Climate Change Likely To Increase Volcanic Eruptions, Scientists Say

[Rasulis]

Now, even geologists are playing at being climatologists. I went into the wrong field. Nobody cares about earthquakes anymore. Its all about global warming. Anyway, here is an article from NPR which claims that warming planet due to human-induced climate change will likely contribute to an increase in volcanic activity, according to a recent study in the journal Geology.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...scientists-say

Here is the study from the Journal of Geology.

https://gsw.silverchair-cdn.com/gsw/...CZBIA4LVPAVW3Q

[Mosotti]

It makes sense to me. Magma is about 1300 degrees Celsius, if you add 1 degree to that it just starts to boil and explodes. That's why we must use only one sheet of toilet paper, no matter how big the shit actually is.

[Independent voter]

While a relationship between climate and volcanism might seem counter-intuitive, it turns out that pressure exerted by thick glaciers on the Earth's crust — what geologists call "surface loading" – has an impact on the flow of magma below the surface.

From the article.

That makes sense, I guess.

[Crissi]

While melting glaciers will absolutely have an effect, since glaciers are so heavy that they depress the ground, the rest seems to basically be an analysis of cross correlation. I'm...not sure how I feel about that.

and then the "we wont know the true effects for hundreds of years" seems like a cop out.

Dont get me wrong, I think CC is a thing, but i dont really like this paper. Too much unknown, would require a LOT more analysis and certainly not rely so much on cross correlation.

[Mosotti]

While a relationship between climate and volcanism might seem counter-intuitive, it turns out that pressure exerted by thick glaciers on the Earth's crust — what geologists call "surface loading" – has an impact on the flow of magma below the surface.

From the article.

That makes sense, I guess.

The "thick" glaciers' thickness pales in comparison with the Earth's crust. Also the crust is made by solid rock, much heavier than ice. I don't really understand how having such a tiny thing pressuring a really fucking huge thing can have an effect on volcanos...

[Deleted]

Wo, how many virgins should we throw in these volcanos to calm the lava gods?

[Guchie]

Now, even geologists are playing at being climatologists. I went into the wrong field. Nobody cares about earthquakes anymore. Its all about global warming. Anyway, here is an article from NPR which claims that warming planet due to human-induced climate change will likely contribute to an increase in volcanic activity, according to a recent study in the journal Geology.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...scientists-say

Here is the study from the Journal of Geology.

Wasn't there an article not too long ago that showed ice cap melts were in part due to volcanic activity under the ice shelf?

Yeah, here it is: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...rct/844748001/

This sounds like climate scientists trying to pivot that to still be a global warming issue.

[Crissi]

The "thick" glaciers' thickness pales in comparison with the Earth's crust. Also the crust is made by solid rock, much heavier than ice. I don't really understand how having such a tiny thing pressuring a really fucking huge thing can have an effect on volcanos...

Basically, it would depressurize magma chambers. Also, glaciers can depress the ground by a few inches because concentrated ice is HEAVY. SO heavy that when they move, they deform the land around them and carve out valleys. While that doesn't seem like much, a bounce back of a few inches is a LOT on volcanoes. Hell, you get panics when Yellowstone has a rise or lowering of the ground (magma movement).

Its called post glacial rebound / isostatic rebound

[WskyDK]

Wo, how many virgins should we throw in these volcanos to calm the lava gods?

None, we can't have gen-ot turned into a ghost town.


This only barely passes the smell test. I'm with Crissi on this; there may be an effect, but this paper hardly paints anyhing more than the thinnest of relationships.

[Cheerbleeder]

Yeah climate change or also known as Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter! It's been happening for awhile now.

NPR is very fake news

[Spectral]

This reads to me like a situation where incorporating the hot thing in the field into basic science is seen as advantageous for publication and grant funding. They're doing basic science on glaciers and volcanology, which is pretty cool, but hard to really see much that'd be exciting and shiny from the perspective of high impact-factor journals. So as the scientist, you spice it up a bit with a tenuous (but plausible!) tie to the thing that actually gets the big attention.

[Ghostpanther]

Lol! Gheeze and here I thought conspiracy theories are not allowed here.

[Crissi]

Yeah climate change or also known as Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter! It's been happening for awhile now.

NPR is very fake news

The seasons are a result of the earth's tilt in relation to the sun, but try again. You can still have varied seasons with CC, since earth tilt has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect.

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This reads to me like a situation where incorporating the hot thing in the field into basic science is seen as advantageous for publication and grant funding. They're doing basic science on glaciers and volcanology, which is pretty cool, but hard to really see much that'd be exciting and shiny from the perspective of high impact-factor journals. So as the scientist, you spice it up a bit with a tenuous (but plausible!) tie to the thing that actually gets the big attention.

I took a look at the methodology and I just kind of wanted to *headdesk*

correlation is a good FIRST STEP, but shouldn't be the basis of a god damned paper. Unless they literally controlled for every variable ever, which it doesn't look like they did.

Whenever I do my correlations for my job, I always have to follow it up with further stat analysis because correlation on its own means squat.

[Ripster42]

Wasn't there an article not too long ago that showed ice cap melts were in part due to volcanic activity under the ice shelf?

Yeah, here it is: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...rct/844748001/

This sounds like climate scientists trying to pivot that to still be a global warming issue.

This is examining different data by different scientists. That's about a volcanic hot spot in antartica, the OP's article is about finding ash layers in peat that correspond to volcanic activity. It's not a pivot.

That being said they're basically saying they have evidence that fits their theory, but doesn't definitively prove anything. They're using one data point to suggest a pattern.

This just seems like another case of bad science journalism (which NPR has some history with) that makes much stronger claims than the paper is actually making.

[Spectral]

I took a look at the methodology and I just kind of wanted to *headdesk*

correlation is a good FIRST STEP, but shouldn't be the basis of a god damned paper. Unless they literally controlled for every variable ever, which it doesn't look like they did.

Whenever I do my correlations for my job, I always have to follow it up with further stat analysis because correlation on its own means squat.

Wow - it's actually worse than I thought. I open the paper up and did a Ctrl-F for "control" and found nothing that indicates that they bothered to control for any other factors. It's nothing more than "more volcanic activity during this selected warm period". This bit from the abstract is especially handwavey:

We identify a period of markedly reduced volcanic activity centered on 5.5–4.5 ka that was preceded by a major change in atmospheric circulation patterns, expressed in the North Atlantic as a deepening of the Icelandic Low, favoring glacial advance on Iceland.

They assume the impact of temperature and then work to find the lag time. Oof.

I don't know, it's certainly not my field and maybe this is just already much better established, so that's all they need to do, but it doesn't look great.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

The biggest problem is that climate change deniers will point at this as evidence that its all fake. "Well, this one paper was not very good, so that means the mountain of other evidence is clearly fabricated and climate change is a hoax."

[Rasulis]

While melting glaciers will absolutely have an effect, since glaciers are so heavy that they depress the ground, the rest seems to basically be an analysis of cross correlation. I'm...not sure how I feel about that.

and then the "we wont know the true effects for hundreds of years" seems like a cop out.

Dont get me wrong, I think CC is a thing, but i dont really like this paper. Too much unknown, would require a LOT more analysis and certainly not rely so much on cross correlation.

Geology has always been a highly uncertain field. My specialty is seismic design and evaluation, so I work with a lot of geologists & seismologists. You can put four of the best geologists in Southern California in front on a fault exposure and give them the same carbon dating data, and each will come up with completely different recurrence rates for the fault. That’s from a personal experience btw. We are talking about a field where a couple of thousand years discrepancy is considered close enough. Or in my partner’s words, “Good enough for government work.”

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The "thick" glaciers' thickness pales in comparison with the Earth's crust. Also the crust is made by solid rock, much heavier than ice. I don't really understand how having such a tiny thing pressuring a really fucking huge thing can have an effect on volcanos...

The additional confining pressure from the glacier is a combination of the surcharge pressure (due to the weight of the glacier) and the in-plane shear stress of the glacier which acts as a reinforcement to the earth crust. Think of the earth as a balloon. With the glacier, you have a thicker balloon which requires more pressure to burst.

[Cheerbleeder]

The seasons are a result of the earth's tilt in relation to the sun, but try again. You can still have varied seasons with CC, since earth tilt has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect.

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I took a look at the methodology and I just kind of wanted to *headdesk*

correlation is a good FIRST STEP, but shouldn't be the basis of a god damned paper. Unless they literally controlled for every variable ever, which it doesn't look like they did.

Whenever I do my correlations for my job, I always have to follow it up with further stat analysis because correlation on its own means squat.

Ever heard of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles? Or even the Ice ages?

Climate change has always occurred on Earth! Stop using it as political fear talk!

#next

[Ripster42]

The biggest problem is that climate change deniers will point at this as evidence that its all fake. "Well, this one paper was not very good, so that means the mountain of other evidence is clearly fabricated and climate change is a hoax."

It's not really a terrible paper. The NPR article about the paper just says it's making claims that the scholarly article is not. The article is just saying this data is consistent with this theory that they have, but isn't definitive proof. They're fairly clearly stating the deficiencies in their paper.

[Rasulis]

The seasons are a result of the earth's tilt in relation to the sun, but try again. You can still have varied seasons with CC, since earth tilt has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect.

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I took a look at the methodology and I just kind of wanted to *headdesk*

correlation is a good FIRST STEP, but shouldn't be the basis of a god damned paper. Unless they literally controlled for every variable ever, which it doesn't look like they did.

Whenever I do my correlations for my job, I always have to follow it up with further stat analysis because correlation on its own means squat.

Unfortunately, in geology, or for that matter most earth sciences, you don't always have or can get all the data in hand to do to a thorough statistical analysis. In reinforced concrete, I can break the same beam 1,000 times and do a statistical analysis on the strength of the beam based on given dimensions, reinforcement, rebar types, concrete mix, temperature, moisture, etc. I can control all the parameters.

However, how do you do a Time-History Seismic Analysis on Fault which has not had a major event in the last 10,000 years? Your option is to find faults with similar structures that have had recorded events that you can use for your statistical analysis. But then you have to account for fault length, depth, inclination, orientation, rate of movement, distance from source, geology, etc. Its fun stuff. Especially when you had to defend your study in front of a panel.