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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.