Global Cooling

[Isotopia]

Did you know there are fossils indicating the area was once a thriving tropical forest?

Your post suggests that you confuse climactic fluctuations with well understood geological processes. It also suggests a general confusion (and ignorance) of scientific disciplines in general. It doesn't surprise me in the least that such statements allude to your inability to support a serious, cogent and compelling argument refuting anthropogenic climate change.

Do you also believe in creationism?

[Isotopia]

It boils down to these basic questions:

1. Is GLOBAL climate change natural or man made?

2. Is climate change a bad thing?

3. Why are General Electric, Al Gore and other Kazzilionaires so anxious to provide the means to tax the very air we breathe?

4. Why is it that the same scientists who predicted global cooling in the 70's, that by the year 2000 the average temperature would be 11 degrees cooler and that 80% of known species would be extinct are the same "scientists" spewing forth global warming propaganda today?

[Victorian]

3 major earthquakes in less then a few months' time.

Jan 10th 2010-Haiti - 7.0 Magnitude
Feb 7th 2010 - Japan- 6.6 Magnitude (this was off the coast)
Feb 27th 2010-Chile - 8.8

Is there any type of relation between earthquakes and global warming?

I am including an interesting exerpt from a website I found;
Less Glacial Pressure, More Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions
Ice is extremely heavy—weighing about one ton per cubic meter—and glaciers are massive sheets of ice. When they are intact, glaciers exert enormous pressure on the portion of the Earth’s surface they cover. When glaciers begin to melt—as they are doing now at an increasingly rapid rate due to global warming—that pressure is reduced and eventually released.

Geologists say releasing that pressure on the Earth’s surface will cause all sorts of geologic reactions, such as earthquakes, tsunamis (caused by undersea earthquakes) and volcanic eruptions.


Source: http://environment.about.com/od/globalw ... quakes.htm

[Isotopia]

Is there any type of relation between earthquakes and global warming?

There actually have been serious studies on a local level to try to determine an association between less (and more) ice and earthquakes. The suggestion that less ice might contribute to local temblors due to what's known as isostatic rebound which is when a a large weight - such as a glacial ice sheet - is reduced and the landmass beneath tends to 'spring' back up due to the the removal of said weight.

I think it the data are inconclusive.

As for the 8.8 quake in Chile. The answer to your question is a resounding 'no!' The sort of deep quake that broke loose down there is related to plate subduction. Weather patterns in no way affect an area which is one of the most seismically active on the planet. A qucik Google search of large magnitude earthquakes will reveal that the western edge of South America has historically been very, very actve and will remain so for the next few million years.

[ygmir]

who, screwed up the page?.............

[can't sit still]

Wasn't me. Here's an interesting page on ocean warming. Reportedly, there is a 50 year and a 1500 year cycle;
http://environment.ncpa.org/commentarie ... an-cooling

[theCryptofishist]

I think they've found that dams--or the weight of the water behind dams--can cause earthquakes.

[ygmir]

yeah, I've read not only the weight of the water, where there was not the weight before, but, water being forced into cracks and fissures that are normally dry, and lubricating them, adds to it...........

I remember the earthquake in Oroville, not long after the dam was filled.

[theCryptofishist]

Everyone, remember short sentances.
And
Lots of
Hitting the
Enter key.

[can't sit still]

YGMIR, I see that you've sailed on past TEN THOUSAND posts in a fairly short time. Was there a party? Why wasn't I invited? I know, I know, I never go to the 'bar".

[ygmir]

hahaaha, probably more like skidded past.............
well,
stop on in the bar2 sometimes.........nice folks there.
nope, no party, a few congrats, though, that was nice.


Fishy:
I think Iso posted some long dang picture thing above, with no "enter" key....
it messed up the page.

[Isotopia]

I remember the earthquake in Oroville, not long after the dam was filled.

Makes sense. The writer, John Mcphee once noted that if you want to find a yet undiscovered, complex and gnarly fault look in any area where they're considering building a dam.

[Trishntek]

just think what the earthquakes will be like after all the winter snow melts! yikes!

good thing we removed lead from gasoline and put scrubbers on those smokestacks, didya notice that big affect it had on all those statistics?

so there never was an earthquake near oroville before the dam was filled?

[ygmir]

yup, there is historical data for earthquakes near Oroville.
I found several references to earthquakes related to or caused by reservoir filling. I imagine it's anecdotal, in that these things happen after filling reservoirs.
It makes sense to me, anyway.........

[Trishntek]

ya mean if i place my full coffee cup on top of my cookie it is more likely to break than if i place my empty cup on it?

[dr.placebo]

ya mean if i place my full coffee cup on top of my cookie it is more likely to break than if i place my empty cup on it?

Note to self, must not make "cookie" joke.

Now, back to earthquakes.

Imagine a large spring, held compressed by a small piece of metal. Imagine that there is a ratchet that is used at random intervals to compress the spring even further. Just before the point where the piece of metal would break, a fly comes along and lands on it, ever so slightly disturbing the system. BANG! The metal breaks, the spring expands, and the fly is vaporized.

So, the question is, did the fly cause the spring to go off? It depends on what you mean by "cause."

There are a lot of effects that are correlated with quakes, including other quakes. Sometimes you can make a plausible case for enough energy being added to the system to trigger a quake, and sometimes you can't. The 1975 Oroville dam quake is considered to be a case where the weight of the water and the lubrication from the water very likely contributed to the quake. But the stress and the fault system had to be there first, and that's where the energy comes from.

The slow tidal pull from the moon can raise the chance of quakes, and even some volcanic eruptions.

[Ugly Dougly]

yup, there is historical data for earthquakes near Oroville.

I found several references to earthquakes related to or caused by reservoir filling.

I imagine it's anecdotal, in that these things happen after filling reservoirs.
It makes sense to me, anyway.........

The weight of an average reservoir full of water,
versus miles and miles of rock in the earth's crust.
You do the math.
Elephants! They're heavy!
They are PROBABLY causing earthquakes.

[ygmir]

yup, there is historical data for earthquakes near Oroville.

I found several references to earthquakes related to or caused by reservoir filling.

I imagine it's anecdotal, in that these things happen after filling reservoirs.
It makes sense to me, anyway.........

The weight of an average reservoir full of water,
versus miles and miles of rock in the earth's crust.
You do the math.
Elephants! They're heavy!
They are PROBABLY causing earthquakes.

Jeeze, Dougly.......

[dr.placebo]

So far the observed correlations for dams and tides are rather small, although the articles cited above claim that they are significant (don't know to what degree).

On another note, though, here's a recent SciAm article that describes organized cyber-bullying of climate scientists.

[ygmir]

So far the observed correlations for dams and tides are rather small, although the articles cited above claim that they are significant (don't know to what degree).

On another note, though, here's a recent SciAm article that describes organized cyber-bullying of climate scientists.

crybabies...........

[Ugly Dougly]

Pussies.

The tide is another matter!
That's a huge weight of water being moved.
In addition, the moon's tidal effect may not be limited to the earth's oceans but also to the crust....

[Trishntek]

So in conclusion, can we all agree that change happens?

[ygmir]

So in conclusion, can we all agree that change happens?

don't introduce logic of that sort here......it'll screw up a good argumentative
conflict.

[littleflower]

why i retain a healthy amount of skepticism

[Ugly Dougly]

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Me too!

[dr.placebo]

As someone who has been on both sides of the peer review process I'd like to make the simple point that it is a rough cut. It is not meant to be the gold standard, but rather just toss out some of the drivel that can get submitted for a large variety of bad reasons (delusion, publish-or-perish, spite, ...).

The important filter is whether multiple independent investigators can replicate the results. Can the arguments stand up to informed criticism. Can counterexamples be found. You know, science.

[Ugly Dougly]

Ah, got it now, LF:

spiked is an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms. spiked is endorsed by free-thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, and hated by the narrow-minded such as Torquemada and Stalin. Or it would be, if they were lucky enough to be around to read it.

[geekster]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 123124.htm

Previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40-plus years, according to Erik Schiefer, a Northern Arizona University geographer who coauthored a paper in the February issue of Nature Geoscience that recalculates glacier melt in Alaska.

The research team, led by Étienne Berthier of the Laboratory for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography at the Université de Toulouse in France, says that glacier melt in Alaska between 1962 and 2006 contributed about one-third less to sea-level rise than previously estimated.

Oh, and ...



Graph of Arctic ice cover at 30% extent (above).



Graph of Arctic ice cover at 15% extent (above).





Average Temperature above 80N latitude.

[dr.placebo]

The article about the Alaskan glacier loss being less than previously estimated is good news (if validated) because we might have more time to address the problem.

The following press release from the NSF may point to a place where we had less time than estimated (if validated):

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?c ... &from=news

It is reported that current climate models do not include the feedback terms for methane release from the tundra, so this could be pretty serious. At the very least it deserves a lot more study.

[Isotopia]

And now it seems that significant methane venting is happening not just from tundra regions but off shore as reported by Russian scientists this week.

Shakhova et al., Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, Science 237: 1246-1250, 2010

Shakhova et al., The distribution of methane on the Siberian Arctic shelves: Implications for the marine methane cycle, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L09601, doi:10.1029/2005GL022751, 2005

Westbrook, G., et al, Escape of methane gas from the seabed along the West Spitsbergen continental margin, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L15608, doi:10.1029/2009GL039191, 2009