Volcano, Not Global Warming Effects, May be Melting an Antarctic Glacier
Mon, Jan 21, 2008
Scientists have discovered a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards in Antarctica, evidence of an old eruption by a still active volcano that researchers believe may be contributing to the thinning of Antarctic glacial ice.
A NASA photo of the Pine Island glacial shelf
Hugh F.J. Corr and David G. Vaughan, two scientists with the British Antarctic Survey, recently published their discovery of the volcanic layer in the journal Nature Geoscience. The discovery is unique according to Dr. Vaughan. He said “This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet.”
The volcano’s heat could possibly be melting and thinning the ice and raising the speed of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica.
But while the Pine Island Glacier may be thinning because of the volcano, it’s highly unlikely the thinning of Antarctica’s ice sheet as a whole can be blamed on hidden volcanoes. For one thing, Antarctica has very few active volcanoes. Most glacial scientists, including Dr. Vaughan himself, blame warmer ocean waters for glacial thinning in West Antarctica.
The ash and glass layer the scientists discovered was most likely deposited around the time of Alexander the Great. The eruption would have exploded upwards, pushing through hundreds of metres of ice, spraying ash and volcanic glass shards all over the land surrounding it. Two millennia of snows have covered the volcanic layer, but recent radar surveys found it.
In fact, radar teams discovered the layer in 2004 and 2005, but the reflected radar waves from the layer were so strong they thought it was actual bedrock. A more recent radar survey with improved equipment meant the team discovered the actual bedrock, and thus the layer above it.
The thickness of the ice above the layer mean that the scientists could date it to roughly 200 B.C., plus or minus 240 years or so. But the researchers think they can narrow it down more than that. From previous examinations of ice cores, they knew that a volcano had erupted in Antarctica some time around 325 B.C., although they had not known where the eruption had happened. Dr. Vaughan said: “We’re fairly confident this is the same eruption.”
Source: New York Times
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3 Trackbacks For This Post
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Kyle Brady: A Blog » Blog Archive » Bridge to Linkibethia Says:
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:52 am[...] Volcano-based Global Warming, Not Humans [...]
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What is it About Climate Change? » ecoble - ecological design, green innovation and environmental sustainability Says:
January 24th, 2008 at 1:19 pm[...] Is it just too big of a concept for people to grasp? Too complex to know for sure and therefore it elicits negativity? Or could it be that we are scared it could be true and eager to believe detractors who, possibly for personal profit, resist reacting to the potential threat post by global climate change? Even when alternative explanations, such as volcanoes, are presented to problems such as localized ice melting. [...]
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Global Warming Causes Alien Invasion in Antarctica : Environmental Graffiti - environmental news blog Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 6:13 pm[...] and global warming are setting the stage for an alien invasion of [...]
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January 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
The headline of this story made it sound like another attempt to discredit climate change. After reading the story, that’s not the case, but it’s still alarming. Now both nature and man-made events are depleting the polar ice caps. It doesn’t sound like a good combination.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
“After reading the article….”
Sounds like something that normally is done first before making a comment on the same article.
“…it’s highly unlikely the thinning of Antarctica’s ice sheet as a whole can be blamed on hidden volcanoes. For one thing, Antarctica has very few active volcanoes. Most glacial scientists, including Dr. Vaughan himself, blame warmer ocean waters for glacial thinning in West Antarctica.”
January 21st, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Change happens. It has happened before, it will happen again. We need to stop being so freaked out about what is natural and look at how we can accommodate change . . .adapt to it. We are in a better place than any previous group of humans to weather this cycle if we only take some hard looks at how we manage our food and water supplies.
::sigh::
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
that was a good eye opener. i feel there is nothing wrong in knowing wats gonna happen in future.
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:22 am
volcanoes are really scary. the facts and figures above are correct.
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 am
The headline is misleading. Secondly, mother nature can take care of her own, BUT we are adding to the fact. We are still the biggest contributer to the mess that is affecting our home.
And sure change is natural and will always happen, but it gives us no right to be disrespectful towards anything, least of all earth, or help speed up the process.
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:06 am
The earth is one of the most stable planet we witnessed, climate wise, for about… few thousands of years, which is peanuts in Planets life time.
I’m actually amazed that humans are so ego centric, thinking that everything have to be related to them, whether it’s because or for them.
Climate changes, ice ages, “global warming”, it’s all cycles that we never experienced before because we didn’t even exist.
Use Ocham’s razor here and tell me what’s more likely to be:
- Earth climate change, like every other planets in the solar system and beyond we could study.
- 50 years of humans releasing gazes make the whole planet to warm up.
Yeah, sure, humans, definitely a rational thinking.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
It is an interesting article to read. We have to agree that our planet is like a living beeing and it is constantly changing. Even in the past we had warmer or cooler periods on Earth. Still, one of the main factors affecting ice caps are oceans. Ofcourse, the oceans are influenced by climate change that was influenced by humans.
I found an interesting article on http://www.1ocean-1climate.com
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
global warming is not our fault.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Ycare - Egocentric because we believe that we are having a profound effect on the Earth’s climate? I think not? Yes, climate change has happened before, and would happen again, but not at the speed that we as humans are affecting the atmospheric composition. Millions of years of carbon released in just over 150 years ( the 50 you refer to is the curve of the hockey stick only).
How ever misguided we may be in some elements to control GHG release, surely some effort will be better than none in the long run!
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:06 am
global warming is one of the dumbest ideas ever to surface on this planet yet it is believed by the majority. Just look up statistics, not only has the Earth been cooling for the past several years, but small changes in climate in certain areas cannot create the disastrous effects that some people say. Most scientists have completely debunked the idea, yet many environmentalists such as greenpeace dont tell you that because they think theyre right. Look at the facts and its obvious that the idea is utter garbage. The ice caps melting has nothing to do with global warming or any carbon emissions from humans.
March 1st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
What is unique about today is that we are urban, and so totally dependent on an expensive, and complex, infrastructure to provide for even our most basic needs. Humans have a long history of destroying their own environments, leading to localised mass extinctions, and social decay, or collapse. The classics of over grazing, over cultivation, tree clearance, and so on, are those that destroyed every civilisation before ours. The same massive scale technology that has enabled us to push these boundaries, will have had, and have, side effects - as all technologies do - on the very systems that we are benefiting from.
London smog ruined the lives of millions, over the 70 or so years that it was allowed to exist. It was man-made, no one doubts that now, created by burning coal. We introduced the ‘clean air’ act, and we no longer got a smog. It is a little thing, and easily removed, but at heart, it is no different, except in scale, to the plethora of life enhancing industrial and agricultural processes that abound, globally. All global systems (water, air, nitrogen, carbon, plant growth, heat capture and dissipation, etc) are in a state of tension, some sort of dynamic equilibrium. It seems to me that human created processes that are large enough to benefit us on a global scale, will have downsides, also on a global scale.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
bunch of starbuck employee hippies
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:36 am
May 2nd the Chilli Volcano blew its cork.. about 9000 years this old volcano erupted.. makes one wonder what tectonic effect that would have in other regions around the globe.. IE the massive earthquake in China. maybe cause by a ripple effect in the earths crust.. so much we do not know about tectonics.. somthing to ponder over..
Crazed loonie, Newport Oregon
May 26th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Jesus is returning very soon.
Are you Ready ?
May 27th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
#19 is by far the most sensible of the above. Personally I’m a big believer in the mirror world idea, we go one way in pattern and the other side of the mirror goes the other way, time is an illusion in an electro-magnetic-spin reality, we have assumed it is “normal” to be born via a woman and die and go in a box but the people on the other side assume it is “normal” to be born in a box and die inside a woman. When you think about it both are prejudiced ideas, someone must sit at the mirror’s surface, hence me saying #19 is the most sensible as it is only from the mirror’s surface that the truth about good and evil etc can be seen. We see glaciers melting and people all over the world dying as they are flooded out but on the other side they see people suddenly appearing as water disappears and glaciers build up. We are not fit to judge what is good or bad until we learn to think as God does and this is probably how he thinks, ….. or is it she thinks? I can never remember. With this freedom to act God can do whatever he/she wants as no-one loses really when both sides of all the mirror worlds are considered. Personally I expect large earthquakes in Antarctica and a huge melting of the glaciers such that all ice will be gone from there within a decade, we will adapt or die, God doesn’t care which we choose to do. http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/01/06/crackpot-or-genius-has-a-shell-boffin-stumbled-on-a-scientific-breakthrough/
May 29th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Will Jesus rescue the pro global-warmist or the anti warmist.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
has it to do with global warming al thes things ?
what has volcanos nd orkans to do with global warming dont understand :S
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