I get that the volcanoes could exacerbate climate change's effects, but how much effect might these volcanoes have on climate change already?
The following suggests that volcano activity followed from their uncovering by ice sheets, but might the causality of such be flipped?
> he pointed to one alarming trend: “The most volcanism that is going in the world at present is in regions that have only recently lost their glacier covering – after the end of the last ice age. These places include Iceland and Alaska.
> “Theory suggests that this is occurring because, without ice sheets on top of them, there is a release of pressure on the regions’ volcanoes and they become more active.”
There is some doubt around the study you linked. A followup study concluded the original overestimated growth by 3x and that the ice sheet is in fact shrinking.
So was the reply. I didn't know about that other study. I also have no reason to believe it is more (or less) authoritative than the NASA study. Most people don't actually know that the Antarctic (unlike the Arctic) ice sheet is not rapidly receding.
Just to put things in perspective: both those studies talk about gains/losses of less than about 100 GT/year, while the total mass of the Antarctic ice sheet is about 25 million GT.
People keep saying that, but I wouldn't be so sure. From an earlier comment of mine (edited for clarity/formatting):
Most recent study of methane flux/storage in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf: [1]
Arctic temperatures are estimated to rise 1.9x compared to global average: [2]
During Holocene Climate Optimum (the warmest period in human history) the arctic is estimated to have been 4-6C warmer than baseline (yearly average): [3]
That's not all that much. We're now already at 400ppm CO2, and recent unmitigated projections to 2100 (538ppm) simulate an arctic yearly average of ~ plus 8C [4].
And that most probably doesn't take a positive methane feedback loop into account. This is a significant gamble. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum boundary showed a global average warming of 5C, mostly from arctic methane at a time where there wasn't even a large ice shelf, so with significantly lower capacity [5].
We can only guess what a global average temperature increase of 13C could do to the ecosystem that's currently feeding 7B people.
I would argue that the species will be fine. If your definition of 'fine' is the species surviving. If 99% of the human race were wiped out by Global Warming we would still have 70 million humans on the planet (approx one UK). That should be more than enough to repopulate given a long long time.
Obviously that would be a terrible disaster the likes of which our race has never seen. 100 times the death toll of WW2 and would destroy pretty much all our infrastructure etc as supply chains fail etc. This is something we should strive to avoid at all costs but I do think the species would survive. We are quite a hardy bunch actually.
Yes, that's what I meant by "fine". A darker part of me even desires a quick environmental cataclysm - but on balance I'd rather we colonised space pronto.
The West Antarctic has been collapsing for centuries. This is nothing new, and it has nothing to do with atmospheric carbon dioxide. [1]
It will take 800 years for the sea level to rise six feet at the rate it is and has been rising over the past 120 years.
The news media likes to scare you with drummed up tales about the end times due to global warming. Like all end times apocalyptic forecasts, the dates this apocalypse is foretold to occur on come and go, and just get revised to a future date each time nothing happens. [2]
Noah and Kevin Costner will flood the Earth before volcanoes and carbon dioxide do.
What a nice trilogy, when I read it I had the feeling that there was really a colony on Mars. I still have music which I listened at the time that trigger a martian feeling !
In my opinion, we need simply to continue to build vessels to weather all we can encounter, on this planet on others, i.e. yes please, sign me up for the mother ship(s).
1) Turns out there are a bunch of volcanoes, 91, underneath the west Antarctic ice sheet that we previously didn't know about. In fact:
(Excerpts are placed between square brackets.)
["We were amazed," Bingham said. "We had not expected to find anything like that number. We have almost trebled the number of volcanoes known to exist in west Antarctica. We also suspect there are even more on the bed of the sea that lies under the Ross ice shelf, so that I think it is very likely this region will turn out to be the densest region of volcanoes in the world, greater even than east Africa, where mounts Nyiragongo, Kilimanjaro, Longonot and all the other active volcanoes are concentrated."]
2) Furthermore, eruptions would cause the ice sheet to melt:
[“Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.]
3) They could already be erupting and causing the ice to melt:
[“We just don’t know about how active these volcanoes have been in the past,” Bingham said.]
4) Also, consider this quote:
[If one erupts, it could further destabilise some of the region’s ice sheets, which have already been affected by global warming.]
I followed the link. The headline is:
[Although fracturing and surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf might sound like indicators of climate change, these processes are natural]
The article links to a source, another article in the same paper, that actually contradicts the claim it is making. Another quote from the article:
[So, while ice fracturing and surface melting may sound like signs of climate change in action in Antarctica, they are really part of the background against which we must look for real change.]
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 91.3 ms ] threadThe following suggests that volcano activity followed from their uncovering by ice sheets, but might the causality of such be flipped?
> he pointed to one alarming trend: “The most volcanism that is going in the world at present is in regions that have only recently lost their glacier covering – after the end of the last ice age. These places include Iceland and Alaska.
> “Theory suggests that this is occurring because, without ice sheets on top of them, there is a release of pressure on the regions’ volcanoes and they become more active.”
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-o...
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-growth-east-antarctic-ice-shee...
Antarctica is much thicker. Of course it recedes slower.
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-i...
People keep saying that, but I wouldn't be so sure. From an earlier comment of mine (edited for clarity/formatting):
Most recent study of methane flux/storage in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf: [1]
Arctic temperatures are estimated to rise 1.9x compared to global average: [2]
During Holocene Climate Optimum (the warmest period in human history) the arctic is estimated to have been 4-6C warmer than baseline (yearly average): [3]
That's not all that much. We're now already at 400ppm CO2, and recent unmitigated projections to 2100 (538ppm) simulate an arctic yearly average of ~ plus 8C [4].
And that most probably doesn't take a positive methane feedback loop into account. This is a significant gamble. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum boundary showed a global average warming of 5C, mostly from arctic methane at a time where there wasn't even a large ice shelf, so with significantly lower capacity [5].
We can only guess what a global average temperature increase of 13C could do to the ecosystem that's currently feeding 7B people.
[1] http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2052/2014...
[2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL025244/full
[3] https://epic.awi.de/38441/1/Beierlein_2015_Holocene_page1.pd...
[4] http://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-is-set-to-reach-13c-by-...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Maxim...
Obviously that would be a terrible disaster the likes of which our race has never seen. 100 times the death toll of WW2 and would destroy pretty much all our infrastructure etc as supply chains fail etc. This is something we should strive to avoid at all costs but I do think the species would survive. We are quite a hardy bunch actually.
It will take 800 years for the sea level to rise six feet at the rate it is and has been rising over the past 120 years.
The news media likes to scare you with drummed up tales about the end times due to global warming. Like all end times apocalyptic forecasts, the dates this apocalypse is foretold to occur on come and go, and just get revised to a future date each time nothing happens. [2]
Noah and Kevin Costner will flood the Earth before volcanoes and carbon dioxide do.
[1] https://realclimatescience.com/west-antarctic-collapse-scam/
[2] https://realclimatescience.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
(Excerpts are placed between square brackets.)
["We were amazed," Bingham said. "We had not expected to find anything like that number. We have almost trebled the number of volcanoes known to exist in west Antarctica. We also suspect there are even more on the bed of the sea that lies under the Ross ice shelf, so that I think it is very likely this region will turn out to be the densest region of volcanoes in the world, greater even than east Africa, where mounts Nyiragongo, Kilimanjaro, Longonot and all the other active volcanoes are concentrated."]
2) Furthermore, eruptions would cause the ice sheet to melt:
[“Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.]
3) They could already be erupting and causing the ice to melt:
[“We just don’t know about how active these volcanoes have been in the past,” Bingham said.]
4) Also, consider this quote:
[If one erupts, it could further destabilise some of the region’s ice sheets, which have already been affected by global warming.]
I followed the link. The headline is:
[Although fracturing and surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf might sound like indicators of climate change, these processes are natural]
The article links to a source, another article in the same paper, that actually contradicts the claim it is making. Another quote from the article:
[So, while ice fracturing and surface melting may sound like signs of climate change in action in Antarctica, they are really part of the background against which we must look for real change.]