal linking climate change to landslides, nor do they anticipate any emergence in the future.

Below is Table 12.12 from Page 90 – Chapter 12 of the UN IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Emergence of Climate Impact Drivers (CIDs) in time periods. The color corresponds to the confidence of the region with the highest confidence: white colors indicate where evidence of a climate change signal is lacking or the signal is not present, leading to overall low confidence of an emerging signal.

The scientists’ assertion that the recent landslide in Greenland was caused by climate change has no evidence supporting it.

Sadly, the mainstream media pounced on this highly embellished press release because it contained exciting claims that fit the climate catastrophe narrative that they seem wedded to, facts be damned. In their rush to publication, they didn’t perform due diligence to determine if the climate connection claim had any merit, they just regurgitated the claims as if they were fact.

Such is the sad state of our mainstream media today.

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM