Slashdot Mirror
Study Links Rapid Ice Sheet Melting With Distant Volcanic Eruptions (upi.com)
schwit1 quotes UPI:
New research suggests volcanic eruptions can trigger periods of rapid ice sheet melting... "Over a time span of 1,000 years, we found that volcanic eruptions generally correspond with enhanced ice sheet melting within a year or so," Francesco Muschitiello, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a news release. The volcanoes of note weren't situated next-door, but thousands of miles from the ice sheet, a reminder of the unexpected global impacts of volcanic activity.
The new research -- detailed this week in the journal Nature Communications -- suggests ash ejected into the atmosphere by erupting volcanoes can be deposited thousands of miles away. When it's deposited on ice sheets, the dark particles cause the ice to absorb more thermal energy and accelerate melting... Some scientists have even suggested melting encouraged by volcanic eruptions could trigger even more eruptions, a positive feedback loop. As glaciers and ice sheets melt, pressure is relieved from the planet's crust, allowing magma to rise to the surface.
The new research -- detailed this week in the journal Nature Communications -- suggests ash ejected into the atmosphere by erupting volcanoes can be deposited thousands of miles away. When it's deposited on ice sheets, the dark particles cause the ice to absorb more thermal energy and accelerate melting... Some scientists have even suggested melting encouraged by volcanic eruptions could trigger even more eruptions, a positive feedback loop. As glaciers and ice sheets melt, pressure is relieved from the planet's crust, allowing magma to rise to the surface.
Rocket science is complex, but we (maybe not you) model it adequately.
Pete and Bogs* may be Bart Simpson's school mates for all I know, but it is clear as hell you do not understand the concept of science, and need to investigate that before you go on to find what science tells you.
*The stuff that forms boggy ground is called peat.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
It's a different pathway, though. Extra heating of the atmosphere by increased GHG concentrations is a different way of making the ice melt faster than decreasing its albedo through fine particles, and volcanoes could be effecting both. On that note, though, I'm wondering about other aspects of human activities such as emitting coal ash. Certainly past local effects of our coal plants involved dirtying up everything around. Volcanic CO2 output is negligible compared to recent fossil CO2 release from human activity, though. Not sure about SO2 effects.
Ezekiel 23:20
China's particle emissions from their coal plants are reaching the arctic and causing faster melting. THis is on top of their massive CO2, lead, mercury, uranium, etc. etc. etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Of course volcanic eruptions can cause ice sheet melting. Put soot on snow and it's more likely to melt. They also cause temporary warming. Hydrogen Sulfide is a green house gas. And they can add lots of CO2 to the atmosphere.
BUT The "year without a summer" was caused by a volcano eruption. So don't try to make this a global statement. It depends on the particulars.
If you go back a few centuries volcano eruptions were one of the big driving factors behind temporary climate changes ... temporary meaning they didn't last more than 20 years, except for trailing effects, like a lake flooding or a grassland turning into a desert, which tended to persist. Even today there *are* volcanoes that could swamp everything people do. Yellowstone is an example, but not the only one. And that isn't new knowledge.
The feels like somebody rehashed things that everybody knows, and got a reporter to call it news.
Actually, when I read the article it sounds as if they do have some no findings, but nothing that wouldn't have been predicted ahead of time. It sounds as if the actual research is valid, but the write-up is hyperbolic shit.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The problem here is "because something is complex, we cant model it" is a new and improved kind of terminally stupid.
Yes, we can model complex systems, however that doesn't mean it's an easy task by any means, or that correct model predictions can be assumed. I spent years modeling and simulating the power grid, which is arguably less complex than climate, and that modeling was always a matter of constant tuning, refinement, and working toward making the models accord with known results so that we would have at least some confidence about predictions.
By all means we need to model climate and climate change and attempt to make rational predictions. We should be able to continuously refine our models and get better and better results. But the purpose of such modeling, similar to what we did with the power grid, is to make predictions that have reasonable credibility so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken.
What I describe is honest science and engineering, which should be completely independent of politics and generating headlines or supporting viewpoints, whether "denier" or "supporter."
It's like that dictum, "Don't tell me what I want to hear, tell me what I need to hear."
Here is proof you're entirely and utterly wrong, repeating BS from the echo chamber of denial:
http://skepticalscience.com/comparing-global-temperature-predictions.html
Climate models have been largely correct, not drastically wrong, for the last thirty years. What wasn't modelled well initially was particularly regional detail, and the detailed effects of clouds, aerosols, and land coverage, but all are somewhat improved, but haven't much changed projections on a global scale. If you look at Hansen's projections against BAU emissions (broadly RCP 8.5 from the IPCC), the agreement with current temperatures is good. Year-to-year variations in detail cannot be predicted, as the system is chaotic, but annual variations from models look like the ones seen in practice.
The same applies to climate. If the modeling is good, then we have an accurate representation of the future direction which is between the best and worst case scenario. If the modeling can't be trusted, then the worst case scenarios become possible, which means we need to mitigate against those as well - some unpredicted secondary effect that causes runaway warming, for example. That means immediate, and drastic, and expensive, action.
If the models are bad, then this should be proven, and then we'll move on to immediately closing down all our sources of emissions.
"The problem here is "because something is complex, we cant model it" is a new and improved kind of terminally stupid. " There are numerous 'climate' models. They all vaguely agree with each other. But not one of them agrees with, you know, actually observed reality.
Really? So how did your own modeling perform?
So clearly we can't model climate. But Climate Changers are demanding that politicians destroy the lives of billions and burn trillions of dollars because 'Muh Science!'
No: thats you.
You are the one saying "The climate is changing rapidly but we don't know why or what's going to happen next". In your scenario, anything could happen. The climate could keep warming until we reach Venus like conditions.
Talk about panic inducing!
If you truly believe your own assertions, you should be advocating that all our funds be immediately diverted to climate science:
1. To find the cause of the recent, rapid change
2. To identify and model what will happen next
3. To identify and implement the fix, which we can assume will be far more expensive than replacing our emitting technologies (which we were going to replace anyway, given how inefficient they are).