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New Study Suggests We Don't Understand Supervolcanoes (sciencealert.com)
Better microsampling (and analysis) are revealing "previously obscured" clues about how super-hot molten lava behaves, according to a Science Alert article shared by schwit1:
"The older view is that there's a long period with a big tank of molten rock in the crust," says geoscientist Nathan Andersen from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "A new view is that magma is stored for a long period in a state that is locked, cool, crystalline, and unable to produce an eruption. That dormant system would need a huge infusion of heat to erupt." Such a huge infusion of heat is what's thought to have unleashed a violent supereruption in California some 765,000 years ago... [A]s awesomely destructive as the supereruption was, lingering evidence from the aftermath can tell us about the magma conditions deep underground before the top blew so spectacularly.
Specifically, an analysis of argon isotopes contained in crystals from the Bishop Tuff -- the large rocky outcrop produced when the Long Valley Caldera was created -- shows the magma from the supereruption was heated rapidly, not slowly simmered. Geologically speaking, that is -- meaning the heating forces that produced the supereruption occurred over decades, or perhaps a couple of centuries. (A long time for people, sure, but a blink of an eye in the life-time of a supervolcano.) The reasoning is that argon quickly escapes from hot crystals, so it wouldn't have a chance to accumulate in the rock if the rock were super-heated for a long time... Unfortunately, while scientists are doing everything they can to read the signs of volcanic supereruptions -- something NASA views as more dangerous than asteroid strikes -- the reality is, the new findings don't bring us any closer to seeing the future.
"This does not point to prediction in any concrete way," warns geologist Brad Singer, "but it does point to the fact that we don't understand what is going on in these systems, in the period of 10 to 1,000 years that precedes a large eruption."
Specifically, an analysis of argon isotopes contained in crystals from the Bishop Tuff -- the large rocky outcrop produced when the Long Valley Caldera was created -- shows the magma from the supereruption was heated rapidly, not slowly simmered. Geologically speaking, that is -- meaning the heating forces that produced the supereruption occurred over decades, or perhaps a couple of centuries. (A long time for people, sure, but a blink of an eye in the life-time of a supervolcano.) The reasoning is that argon quickly escapes from hot crystals, so it wouldn't have a chance to accumulate in the rock if the rock were super-heated for a long time... Unfortunately, while scientists are doing everything they can to read the signs of volcanic supereruptions -- something NASA views as more dangerous than asteroid strikes -- the reality is, the new findings don't bring us any closer to seeing the future.
"This does not point to prediction in any concrete way," warns geologist Brad Singer, "but it does point to the fact that we don't understand what is going on in these systems, in the period of 10 to 1,000 years that precedes a large eruption."
Any process which has a form of relaxation oscillations, such as mounting mechanical tension resulting in catastrophic release in an earthquake, or supernova blast in a binary star system, or an supervolcano eruption caused by a sudden event, has to have three underlying processes: first, of slow rise to criticality, second, of constant dissipation which pushes system away from criticality, and the third: of sudden relaxation when level of criticality is crossed.
Looking at the Earth geology, we first must understand at what rate it produces (and accumulates) heat internally, and at what rate it releases its internal heat. It may as well be that Earth is cooling faster then it heats itself, in which case, there as well could never be another supervolcano eruption. Or, it heats itself at rate slower than the rate it had 700k years ago, which would mean that another supervolcano eruption would be postponed much further into the future than simple linear interpolation would suggest. Or, perhaps greenhouse effect affects not only heat our planet receives by Sun's irradiation, but also the total rate of natural cooling of Earth as a whole, in which case we stand to lose much more than just ice caps and bad weather.
It turns out a massive eruption at Yellowstone would only wipe out the part of the country that us coastal elitist don't care about! #WhoNeedsFoodAnyway ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Super volcanoes are like great earthquakes. After 30+ years of warnings, I'm still waiting for California to slide into the Pacific Ocean.
That’s because the San Andreas is horizontal, not vertical.
Col. Robert Iverson: People. Doctors Zimsky and Keyes? You guys are our resident geophysicists, so what do you make of this?
Dr. Conrad Zimsky: The mantle is a chemical hodgepodge of, a, variety of elements...
Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzelton: Say it with me: "I don't know."
---
The first rule of being a true scientist. Admit you don't know everything.
#DeleteFacebook
Science is an ever-evolving field. I've noticed that a lot of scientists display a lot of hubris so it's always refreshing to hear when a group admits that they were wrong or that they really do not know it all. The expert complex is really dangerous because there is nothing more harmful than advice given by people who claim expertise but do not have anything other than their own experience to go on.
Well in a world of so called experts, who amass all their knowledge from a Discovery Chanel Documentary. We need people to say, "Dude, you really don't know what your talking about, and you are unnecessarily scaring yourself and other people"
While we shouldn't celibate our ignorance, we need to recognize it, and decide if learning more in the area is worth the time and effort, or it should go to something else.
While at the Pharmacist (Chemist) someone was complaining how long they had to wait to get their drugs, "I don't know why it takes so long!", Neither do I, however because I don't know what all the steps are (Because I am not a Pharmacist) I shouldn't be so judgmental, because I am just getting angry about something I know little about. If I really wanted too I can do the studying and see why it takes so long, but I assume they were some other people tacking the problem, and we still cannot make it much quicker. So I will be patient and wait for the services. My ignorance in the process that I am not willing to expand on, shouldn't outrage me, because I need to recognize my ignorance in what is going on, and I need to default to they are doing the best they can.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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That's the problem with people like the previous two AC's (dare I say climate science deniers). They don't have a unified coherent idea about what's going on. It's all scattershot like a shotgun. So one person says it's volcanic activity causing global warming, another says it's the sun and others say the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics proves the greenhouse effect is impossible but provide no reason for the warming, etc, etc. They throw out a bunch of thoughts with the hope that some of the shot will hit the target. They seldom do.
On the other hand climate scientists do have a unified coherent idea about what's going on. The message hasn't changed much in over 50 years, they've just filled in more and more details and improved their understanding of them.
Regarding the first AC they need to show that it's not something that's been going on for more than 10,000 years and that there's been a significant change in the volcanic activity in Antarctica in the last few hundred years. There is no evidence that is the case. Also not much evidence that isn't the case but if it had changed significantly in the past 50 years or so I think we would have noticed.
Regarding the second AC the sun since around 2006 has shown its lowest activity level in the past 100 years. Yet there is no indication of cooling as a result of it.
Humans don't understand nearly as much as they think they do.
Except for AGW.
There, "the science is settled". ...
The basic science of AGW hasn't changed much in over 50 years (you could perhaps say since Arrhenius in 1895). Of course like any science it's subject to revision pending new information. But over 50 years of the basic message remaining the same makes it settled enough for me.
Some should.
We need people to say, "Dude, you really don't know what your talking about, and you are unnecessarily scaring yourself and other people"
We might not know much about the specifics of the underlying mechanisms in supervolcano eruptions, but that doesn't mean we can't study such eruptions in a statistical fashion, and assign a statistical likelihood for one happening in any given period of time.
What the present results tell us is that we might have only a few decades of warning about such an event, which is not a lot of time given how hard it is to get people to agree about what to do about such things, and in particular who will pay for it. It's not something to be scared about, but in a world where we worry about Internet-connected sex toys leaking private information we can spare some concern for what is an inevitable disaster, even if it's not likely to occur in our lifetime.
In fact, forget decades. We won't have any warning at all if we don't study the geology of such things, and even that is controversial in the current political climate. That's because the frequency of such events is such that it is unlikely that one will occur in our lifetimes. But if one did, it's pretty certain that without those decades of warning civilization as we know it would collapse.
The world does not as a whole stockpile food; global food reserves are sufficient to feed the population for about two months -- basically just enough to buffer variations in harvest yields. Of course some people would have access to years of food supplies, and others are already starving as it is, but a year without a harvest would result in most of the world's population dying, and the survivors would not be immune from the disruption that will cause.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
California is a nice place, but too expensive, so my plans have always been to move there after TBO when all the land is cheap.
Should say "new study says we DON'T UNDERSTAND A LOT OF THINGS we THINK we know about Earth".
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No, this means that what's under Antarctica probably won't erupt soon - but that has nothing to do with it being hot enough to melt ice.
Suppose we somehow find a way to precisely predict the eruption of a super volcano. Imagine it is the one underneath Yellowstone. When that thing lets lose it is predicted that only the southern tip of Florida and the area of Maine near the Canadian border would survive. So our whiz bang prediction tells us that in 60 years the land mass of the US will be 98% destroyed, along with wildlife and structures as well. Instantly the world economy goes into panic and crash mode. All properties in the doomed region become worthless and millions upon millions rush to escape. In essence all hell would break lose and the horror might be worse than if the public was never informed and the event took place and exterminated 98% of America. The nature of super volcanoes is such that accurate prediction means very little unless we develop some way to prevent or lessen the eventual explosion. Simply knowing it will happen may only make things worse. And right this minute we have a situation that is quite similar. The Arab emirates that compose five nations will have to be evacuated prior to 2025 as warming in that area will be so severe that the land can not support human life nor can things like air conditioning save the day. So we have the hundreds of billions in investments that will be lost but also will certainly see wars as well as all of the residents of these five nations are going to be forced to try to move into other nations. Due to the terrorists doctrines that exist among some of these Arab folks I seriously doubt that other nations will want to absorb them as they migrate to avoid certain death.
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Regarding the second AC the sun since around 2006 has shown its lowest activity level in the past 100 years. Yet there is no indication of cooling as a result of it.
Not the same AC and not a denier of AGW, but there was the infamous "pause" in global temperature increase that is not yet explained and did happen during the solar minimum superposition between the typical decades-long cycle and longer cycles that you are eluding to.
The real problem many have with global warming is that the models really aren't any good. The specific predictions made are repeatedly proven wrong while the general predictions have such huge uncertainty bars that a coin toss is nearly as robust.
I remember studying this during a return to college in 2010 when the leading scientists and models made claims that Micronesia would be underwater, vast desertification would cause futures markets to collapse and there would be 40 million climate change refugees by 2015. None of that happened. At a stretch we could say that 2 million refugees from the middle east and north African wars by 2017 were due to climate change, but that's really pushing it.
If people were to stop claiming or insinuating that scientists know everything, or even have a "coherent idea" about the most complex system that impacts humans on a daily level when they clearly do not, there would be fewer deniers.
That's article is not about the San Andreas, it's about another fault system.
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If prices are "right", the risk is priced in, and after TBO, prices will be higher because the risk is no longer high.
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If prices are "right", the risk is priced in, and after TBO, prices will be higher because the risk is no longer high.
The interesting thing about a fault line which has just had a major shift is that it can immediately have another major shift.
P.S. Lightning often strikes the same place multiple times.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I figured someone might come back to me with the so called "pause". The problem with that is while the rise in atmospheric temperatures may have slowed down to a statistically insignificant degree the oceans where over 90 percent of the warming occurs continued to warm during that time. There was no real pause, just a small change in the distribution of heat in the system.
The real problem many have with global warming is that the models really aren't any good. The specific predictions made are repeatedly proven wrong while the general predictions have such huge uncertainty bars that a coin toss is nearly as robust.
Did you see the post a couple of days ago about how two scientists accurately predicted global warming in 1967? I would suggest that you don't really understand what climate models are capable of and your criteria for judging them are wrong. They're not meant to predict temperatures on short time scales of a decade or so but rather the evolution of temperature over longer time time periods like 30 years or more. On shorter time scales the noise of natural variations like the aforementioned low solar output, volcanic effects and the timing of the ENSO cycles is enough to overwhelm the global warming signal.
I remember studying this during a return to college in 2010 when the leading scientists and models made claims that Micronesia would be underwater, vast desertification would cause futures markets to collapse and there would be 40 million climate change refugees by 2015. None of that happened. At a stretch we could say that 2 million refugees from the middle east and north African wars by 2017 were due to climate change, but that's really pushing it.
2010 is only 7 years ago. I'd be really surprised if you point to statements by leading scientists that Micronesia would be underwater or desertification would have proceeded so far in just 7 short years. You need to pay more attention to the time scales they put on such predictions.
Regarding refugees I believe the wording was "up to 40 million refugees". That's more like putting a cap on the total number of refugees expected. And the distinction of who is a climate change refugee can be subtle. For instance are the Inuit in Alaska who are forced to move their village a few miles inland climate refugees? Same thing on south Pacific islands where villages are being abandoned because of the encroaching seas.
Yes, climate science is a complex subject and scientists don't know everything. There will be surprises along the way like the melting of Arctic sea ice affecting the jet stream bringing causing it to meander more causing weather systems to stall over places causing longer heat waves and more precipitation. But as the 1967 predictions mentioned above show the scientists are basically on the right track and the information they provide is far better than any coin toss would provide.
Sheesh! The story from a few days ago was based on actual research published in 1967. I've been aware of the 1967 paper from Manabe and Wetherald for close to two decades. Nothing popsci about it.
"previously obscured" clues about how super-hot molten lava behaves
Lava is on the surface, so I think this is about magma. Also all lava is hot and molten.
"A new view is that magma is stored for a long period in a state that is locked, cool, crystalline
Wouldn't that be referred to as "rock" and not "magma"?
Technically, the second AC is correct: the Sun indeed causes global warming. Without it, we'd have frozen. Unfortunately, that information on its own is nigh useless.
Ezekiel 23:20
Technically that is true. The sun is responsible for over 99% of the energy on the Earth's surface. But since the sun's output hasn't changed enough to account for the actual warming we've seen there must be other factors that help hold the sun's energy on the Earth such as an increase in greenhouse gases. AC was implying it was because the sun was at a high level of output.
I figured someone might come back to me with the so called "pause". The problem with that is while the rise in atmospheric temperatures may have slowed down to a statistically insignificant degree the oceans where over 90 percent of the warming occurs continued to warm during that time. There was no real pause, just a small change in the distribution of heat in the system.
Your grossly overstating the state of climate science. The baseline of climate knowledge that is irrefutably known so far as modelling goes includes:
-More energy trapped in the system will overall increase temperature in the system
-On a decadal average, more energy is trapped in earth's atmosphere than leaves it as directly measured by satellite for the last 30ish years.
-With less certainty, indirect air and ocean temperature records suggest that trend has been the case longer still, around 100 years.
-With the enormous caveat of all other things being equal, we know increasing CO2 concentrations will increase energy capture via the greenhouse effect.
-We know we've been contributing to a steady rise in CO2 cocentrations
-The link between the increased energy capture and CO2 rise seems pretty air tight
Now, that tells us a lot, but it doesn't mean our climate models are necessarily ready for decadal or centennial predictive power. As you suggest, predicting global annual temperatures isn't the best measure of a model. It's a big part of why the failure to predict the pause across virtually 100% of all climate models was problematic, not catastrophic. Models are meant to give us more what the next 30,100,300 years might look like. To do that, they don't so much need to predict the temperature accurately, but instead the energy imabalance over time off how much Earth is gaining/losing year on year.
Now, the part you seem to have not looked at is how well our climate models simulate/predict the energy balance for earth. Here's the IPCC 5th assessment comment on exactly that:
For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013)
That's from the IPCC 5th Assessment chapter 9, you should read through it with a skeptical mind. What that is saying is that clouds are sufficiently poorly modelled that unless modellers tune them by hand, the model energy imbalance is so off the models drift to an unrealistic state. This is still a universal limitation.
Long story short we know lots, but there is also still lots we don't know. More pointedly, if models can't predict the energy imbalance, they aren't ready to make predictions at all in any meaningful way as that energy imbalance IS the key to the impact of human CO2 emissions.
On a geologic time scale, changes in solar flux actually nicely explain the extremely high CO2 concentrations in the distant past without corresponding extremely high temperatures. So at least the topic is suitable for educating the misinformed on actual science. But yes, we don't have to bother with it on a timescale of centuries.
Ezekiel 23:20
"immediately have another"
Good thing 15-day close is about as fast as you can buy a house these days :-)
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