Australia: The Land Where Time Began |
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Volcanic Activity-Climate Change
In his book, Waking the Giant,
Prof. Bill McGuire brings together evidence from several fields to
explain how and why the climate is expected to change over coming
centuries, including some aspects of climate change that are not
mentioned in the public media, such as changes in volcanic and seismic
activity. He has included discussion of past climates from periods of
the Earth’s history when climatic conditions were similar to those we
are facing at the present and into the future if global temperatures
continue to rise at the present rate or greater.
Volcanic Activity Associated with Climate Change¹
Volcanoes are not usually spoken of as being associated with climate
change, global warming, but the melting of glaciers can increase the
rate of volcanic activity substantially.
There are thick permanent ice sheets, especially in high
mountain ranges, such as are present on Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia,
the Andes in South America and the High Sierras of California, and at
high latitudes. According to the author¹ the weight of the ice sheets
where they were at their thickest there appears to have been less magma
produced deep within the Earth, reducing the amount of magma being
supplied to the storage chambers within the volcanoes. The pressure on
the inner rocks of the Earth is suggested by the author¹ to be 3.5
million times that of the atmosphere at sea level, a pressure that
prevents the rocks beneath the asthenosphere from melting, thereby
keeping the Earth mainly solid. High pressures act to suppress melting
as most materials, with the exception of water, occupy a greater volume
in the liquid form than in the solid form, even though in some places
the temperature is high enough to melt the rock. Pressure and
temperature both increase with depth, though at different rates from
each other, and these also vary from place to place. The asthenosphere
is a single thin layer within the mantle of the Earth, in which both
temperature and pressure are right for melting to occur.
The asthenosphere is situated about 100-250 km from the surface, near
enough to the surface for the tectonic plates to float on it, which
allows them to move across the surface of the Earth, as well as
providing most magma for volcanoes. The lithosphere, the layer of cool,
brittle crust and upper mantle has temperatures that are broadly not hot
enough to melt, and below the asthenosphere the pressures are too great
to allow melting. It has been estimated that about 10 % of the
asthenosphere is molten and the remaining 90 % being so close to melting
that it can melt if the temperature increases slightly or the pressure
is reduced slightly. This pressure reduction can most easily occur as
the result from the removal of a large ice sheet by rapid melting
such as the one that covered Iceland at the
last glacial maximum.
When this happened at the end of the last glacial phase the crust that
was now under reduced pressure rose, isostatic rebound, during which the
surface was uplifted by several hundred metres, and in the process
reduced the pressure being applied to the asthenosphere thereby allowing
it to melt. At the start of the present interglacial the volcanoes that
had been suppressed by the ice for thousands of years began erupting
once more. Among the places where the reawakened volcanoes erupted was
Iceland, an island that is composed entirely of solidified magma that
has been either erupted or emplaced beneath the surface to fill any gaps
the molten lava can find, as the North American tectonic plate moved
slowly to the west and the Eurasian plate moved slowly to the east.
Iceland¹
An ice sheet that averaged almost a kilometre thick covered the whole of
Iceland 20,000 years ago, then global warming triggered rapid melting of
the glaciers about 16,000-15,000 years ago with the result that
unloading occurred above the volcanoes and their magma source in the
asthenosphere. Unloading had progressed enough by 12,000 years ago for
the suppressed volcanoes to become active with a vengeance, the eruption
rate jumping by 30 to 50 times the previous rate and after 1500 years
the rate dropped again to the levels of the present. Part of this
volcanic rejuvenation was powered by the magma that was trapped in the
magma chambers by the ice loading, but there was also a huge supply of
additional magma that was produced from deeper in the asthenosphere when
the pressure was released by the unloading, the depressed lithosphere
rapidly rebounding by as much as 0.5 km. The rapid, in geological terms,
release of pressure trigged a 30-fold increase in magma production.
In Iceland of the present the Grimsvötn volcano demonstrates the
triggering of volcanic eruptions by unloading. Covering the Grimsvötn
volcano is the last remnant of the ice cover that completely shrouded
Iceland during the last ice age, the Vatnajökull Ice Cap. This an
unusual situation for a volcano and the structure of Grimsvötn is also
unusual, the volcano being truncated by a caldera (large crater) 8 km in
diameter containing a lake. The geothermal heat typically melts the
surrounding ice progressively and this results in a rising lake level,
and eventually the pressure of the water bursts the seal with the
overlying ice and a glacial flood, called a jökulhlaup in Iceland,
ensues.
Sometimes the volcano is charged with magma and erupts when the load is
removed, as occurred in 2004 and 2011.
The author¹ suggests volcanic activity in the areas surrounding the vast
ice sheets of the last ice age, so not buried beneath the ice, appear to
have been influenced by the melting of the ice sheets at the end of the
glaciation. The volcanoes of the Eifel Mountains in Germany, and in
France the Massive Central, appear to have been rejuvenated between
about 17,000 and 5,000 years ago. In the surrounding areas more than
50 volcanoes erupted as the ice sheets that covered Scandinavia, the UK
and the Alps were retreating rapidly. David Nowell et al. have
suggested regional crustal uplift accompanied by a great loss of ice was
the probable cause of this bout volcanic activity. The effect of the
melting of the ice sheets would have been to release much of the
pressure on the asthenosphere and thereby allowing the production of
fresh magma as the asthenosphere in the area melted, the magma being
vented through the overlying volcanoes. There is also evidence from the
Kamchatka Peninsula, the Chilean Andes and the western US for bursts of
volcanic activity being associated with the melting of more localised
ice fields. In the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California the
volcanoes reveal an obvious inverse relationship between volcanic
activity and ice sheets over the course of almost 1 million years in
which there were a number of glacial advances and retreats. The
inhibition of magma from opening fractures, and moving along them,
dykes, to feed magma to erupting volcanoes on the surface is believed to
be the most likely explanation of such activity as the ice melted.
During the interglacial periods when the ice had melted dyke formation
was hindered less with the result that the eruption of lava from the
volcanoes was easier. This response to higher temperatures and melting
ice at the close of the last glacial phase is seen in Iceland, as well
as other areas that were extensively glaciated, such as in western
Europe, the western US, the easternmost part of Russia and the high
Andes, it has been found relatively recently that the volcanic response
was in fact much more widespread.
Ice cores
The extensive ice sheet on Greenland, second only to the even vaster ice
sheets in Antarctica, over 80 % of the land area, and at its greatest
depth reaches up to 3 km in depth, with a total volume of nearly 3
million km³. This ice has been accumulating for more than 100,000 years,
and since the advent of ice coring it has been realised that this frozen
archive stores a treasure trove of information on the changing climate,
and the tiny gas bubbles trapped in the ice give a window into the
atmosphere with its component gases over the period the ice was being
deposited, providing information on the temperature, sea level and solar
activity at the time the bubbles of atmosphere were trapped, since
before the last ice age. Among the information recorded in the ice are
the events happening around the world that added large volumes of
material to the atmosphere such as dust storms, wild fires and volcanic
eruptions. Among the eruptions recorded as layers of volcanic dust or
more often as sulphate films as the sulphuric acid aerosol veils that
resulted from eruptions such as Lakagigar, Tambora, Krakatoa and
Pinatubo.
Analysis of this ice core by Greg Zielinski et al. has revealed 2
periods of enhanced volcanic activity, one between 35,000 and 22,000
years ago at a time when the global temperature was dropping and ice
sheets were expanding, and one in post-glacial times, between 17,000 and
6,000 years ago when the ice sheets were melting. It has been suggested
by Zielinski et al., based on the ice core analysis, that these
global eruption clusters 'might reflect a global volcanic response to
the influence of the changing climate at the time' proposing that
crustal stress changes resulting from the loss of ice mass during
deglaciation and ice loading during the expansion of glaciers expanded
in the build-up to the
Last Glacial Maximum
(LGM).
In cycles of glaciation-deglaciation associated with rapid changes of
climate, loading and unloading by ice are not the only factors involved,
especially as the global climate warms at the beginning of an
interglacial phase there are many more environmental changes, as well as
a number of ways in which volcanic activity can be triggered to erupt at
these times. The glaciers at high altitudes on ice-capped volcanoes thin
dramatically, possibly even disappear. These volcanoes, unlike those in
Iceland when 1 km of ice was lost from above them at the close of the
glacial phase, are unlikely to lose enough ice, even if the entire ice
cap melts, to induce the production of more magma from the
asthenosphere, though they can respond with more
explosive eruptions as the gases in the magma are able to expand more
easily with the result that they form a disrupted magma froth that is
expelled violently. An additional factor is that when the buttressing
effect of the ice is lost a volcano can be more prone to collapse, with
an eruption being triggered by failure and removal as parts of the
flanks slide, thus reducing the pressure on any magma that is present in
the volcano.
Meltwater from the melting cover of snow and ice, or increased
precipitation resulting from changes to the weather pattern in the area
can also destabilise a volcano when the flanks are saturated. In these
circumstances the likelihood of water and magma coming into contact at
shallow depths is increased. According to the author¹ this is always a
volatile mix that can trigger an explosive blast that can be direct or
by collapse of the flank.
At times when the climate is in large and rapid transition there are
also large redistributions of water on the Earth, there are also major
variations in the amount of ice, as well as global sea level changes
that are comparable. At the close of the last ice age there was a rise
in the sea level of 130 m that would have added an enormous amount of
load-related forces on the continental margins and island chains, which
are the location of most volcanoes. The author¹ asks if the distinct
bursts of volcanic activity that are recorded in the Greenland ice could
be a volcanic response to the changing global sea levels, added to the
reaction to variations in the ice load.
In 1990 a team of European researchers led by the author¹ examined the
timing of eruptions in the Mediterranean region, studying the record in
mud cores from the sea floor looking for volcanic ash layers indicating
eruptions. They found no relationship between volcanic activity in the
area and absolute sea level, though there was a very clear correlation
with the rate of sea level change and the occurrence of eruptions. The
warming at the close of the last glacial phase was the time of most
clustering of eruptions, as is also seen in the ice cores from
Greenland. Eruptions in the Mediterranean region that were large enough
to leave layers of ash on the sea floor occurred every 350 years, on
average, between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago, though when averaged over
the past 80,000 years the average separation of eruptions is more like
every 1050 years. There were also 2 other clusters of enhanced volcanic
activity, one between 61,000 and 55,000 years ago and another
38,000-35,000 years ago, of similar age to the one recognised by
Zielinski et al.
According to the author¹ 'it is sometimes hard to credit just how
rapidly the sea levels rose, and how relentlessly huge tracts of land
were inundated, following the end of the last ice age'. This is
particularly the case during the latest part of the Pleistocene and the Early to
Middle Holocene. The sea level has risen on average about 6-7 cm/year
since the Last Glacial Maximum, while the sea level rose about 20 cm
during the last century. The rise of the seas following the close of the
last ice age occurred in fits and starts that reflect the rate of
addition to the oceans of glacial meltwater from the retreating
glaciers. The oceans underwent 3 so-called catastrophic rise events
between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago, the sea levels rising as much as
several metres per century as huge volumes of freshwater flooded into
the oceans from the giant meltwater lakes accumulating along the fronts
of diminishing ice fields in North America, Europe and Asia. Low-lying
land was swamped and land bridges were cut and the oceans transgressed
further inland. At this time the oceans rapidly rose up the flanks of
the about 800 island and coastal volcanoes, encroaching on the balance of the
1500 active volcanoes in the world, most of which are situated within
250 km o the coastline. This enormous weight of water appears to have
loaded the crust in such a manner that is suggested to have favoured the
outpouring of any stored magma in the volcanoes affected contributing
significantly to the burst of volcanic activity that is a characteristic
of the world immediately following the close of the last glacial period.
The author¹ suggests the amount and rate of sea level rise required to
trigger an eruption in a volcano that is 'primed' to erupt seems to be
not very great. This effect can be seen at the present at a small
volcano in Alaska.
St Paul's Volcano
Pavlov is a 2500 m-high volcano that has the appearance of a typical
volcano, cone-shaped with a snow-capped summit, situated on the flat
plains of the Alaska Peninsula. It was originally named 'Pavlofskoi
Volcan' by Captain Lutke in 1836, which the Alaskan Volcano Observatory
roughly translates to Paul's or St Paul's Volcano. There are 2 other
volcanoes nearby Pavlof Sister and Little Pavlof on the southwestern
flank of Pavlof. Pavlof is 1 of 41 active volcanoes in Alaska. It has
erupted more than 40 times over about the last 200 years making it the
most active volcano in Alaska, and one of the volcanoes that erupt most
frequently in the US and it is fascinating to scientists because of the
timing of its eruptions.
What makes it unusual is that it only erupts in autumn and winter.
Between 1973 and 1998 of the 16 times it erupted 13 times were between
September and December, statistically not random times. The activity
pattern of this volcano suggests there may be something either inherent
in the volcano or it's local environment that determines the timing of
its eruptions. The timing of Pavlof's eruptions were compared with a
number of different phenomena that the researchers, Steve McNutt and
John Beaven, US seismologists, thought may have been responsible for the
unusual timing of the eruptions. The only phenomena that correlated with
the eruptions turned out to be annual sea level variations that result
from wind patterns changes during September to December that cause the
Pacific Ocean to creep upwards along the Alaska Peninsula. They found a
sea level rise of 17 cm, after correcting for seasonal variations in
atmospheric pressure, appears to be sufficient to control the timing of
the eruptions. McNutt and Beaven point out that correlation does not
necessarily imply cause and effect.
As the author¹ points out it seems counterintuitive that a rise of 17 cm
of water over the Alaska Peninsula, even though it would involve a great
deal of water accumulating around the many square kilometres of the
Peninsula, totaling a bit under 2 kPa at 17 cm depth, would have more
effect than variations that occur with sea level pressure changes
occurring with everyday changes of the weather, that can be 5 times as
great or more. And the daily tides involving changes of metres rather
than centimetre, also don't appear to have any effect. He says the
actual cause of the difference in effect of the 17 cm rise is
straightforward, involving the rate of application of the stress and the
response of the material to the stress applied to it. In the case of the
crust of the Earth the loading stress changes happen too quickly for the
crust to deform in response to stress applied by daily tides and changes
of atmospheric pressure, as when a storm passes over the peninsula.
There is however sufficient time for the crust to deform when the sea
level is elevated for several months, and in the case of Pavlof long
enough to encourage in some manner the volcano to erupt. To show how
material can respond differently depending on how the stress is applied
the author¹ uses silly putty as an example. If this silicon polymer is
struck with a sharp blow it breaks, but if it is left at rest for long
enough it subsides into a puddle.
Once the suggestion was accepted it proved to be not difficult to
establish a possible mechanism. A small amount of crustal bending close
to Pavlof resulting from the small applied pressure would slightly
compress the feeder system that supplies magma to the volcano and this
would result in an eruption.
The author¹ suggests that if the small sea level increase can cause a
single volcano to erupt, it seems reasonable that the same mechanism,
scaled up sufficiently and applied to the hundreds of coastal volcanoes
around the margins of the continents it might explain the outburst of
volcanic activity that was characteristic of the post-glacial times.
Another mechanism has been suggested by computer modelling carried out
by Andy Pullen, Imperial College London that has shown that ocean
loading exerts forces acting to make volcano flanks more unstable and
more likely to collapse, at the same time that stresses within affected
volcanoes are altered by rising sea levels so as to promote magma
expulsion. The eruption of Mount St Helens displayed that when part of the
flank of a volcano is removed suddenly by a giant landslide any magma in
the volcano is decompressed explosively, resulting in an enormous
volcanic detonation, the previously compressed gases suddenly expanding
tear the magma apart violently as they blast it up and out. The author
suggests this may have been a mechanism that causes the eruption of
costal and island volcanoes.
The last straw effect
According to the author¹ the mechanism that has been proposed for the
eruptions of Pavlof is convincing, and could be a mechanism that
operated in the coastal and island volcanoes at the beginning of the
present interglacial, and he suggest the evidence is accumulating that
there are other examples of volcanoes in which very small changes in
their external environment trigger an eruption of a volcano that is
primed with magma, the change being viewed as the 'last straw' that
finally triggers an eruption. Stromboli, 'the beacon of the
Mediterranean', is another example of the operation of such a mechanism.
It always has a good supply of magma but appears to become more active
at times of high barometric pressure in its vicinity that apparently
provides the small nudge that it needs to trigger an eruption.
The Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat in the
Caribbean, in its 17th year, it is apparently rainfall that triggers it to
erupt. With this volcano eruptions are related to a giant dome extruding
lava that erupts violently when part of the flank collapses or from
explosions that blast through it. An eruption that occurred in 2001
following several months of largely dry weather as the dome grew
steadily when an episode of torrential rain triggered the collapse of
the dome leading to a pyroclastic flow, fast flowing torrents of hot
rock, dust and gas. It has been suggested that in the case of this
volcano during heavy rain water doesn't vaporise on the outside of the
rock, rather it finds its was down through cracks before it is converted
to high pressure steam that is capable of destabilising the flank of the
dome that is already oversteepened. A similar trigger has been
recognised for eruptions of Mount St Helens where in the 1980s and early
1990s there were half a dozen times when the lava dome exploded within
days of storms passing, heavy rain being suggested as the trigger of the
eruptions. In this case 2 possible mechanisms have been suggested,
heavier rain either triggering the instability leading to its collapse
or accelerating the growth of cooling fractures, both suggestions
presenting as possible ways of triggering eruptions by explosive gas
release.
Mt Etna in Sicily erupts preferentially in summer and spring. A
mechanism that has been proposed for this is that it is responding to
small stress changes acting on or beneath the structure in a cyclical
manner, such as velocity variations of the Earth in its orbit around the
Sun. According to this proposal fractionally small stress reductions at
certain times in the cycle may result in fractures opening or existing
fractures widening, and if there is sufficient magma near the surface
this may lead to an eruption. In 1947 Thomas Jagger of the Hawaii
Volcano Observatory speculated on a possible relationship between the
phases of the moon and the activity of the Hawaiian volcanoes. According
to the author¹ in the 19th and 20th centuries there appeared to be a
connection between gravitational effects of the Sun and the Moon and
eruptions of the Hawaiian volcanoes. It is known the same gravitational
effects that cause the tides also pull on the solid crust of the Earth.
These earth tides result at the equator in the rocks being squeezed and
stretched by more than half a metre.
The author suggests that weaknesses within the structure of Kilauea in
Hawaii may be affected by stresses in the volcano in such a way that
magma can move more easily at times of highest Earth tides occurring every 2
weeks so it tends to erupt at these times. It has been suggested that
Earth tides may also have been responsible for the patterns seen in
other volcanoes such as Stromboli, Mt Lamington, PNG, Soufriere, St
Vincent, and Pelée, Martinique, the latter 2 in the Caribbean. The
eruption of Pelée in 1902 killed 29,000 people in St Pierre, the only
survivor of the population of the town was a man who was in prison at
the time of the eruption. The author¹ suggests Earth tides may be an
effective and widespread driver of volcanic eruptions. 700 volcanic
eruptions that occurred since 1900 were examined by Fred Mauk and
Malcolm Johnston in 1973, their conclusion being that there was a link
between the timing of eruptions and the solid Earth tide maximum, that
happened every 2 weeks, that was statistically significant, the volcanoes
in Japan in particular demonstrating the link. As the Earth tide
minimums also appear to be associated with the timing of eruptions of
some volcanoes it appears the overall pattern does not seem to be
straightforward. It has proven difficult to determine a cause and effect
link between Earth tides and volcanic eruptions, as volcanoes are
complex structures that may not be capable of reacting instantaneously
to exerted tidal stresses, stresses that may make it easier for magma to
move through pre-existing fractures by reducing the pressure
sufficiently, and by the time the eruption occurs the cause of the change in
pressure may be no longer present in the vicinity of the volcano. The
author¹ suggests it is surprising there are so many volcanoes
demonstrating a link between the timing of their eruptions and the Earth
tides, given the potential lags and other complications, and he suggests
the global pattern of global eruptions may have a completely different
explanation from the one that has been proposed.
Volcano season
It has been demonstrated by a study carried out of the start dates of
more than 3,000 volcanic eruptions that had been recorded in the
catalogue of volcanic activity at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington,
that occurred over the past 300 years that was evidence that was clear
and demonstrable that on a worldwide scale there was a definite volcano
season (Mason & Pyle, 2004). Significantly more volcanoes erupt between
November and April than between April and October.
The author¹ suggests that as there has been a steady accumulation of
evidence that volcanic systems are sensitive to changes in the
environment that are very small the idea of a volcano season should not
be surprising. A volcano must be primed, it feeder system ready with a
magma supply at a critical point needing only a small nudge to burst out
of the volcano, if a tiny physical change is to be translated into an
eruption, and the fact that such a significant number of the active
volcanoes of the world respond to such tiny seasonal variations in their
environment suggests that many are in this state for much of the time.
No new magma is involved over the course of the volcano season, and
there is no overall increase of the number of eruptions, as there was at
the end of the last ice age. The volcanoes are being 'forced' to erupt
within a particular time frame by external environmental conditions.
The underlying cause of the seasonality of the eruptions proved be more
complicated than the speculations that had been considered suggested, with
variations of a number of environmental parameters being involved..
According to the author¹ the primary cause of the seasonal pattern
appears to be the deformation of the surface of the Earth that occurs
annually that accompanies the wholesale redistribution of water during
the operation of the water cycle, that is the movement around the
surface of the Earth and between the surface of the land and the ocean and the
atmosphere that is a continuous process.
Gaia's Earthbeat
It has been very difficult to measure the very small deformations that
have been suggested to be driving the volcano season, requiring GPS
technology to accomplish the measurement. A new model for the wholesale
deformation of the Earth was published in the journal science
(Geoff Blewitt et al., 2001). The team involved scientists from
the University of Nevada in the US and Newcastle University in the UK
recognised a seasonal cycle of changes in the shape of the Earth over
the course of a year. The study revealed that the shape of the Earth
changed, in a similar manner to a beating heart, the changes in the
shape of the Earth taking place systematically and repeatedly, each
'Earthbeat' taking 1 year. Over the course of a single 'beat' the
Northern Hemisphere contracts with the peak being reached in February
and March, and simultaneously the Southern Hemisphere expands. With the
next 'beat' the Northern Hemisphere expands, the peak occurring in
August and September, and the Southern Hemisphere contracts
simultaneously. The changes detected are miniscule compared with the
diameter of the Earth. The North Pole moves downwards by 3 mm at the
peak of the compression and points near the equator move to the north by
1.5 mm. A vast wave of ephemeral weight moves across the Earth, the
changes involving snow cover, moisture in the soil and the mass of the
atmosphere, taking 1 year to complete. When it is winter in the Northern
Hemisphere snow, groundwater that has been recharged and the cooler,
denser atmosphere exert extra load on the crust pushing it down, the
same occurring in the Southern Hemisphere as winter moves south of the
equator. Over the course of a single cycle the total mass of water moved
between hemispheres is enormous, totalling about 1016 kg, more
than 500 times greater than the total weight of coal mined over the
entire Earth in 1 year.
Mason et al., suggest that it is the movement of surface water
over the course of a year driving the annual deformation of the Earth's
surface that causes the seasonal response of volcanoes around the
world. The author¹ suggests that the picture is more complex than this
as individual volcanoes and specific volcanic regions behave in
different ways. Volcanoes erupting along the 'Ring of Fire' around the
Pacific, and locally in the case of some individual volcanoes, define
the overall volcano season, and the author¹ also suggests the volcano
season mainly reflects the timing of small explosive events that make up
most of the catalogue that was used in the study. He points out that
about half the eruptions in some places appear to be controlled by
effects on a seasonal basis, though in other places the eruptions due to
these changes can be as low as 20 %. And then there are regions in which
there appears to be no seasonality of eruptions, such as in the
Mediterranean region. In general volcanic response to sea level changes
that occur seasonally appear to be ambivalent, unlike in the case of
Pavlof. Peaks in rate of eruptions that are seasonal seem to coincide
with sea levels that are dropping, as occurs in Central America, the
Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska, excluding Pavlof. In Melanesia in the
southwest Pacific, island volcanoes tend to erupt at times of high sea
levels in the region. According to Mason's model, though a volcano also
responds to other factors, erupting at other times of the year, the
tendency is for its eruptions to be concentrated, to a greater or lesser
degree, when the deformation wave reaches its vicinity.
The importance of the volcano season
According to the author¹ the identification of the a volcanic season
draws the previous ideas about the way volcanoes respond to external
perturbations together into a coherent whole. The discovery of the
tendency of volcanic activity to be regulated on seasonal timescales in
the modern era is suggested by Mason et al. to provide a
contemporary analogue for phenomena that were previously believed to
have operated in the postglacial period, and earlier, thousands of years
ago. It is also suggested by the recognition of a seasonal pattern that
responses of individual volcanoes to storms, heavy rainfall of
atmospheric pressure changes are part of a much larger-scale
relationship between volcanic activity and global climate. The
suggestion that past global sea level change episodes were associated
with vigorous bouts of volcanic activity is supported by the results of
Mason's study. It has been suggested by Mason et al. that falling
sea levels might be more effective, though Pavlof and the widespread
volcanic activity associated with the melting of the vast ice sheets
suggest it is rising sea levels that are more effective. McGuire et
al. suggest the rate of change is the important factor, volcanic
eruptions being triggered by sea level changes that are large enough and
fast enough, whether the level is rising or falling, will both promote
volcanic activity, though the mechanism involved will differ.
Pavlof demonstrates that when the sea level rises the stresses within
and beneath the volcano may change as a result of crustal loading that
results in an eruption. The collapse of a volcano's flank can also
trigger an eruption in response to changes within the structure, marine
erosion, or as a consequence of rising water tables increasing the
instability, promoting the violent interaction between water and
magma at shallow depths. Resident magma may exploit widening and opening
fractures to get to the surface when tensional conditions develop higher
up in a volcano as its lower parts and the crust beneath are bent and
compressed. The rise of magma may be promoted when the weight acting on
the flanks in contact with the sea is reduced as a result of falling sea
levels. When the buttressing effect of seawater is removed it can
increase the instability of the flank and encourage collapse that
triggers an eruption.
According to the author¹ to gain a better understanding of how climate
interacts with volcanic activity it is essential to determine how
volcanoes respond to changing sea levels. He says that if climate can be
changed by volcanic activity and simultaneously volcanic activity can
trigger changes of climate, then it is the the proverbial chicken and
egg situation fraught with many types of feedbacks and loops. One
example is when ice sheet formation caused sea levels to drop as the
world cools, the falling sea levels could trigger explosive volcanic
activity that puts sulphuric acid droplets into the stratosphere that
increasingly rapidly pushes the world further into cooler conditions
that lead to an ice age. The alternative scenario involves rising sea
levels in a warming world with the retreat of glaciers and the rising
levels of the sea that could be expected to cause volcanoes to erupt that
again puts sulphuric acid droplets into the stratosphere and contributes
to a cooling effect that could hamper the transition from
hothouse to icehouse conditions.
The sulphuric acid production is a positive feedback in the first
example where a cooling world in which volcanoes are triggered to erupt
tends to push the climate further towards icehouse conditions. In this
case the question that needs to be asked is whether in a cooling Earth
can the volcanic activity be sufficient to add to the cooling trend? If
there are enough volcanoes erupting adding enough sulphur to the
atmosphere, or if a single volcano erupts on the scale of Toba 74,000
years ago maybe this could happen. Many have speculated about the
possibility that the last glaciation could have been accelerated towards
the icehouse world that prevailed at the time by the extremely large
eruption of Toba that produced the largest volcanic crater in the world.
It has also been speculated that the eruption of Toba might have been
triggered by climate change in the cooling period that led to the last
glaciation (Mike Rampino, 1979; and others). It has since been suggested
(Rampino & Self, 1990s) that the Toba eruption, the largest in the last
100,000 years, may have been a pivotal role in the major climate
transition at a time when the ice sheets had reached about 1/4 of their
final extent at the
last glacial maximum.
The possibility has been considered by Rampino and Self that it may have
been crustal stress changes resulting from the rapid growth of ice
sheets, with the associated sea level drop, as much as 40 m over a time
span of 7,000 years, that was responsible for the timing of the
Toba eruption.
According to the author¹ almost 3,000 km³ of volcanic debris was blasted
out of the crater of Toba by an eruption that was about 1,000
times greater than the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens, and up to about
40 km into the atmosphere. It has been estimated that it would have
added about 5,000 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere,
the sulphate signature being present in the Greenland ice cores. These
cores also record what happened to the climate over the years
immediately after the eruption. According to the cores there was a
global temperature drop of 10° C as a result of massive loading of the
stratosphere with sulphuric acid aerosols, remaining at the lower
temperature for several years. Following this period of lower global
temperatures there was an extended period of cooling with the advance of
glaciers that lasted for about 1,000 years, that Rampino & Self say is
the long-term effect of the eruption. The author¹ suggests the
impressive temperature drop immediately following the eruption is now
accepted as convincing evidence of a volcanic winter, though he is not
convinced that the extended colder phase with advancing glaciers that occurred
in the following 1,000 years is a lingering effect of the eruption. It
has been demonstrated with a computer model by Gareth Jones et al.
that though snow and ice cover increased to cover more than 1/3 of
the Earth the initiation of a longer-lasting episode of glaciation
didn't seem likely. This result was confirmed by Alan Robock et al.
in the USA, reaffirming that the global temperature drop immediately
after the eruption was indeed a result of the eruption, and they
suggested that it may have been colder and longer than was previously
believed. They suggest that there was no hint in their simulation of an
impact on the global climate that was long enough to have promoted a
glacial phase and a cold snap that lasted another 1,000 years. It has
since been suggested by Rampino and Self that there are other example in
the past 2 million years where large individual eruptions or clusters of
eruptions at times when the climate was in a phase of major transition,
pointing to their possible significance in accelerating cooling or slowing
warming, depending on the circumstances.
When major volcanic activity occurs during a period of global warming it is
believed to possibly initiate a negative feedback, such as the warming
being slowed down by the injection of sulphuric acid aerosols into the
stratosphere, in the same way that in times when the climate is cooling
bouts of massive volcanic activity can provide positive feedback. One
result of this could be a transition from a glacial to an interglacial
that could become more difficult than it would otherwise be. The author¹
suggests it is tempting to speculate that a large eruption or eruption
cluster during the revival of volcanic activity at the close of the
last glacial phase may have had a role in sudden cooling that is known
as the Younger Dryas, possibly in South America where the Younger Dryas
appears to have begun, though it has also been attributed to a very
large influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic.
It has recently been proposed by Peter Huybers and Charles Langmuir, of
Harvard University, that a warming effect at a time of major changes of
climate may result from bursts of volcanic activity, arguing for a big
increase in the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as
a result of bursts of volcanic activity that occur when climates are
changing dramatically, and overwhelming any cooling effect that may be
provided by sulphuric acid aerosols in the stratosphere. The author¹
suggests that if this proves to be the true situation then volcanoes
accelerate warming at the transition from a glacial phase to an
interglacial phase, though he says the vast majority of current evidence
points to the cooling due to the outgassing of sulphur dioxide far
outweighing any warming effect resulting from any carbon dioxide that is
emitted. At least 2 studies have indicated that volcanic activity is
closely correlated with cooling episodes accompanying the general
warming progressive trend in post-glacial times.
The author¹ concludes about volcanoes and their activity in connection
with changing climate is that, most crucially, when the active volcanoes
of the world are considered collectively, they have been found to be primed
systems that are always on the edge of stability which makes them highly
sensitive to extremely small changes in their external environment. At
the present this allows the hydrological cycle to regulate the annual
variations in their activity, and in the past has made them sensitive to
periods of massive, sudden climate change, especially at
times of major transitions of the climate. As temperatures rise as a
result of anthropogenic climate change there will be increasing loss of
ice mass at high latitudes and altitudes, and the associated increased
mass in the oceans, permafrost melts, and there are changes in the weather
patterns and precipitation there will be major changes to the
hydrological cycle.
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Climate Change |
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Author: M.H.Monroe Email: admin@austhrutime.com Sources & Further reading |