Recent diaries by fishoutofwater , and earthfire referenced below along with Philosophic transactions of the Royal Societyand an article by D K Matai at the Huffingtom Post are reporting Global warming, Earthquakes and volcanoes are linked by research published in the scientific journal, Geophysical Research Letters, by the volcanologist Freysteinn Sigmundsson at the University of Iceland and the geophysicist Carolina Pagli at the University of Leeds in England.
The vatna glacier.
A thaw of ice caps caused by global warming may trigger more volcanic eruptions in coming decades by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, research suggests. Eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in coming decades
Despite that most of us are very concerned with immediate issues and that the consensus supporting Climate Change legislation has fallen apart over Harry Reed addressing the police state nature of the Arizona immigration profiling legislation, some of you may have noticed that volcanoes and earthquakes are much in the news lately.
Methane Hydrate releases already being triggered may add exponentially to the the problem of warming assiciated with greenhouse gas concentrations.
Looking forward, one of the potential hazards presented by gas hydrates is their possible role in the destabilization of submarine slopes. This is one theme addressed by Tappin within a broader review of submarine mass failures (SMFs) as tsunami sources that incorporates the climate dimension. Tappin highlights the importance of climate in ‘preconditioning’ sediment so as to promote instability and failure, including its influence on sediment type, deposition rate and post-depositional modification. The author also notes that climate may play a role in triggering SMFs via earthquake or cyclic loading associated with tides or storm waves.
You may also have noticed a number of reports that we are beginning to see a suprising acceleration in the loss of our polar ice and glaciers.
Scientists at NASA and United States Geological Survey (USGS) are using satellite and global positioning system receivers, as well as computer models, to study movements of Earth's plates and shrinking glaciers in southern Alaska.
The fact that science is now discovering that isostatic rebound doesn't necessarily take centuries of millenia to have an impact is and ought to be alarming.
Ice is heavy and exerts enormous pressure on whatever lies beneath it. Under the ice's weight, the Earth's crust bends and as the ice melts the crust bounces up again. Imagine a floating cork, topped with a piece of lead. Will it not pop upwards when the lead is taken off? Similarly, a shrinking ice cap reduces the pressure on the earth's mantle, causing it to melt and creating magma. Also, this frees tectonic plates up to move against each other and cause the friction needed to initiate earthquakes. This tallies with mathematical models that suggest such processes may potentially lead to more earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
I'm not sure if we can keep as many balls in the air as the Obama administration, healthcare reform, nunclear nonproliferation, jobs, the economy, wall street, immigration, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China;... are all pretty serious issues now and climate change may be over the horizon for most of us, but what we do right now does matter.