Climate change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters

[CHIMO]

Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way – by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions.

Reports by international groups of researchers – to be presented at a London conference next week – will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.

Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.

At the same time the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth's crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future – and a fiery one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/06/global-warming-natural-disasters-conference

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Dammit! That is the third time now I have accidentally hit Unrec. *face palm*

[tabatha]

2. They should be colored.

Green for rec, red for unrec.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Yeah, and I should have a slower clicker finger. It's just too darn twitchy!

[elocs]

5. Isn't it odd that to vote in a poll you have to confirm your vote,

but Rec or UnRec is just 1 click and it's over?

[Chemisse]

7. They should be farther apart too.

[populistdriven]

15. yup i think we are tied in that department

this one got a recc tho

[CrispyQ]

16. Rec should be on the right & unrec on the left.

Just like the number line - positive numbers on the right & negative numbers on the left.

The color coded idea is good too. :thumbsup:

[ezgoingrl]

4. Thanks for the article.

Frankly, I'm surprised you had the guts to mention "trigger".

[CHIMO]

10. It Is The Papers

Choice of words.

So, to be honest with you or in a nutshell and essentially they may be picking up on a new saying.

Maybe cataclysmic might have been more apt?

[Chemisse]

6. Eep! I hadn't thought about the weight of the ice caps

The land will rise substantially when they melt. It makes sense that would shift the forces on the plates.

Damn! We're screwed left, right and sideways.

[DCKit]

11. The area around Chesapeake Bay is still sinking 10,000 or so years later...

as the Great Lakes region lifts.

Two miles of ice is a real shitload of weight.

[pscot]

8. I've been wondering about that

All that ice atop Greenland and the Himalayas must weigh a bunch. The land will rise as it melts. The damned human race is in for quite ride.

[bhikkhu]

9. I suppose anything is possible, though not especially likely

There is no evident that the "dimpling" of the earth's crust at points of heavy ice accumulation (Greeenland is the clearest example) caused any volcanic activity. There is also little evidence or likelihood that the melting off of ice caps would cause volcanic activity. Earthquakes are an easy prediction as the crust rebounds in places, but these are inherently local and entirely different in cause and character from volcanism.

[Nihil]

18. FYI ...

> There is also little evidence or likelihood that the melting off of
> ice caps would cause volcanic activity.

*cough* Read the OP article ... *cough*
>> Some of the key evidence to be presented at the conference will come from
>> studies of past volcanic activity. These indicate that when ice sheets
>> disappear the number of eruptions increases, said Professor David Pyle,
>> of Oxford University's earth sciences department.
>>
>> "The last ice age came to an end between 12,000 to 15,000 years ago and the
>> ice sheets that once covered central Europe shrank dramatically," added Pyle.
>> "The impact on the continent's geology can by measured by the jump in volcanic
>> activity that occurred at this time."
>>
>> In the Eiffel region of western Germany a huge eruption created a vast
>> caldera, or basin-shaped crater, 12,900 years ago, for example. This has since
>> flooded to form the Laacher See, near Koblenz.

(My emphasis) :hi:

[Dogmudgeon]

12. "Isostatic Rebound" is too-seldom discussed

The increase in seismic activity in the last few decades MAY be a signal that I.R. (a.k.a. isostasy) is happening. At least, it's a hypothesis that would be productive to pursue.

With all due respect to Bikkhu, it is not unreasonable to suspect volcanic activity will be associated with isostasy. Since volcanoes are much more complex and varied things than isostasy-induced earthquakes, they are not likely to be an overwhelming part of these changes, but ought not be ignored. And there is the low-probability chance that one or more "supervolcanoes" could be triggered into eruptions. Yellowstone is close to its cyclic eruption period of 650 Ka, and there may be deep hotspots ready to erupt for which we have no clue. Our good fortune is that these things happen on multi-thousand-year time scales.

Isostasy is a little-mentioned topic in geology, and the study of volcanism is still in its infancy (comparatively speaking), but they may become quite important over the next few centuries.

--d!

[troubledamerican]

13. Does billions of gallons of meltwater = tectonic plate pressure/shifts?

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. I recently read an article in scientific american...

... by a Paleontologist named Peter Ward that the most recent mass extinctions were not caused primarily by external insults (asteroids) but because of the climactic changes that it caused.

Specifically, ocean warming caused deep ocean bacteria which metabolize hydrogen sulfide to breach the surface and poison the atmosphere. Additionally, the H2S destroyed the ozone layer, allowing UV radiation which killed almost all terrestrial plants and animals.

The earth didn't begin recovering from the impact immediately. It was 5 million years before the first tree grew.

As far as we know, this is the only place in the universe in which life took root. We're messing with more than just our own human wellbeing here.

[imdjh]

17. This guy is falling.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. Not to worry, the increased fresh water will cause...

the reversal of the Gulf Stream, leading to a new ice age.

The massive sheets of ice down to about North Carolina and Sicily will reflect sunlight, leading to further cooling and force all six billion humans on earth into India, the new Sahara Plains and Viet Nam.