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Scientists Discover 91 Volcanoes Below Antarctic Ice Sheet (theguardian.com)
Reader schwit1 writes: 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. This is in addition to 47 already known about and eruption would melt more ice in region affected by climate change, the report added. 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.
One thing I have noticed about these guys who study ice sheets is that they worry a lot. They didn't even know there were 91 volcanoes there that have been there for who knows for how long. Yet they are "worried" about it, suddenly. Needs more money for studies I guess.
From the article:
"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."
Not entirely unimportant, I think.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Man caused the volcanoes to form under the ice by allowing cows to pass gas.
Sigh. After all these years of avoiding that, you finally got me, and at work no less.
funny enough, i was just casually talking about this ridge the other day
it appears some friends of mine didnt knew about it, and its was very enlightening for them to know about it
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
Notice that all the posts (like mine) that are skeptical of global warming have been censored to -1. Science advances when people find problems with current theories and new theories have to be developed to explain the evidence. However, in the case of global warming, all the evidence against it is censored and the researchers have their character attacked. It's a shame that quality research is censored and science is being prevented from advancing in this area.
Maybe all the under ground testing of Nuclear weapons has shifted things around making the volcanoes more active ?
Haven't clicked on it but the /goat/ in the url address is a give-away...should have looked at the url. I do :)
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Volcanoes, Asteroids, Comets, mutant diseases , human conflict, and so on... the priorities are a money game if u can get in on it otherwise most in for a rough ride
The Earth doesn't actually care what we do. It will be here long after we die out or go to the stars.
Which came first?
It is very well possible that geothermal activitie at the base of these ice sheets is responsible to the degradation of the ice sheet, no?
You don't need a volcano to erupt to melt ice.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You improperly read and pull any old shite from your anus to fling at science because it shows a problem your politics would rather ignore and cannot handle.
To all of you, who increasingly reject science as false (without knowing what you are talking about): If you want to call yourselves honest, please stop using anything science has given you. Don't look at weather forecasts - they are produced by the same basic models as climate calculations. In fact, get rid of television, computers, mobiles, air conditioning - anything electric, really - don't use clothes, medicine etc etc. All of these are the products of scientific theories that are no more certain than what climate researchers are saying. If you reject the validity of climate research, you may as well denounce quantum mechanics, which is what your computer is built on: without QM, no semi-conductors, thus no integrated circuits, you see. By denouncing science, you cut the brach you're sitting on - and it's a long way down.
Agreed. Scientists are infallible and the same scientists who invented the iPhone created climate models. Just shut up and consume. Derp.
"This is in addition to 47 already known about and eruption would melt more ice in region affected by climate change,..."
Not even sure what that means in english, but yes, of course, there must be some way to connect volcanic eruptions (handwaving) & climate change, right?
-Styopa
When Antarctica is clear of ice this sounds like a great place to see something out of "The Land Time Forgot" or "Land of the Lost" type setup.
Sea temperature models are so predictive they didn't even need to know about 100 volcanoes. Also, please don't consider what other major variables we may not fully understand
But not the man made variety. This is evidence of NATURAL climate change. In order for nearly 100 volcanoes to be underneath 2km of ice, what happened? Climate change. Once upon a time, that area was presumably very hot and with frequent volcanic activity. Some type of climate change occurred, a very radical one and all the volcanoes froze underneath all that ice.
There is no "natural" homeostasis for climate. Any suggestion of the like is really just human beings wanting to keep the climate ideal to their species' preferences indefinitely. Believe it or not, that is actually unnatural. It goes directly against the principles of entropy at work in the universe.
We'll make great pets
The map of Antartica has an "East" and "West" half. There is no such thing. Everything not in the center is in the South. The part that is close to South America is just as much West as it is East. The part that is closer to Australia is also just as much West as it is East.
A helpful map of Antartica would have arrows pointing towards South America, Africa, and Australia.
But the words East and West has no business being on a map of the Antartica, or of the North Pole. Also, while you could put the words North on the Antartica map (and South on the North Pole map), but it would be silly and useless.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Yup, you figured out how to avoid it. Well done.
I come here for the love
Now i'm going to avoid all URLs with the letter "g" in them... haha!
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
You could say the same about any place in the world. The "western" world is just as much east of the "eastern" world as it is west. If you live in America and you want to get to China you fly *west*.
So that we can talk about direction we specify everything relative to the (mostly) arbitrary reference of the prime meridian. That makes China east and the US west. It also makes the Antarctic have an eastern part (which is in the eastern hemisphere) and a western part (in the western hemisphere).
Just a complaint and whinge about how mean someone is for not letting you be in denial of reality.
Sad.
The map of Antartica has an "East" and "West" half. There is no such thing. Everything not in the center is in the South. The part that is close to South America is just as much West as it is East. The part that is closer to Australia is also just as much West as it is East.
However, people that actually study antarctica apparently have a different opinion:
"Although the Antarctic Ice Sheet is a continuous mass of ice, but it is sometimes helpful to think of it as two separate masses known as the West Antarctic and East Antarctic ice sheets, which are separated by the Transantarctics. Ice on the west side of this line flows west, while the opposite happens east of the divide."
Being modded to -1 isn't censorship, it's clueful people correctly marking your posts as low-quality.
Exactly. Forecasting one week in the future is "basically" the same as forecasting 100 years in the future. And like climate modeling, weather forecasting has a strong dependence on the local CO2 concentrations.
Let me guess, you "believe" in the science, but you really don't understand it.
You are a nitpicking idiot.
And you fail at nitpicking: Everything not in the center is in the South. You meant North here.
And if you would look on a map of Antarctica, you would easy understand which part is east and wich part is west. Facepalm.
There is even a part of Antarctica that is explicitly named west antarctica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I hope you never get lost there or have at least correct longitude/latitude information in case you insist that you are "just north" of the south pole ... moron.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Names are different than directions. I checked the map and the wiki page and the part the article's map called "West" is not near "West Antartica". So they are doubly wrong, and you as well for defending their stupidity.
And you are exactly why the internet has a bad name. You admit I am generally correct, providing me with even more so, but dislike my topic, so you hope I die and call me a moron.
Thank you for personally filling the world with more useless hate. Good luck with your hate filled life.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Dude, look at the map.
Draw a vertical line in the middle (actually from longitude 0 towards longitude 180)
Left side is west, right side is east.
Argue as long as you want. That is how people navigating there are using the map.
West Anarctica is the north west peninsula ... you must have problems with your eyes.
No idea hat you mean with hate, the only thing I hate is stupidity :D especially regarding stuff that could save your life if you get over your stupidity.
Again: if you crash there in a helicopter around the south pole and think you walk away with your radio. You seem to be unable to give a direction as everything is north for you?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The South Pole is neither east nor west. The log sheet of USS Nautilus going over the North Pole had a little dash in the longitude field. Once you move north from the South Pole (easy to do if you're not already frozen), you have a longitude that will be either east or west (or 0 or 180, I guess). Antarctica is not the South Pole except for a set of measure zero, so there is an East and a West Antarctica.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Read. Enjoy!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Maybe that's an effect due to the volcanoes erupting under several kilometres of ice, when the water-to-steam interaction may well be constrained by the critical point of water (2km of ice brings you close).
Is the readership of Slashdot so poorly educated these days to need the importance of the critical point explained to them? I do hope not.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"