Scariest thing I've ever heard...on BBC radio news today.....seriously:

[Gabi Hayes]

there was a story about how all the glacial meltoffs are thought to be a possible cause of the recent spate of EARTHQUAKES, and will only get worse, because of the weight of all the meltoff running into the oceans, creating pressure on the crust.

this causes earthquakes, undersea 'land'slides, volcanic eruptions, etc., and will, they predict, only get worse as time goes on.

when I heard about the 7.9 quake off Indonesia, I wondered, is it me, or have there been a lot more earthquakes all over the place, or what? the story today also referenced and 8.4 that just happened (after'shock') in the same general area.

anybody else hear/read about this?



F you, Humans!




EDIT: some reading here, via google

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=glacial+ice+melt+earthquakes

[grasswire]

1. are the fundies giving away their belongings yet?

I would guess what they think about all this.

[Uncle Joe]

2. I've wondered about this as well,

it seems to me, the massive shifts of weight could have an adverse effect on the Earth's crust.

P.S. I like your Polar Bear photo.

[The Doctor.]

29. I'm not sure that's enough weight...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crust_(geology)

Hard to say.

[DCKit]

54. Greenland is actually rising due to the decrease in the weight of the ice. nt

[The Doctor.]

55. Wouldn't surprise me.

It would be more about aggregate decompression than crust alleviation I think.

I doubt the mass equals out on it's own.

[whoneedstickets]

57. Post-Glacial rebound is still occuring in glaciated areas of North America

from the last glacial period 10K years ago. The earth is an amazing place.

[stellanoir]

3. When the polar bear tongue turns blue

you know we are screwed.

But then again, there is hope. . .


http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/play/audiogallery/soundseen.shtml#slideshow

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

5. Nah, it's just all those good-tasting Blue-Footed Boobies

But like blue popsicles, the evidence is evident.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. great picture! squeeze the wheeze,

many people like to.....

[stellanoir]

15. If you knew their mating rituals your tongue would turn blue

too.

LOL

They are really passionate.

[truedelphi]

23. Are you implying that it is the polar bears' mating rituals that

Could be causing all the earthquakes??

That's some whole lotta loving...

[stellanoir]

33. no it's the blue footed boobies I swear.

the polar bears are thoroughly innocent.

[kimmerspixelated]

4. Yesterday, someone posted

quite an intersting take on the polar shift( and earth flipping) and I think the symptoms of that are also an increase of earthquakes. No doubt the earth is in the midst of something.

[Systematic Chaos]

6. I've read here that Greenland is starting to have increased seismic activity.

Some quakes in the 3.0 - 4.0 range are occurring due to the lost weight of the glacial ice causing the landmass to rise. I could easily envision these quakes getting a lot bigger over time, causing a feedback loop where the quakes cause the ice to break up and slide off, causing still more and bigger quakes.

We live in interesting times, or something. :(

[Gabi Hayes]

18. here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/08/climatechange

[Warpy]

7. There's been a third, 7.1 quake

but I sincerely doubt glacier runoff has much to do with it.

However, the Gulf Stream is slowing, just as predicted in the climate models, and that is much more worrisome.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. I've started at least thread on this trilogy, with zero response, I think:

http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/2007/robinson-sixty_days.htm


The collision of the present and the future, of the already is and the could be, is a difficult moment to capture. Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital trilogy, comprised of 'Forty Signs of Rain', 'Fifty Degrees Below' and his newest novel, 'Sixty Days and Counting', manages to do so in a manner that is in every way unexpected. Funny when you expect it to be grim and powerful at the peripheries as well as the core, 'Sixty Days and Counting' is a thoroughly satisfying finish to a series that successfully captures the now and the next. Robinson's story is not a grim glimpse of the coming apocalypse, but a refreshingly positive and human story of how the mundane details of our everyday lives accrete to create a narrative much larger than those lives.

The three novels tell a single story, and should be read as such. Robinson offers readers science fiction as social realism to tell how science actually works in the United States and the world at large in this moment. In the first two novels of the series, we meet Charlie and Anna Quibler and Frank Vanderwal as well as their friends and families. Anna Quibler is a cog in the National Science Foundation, while Charlie is a science advisor to Phil Chase, a well-placed senator. Frank Vanderwahl is a scientist on leave from UCSD, working with Anna in the capital. ''Forty Signs of Rain'' took readers through events that bring the problems of global climate change into the lives of its characters, and 'Fifty Degrees Below' sees Chase elected President as the US population and government begins to realize that radical action will be required to avert global catastrophe.

'Sixty Days and Counting' follows the first sixty days of Chase's Presidency and beyond, as the Quiblers try to sort out their home life, Frank his love life and the world this little problem concerning a forthcoming species extinction event. Of the human race.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. I was just associating with the Indonesia EQ, not connecting specific dots, but

there's a story here, which I linked above, dealing with more locally based crust trauma

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/08/climatechange

[TomInTib]

9. Gabi, I am going to PM you a global warming story.

Check your Inbox later (as I am one slowpoke on the keyboard).

[Gabi Hayes]

17. thanks....I think the last PM I got was the one you sent before the

summer of love thing.

did you go?

[TomInTib]

21. No, I didn't.

I was running the Tiburon Art Festival that weekend.

Did you see my slideshow?

[Gabi Hayes]

22. No, I saw the thread, but didn't go through it....planned on going back, but

some things came up right after labor day.

can you repost the thread or slideshow? love to see it.

I was in Tiburon in 1980. had dinner on the wharf. beautiful place

[TomInTib]

27. Here ya go.

I am the guy with a white beard, wearing a straw fedora.

Man, it was some kind of fun.

edited to add link (because I am so astute and have such attention to detail):

http://picasaweb.google.com/robertjamesusa/TiburonArtFestival02

[Gabi Hayes]

31. thanks! going there right now. between having the news on...Re: our forever war in the middle east

and the end of the world as we know it, I believe it's time for a break

thanks again!


http://www.undergroundactionalliance.org/images/zine/IMPEACH%20BUSH!.JPG







http://www.impeachbushsocks.com/

[DaveJ]

10. I'm more concerned about an ice age...

...from a shutdown of ocean currents preventing warm water from circulating back to the north. Even NASA has predicted it (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/05mar_arctic.htm). I think most people believe that ice ages come on gradually over centuries, but it seems that if ocean currents stop then it will kick in almost immediately.

[Gabi Hayes]

13. I dunno which is more likely, but, as with this administration, all things are possible,

the worse, the more seemingly likely

I just hope I'm not around when it all starts hitting the fan.

I just posted a link to an SF trilogy that deals with this in a pretty interesting, fairly encompassing (from several vantages) manner

Kim Stanley Robinson

[hvn_nbr_2]

41. If the cold water flow from melting Arctic ice stops the Gulf Stream...

we're going to very quickly lose whatever friends we have left in Europe. It could get very ugly.

[Gabi Hayes]

47. see post number 42

ha!

[Fresh_Start]

12. ummmm, I heard something similar

but the water weighted something when it was ice and weighed pretty much the same when its water.
So its not really a weight change as much as it is a redistribution.
Like old butts being redistributed unto upper thighs.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. never mind, it's too depressing to think about.

I'm going to fill a big glass of water with booze and ice, til it's all the way to the top, then add some more ice, and see what happens

[superkia]

16. Ive heard that too and I was talking to my mother today...

about the amount of earthquakes we have had in the past year or two. More than I can remember?

[DaveJ]

20. I don't think anyone could remember that.

There are several thousands every year.

Based on a quick Google on the topic, I don't think there have been any more lately than there have been, but I could be mistaken.

[Gabi Hayes]

25. I'm wondering the same thing, but my OP sort of took that into account, I think.

sort of like the Bermuda Triangle, statistically, I'd guess, but if this theory is true, we're going to be finding out in a most unpleasant fashion

same goes for the slowing down/stopping of the Gulf Stream. according to something I read, and asked about, the last ice age only took a few years to take place...less than ten for temperatures in the northern hemisphere to allow for massive glacial expansion/dieoffs

[superkia]

28. Maybe they ae getting more coverage the couple of years?

[immoderate]

24. Here's my analysis.

Earthquakes are the result of build up of tectonic pressure. They happen constantly worldwide. Surface pressures would have little effect, except to perhaps trigger local events that might have happened later on. Ice melting would not affect earthquakes perceptibly, to my estimation.

Beware of confirmation bias. How many earthquakes did you take note of before?

Disclaimer: What do I know?

--IMM

[Gabi Hayes]

26. confirmation bias.....good way to put it, which I sort of did in OP. did you see this, though?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/08/climatechange

[immoderate]

51. Every piece of information is...

:scared: chilling.

Twenty meters of seawater! :scared:

--IMM

[eppur_se_muova]

30. In areas originally covered by ice, this is a real possibility.

Greenland has been showing increased seismic activity lately, which is probably the basis of the story you heard. But this would not have an effect in Indonesia, or any place very far away from the former iced-over areas. The pressure of the ice is not that great in the overall picture of forces within the Earth.

[Ediacara]

32. There is less than no chance of these being related

The mass of glaciers melting compared to the mass of the entirety of the world's oceans is absolutely nothing.

[Gabi Hayes]

35. less than no chance? that's pretty slim. damn that BBC for running such

an irresponsible story. I'll bet they never took your odds into account before they ran it.

[Ediacara]

36. Did you catch the name of anyone? Any data? Did they do math?

Lemme do some math for you:

This recent earthquake, the M_w 8.4 had a focus 30 km underground. Using the lithostatic pressure equation:

P_lith = rgh

Where r is the material's density, g is "acceleration" due to gravity, and h is the height in meters, we can see that there is a lot of stress already:

P_lith = (3.0)(9.8)(30,000)

P_lith = 882 kPa

Add in the lithostatic pressure from the water, which is about 6,000 meters deep, we get:

P_lith = (1.0)(9.8)(6,000)

P_lith = 58.8 kPa

So just on your average day, the focus of that earthquake was experiencing 940.8 kPa of lithostatic pressure alone. Do you really think that an increase of ten centimeters of water will really change that?

P_lith = (1.0)(9.8)(6,000.1)

P_lith = 58.80098 kPa

So we've gone from 940.8 kPa to 940.80098 kPa, a difference of 0.000104%! Wow, you've sure shown me!

But since we're doing math, let's calculate the maximum water depth if all the ice everywhere on the Earth melted, +75 m, and see if that would make much of a difference:

P_lith = (1.0)(9.8)(6,075)

P_lith = 59.535 kPa

Which, added to our P_lith from the rocks, gets us 941.535 kPa. Again, the difference here is miniscule, just 0.078%! And again, that's if every bit of ice on Earth melted.

And I haven't even looked into the stresses involved with respect to subduction.

So ya, unless there is data and math that refutes the really extremely simple math I've graciously done for you, it is an irresponsible story. A very irresponsible story.

[Gabi Hayes]

37. ''less than no chance?''

that sounds pretty....irresponsible to me

[Ediacara]

38. LOL nice response

[Gabi Hayes]

39. thanks! are you trying to confuse the issue with.....

facts?

or what?

are you now, or have you ever been, a scientist?

off with your head!

[JuniperLea]

34. Check out California...

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/

[roamer65]

52. Just wait until the southern section of the San Andreas fault begins to move.

I have read it needs to move 30+ feet to get back into line. The fault only moved 6-7 in the 1906 San Fran quake.:yoiks:

[gateley]

40. It's an eco-SYSTEM. This affects that, which in turn...

I just read on MSNBC.com (sorry if it's been mentioned) that Hurricane Humberto has broken all records -- that no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall.

It's all gotta be connected, don't you think?

Biden has referenced this (rising oceans) but I don't think any of the other candidates have. Is he the only one looking at this globally? We all seem to be focused on our own energy, our own fuel, etc. I think our challenges go way beyond that.

[Gabi Hayes]

42. see post number 11.

ever heard of those books?

[gateley]

44. No, but I saw your post

and -- I'm SO ashamed to admit this -- kind of sped by because I didn't want to give more "energy" to a doomsday scenario by reading more apocalyptic books. The word denial comes to mind. Interesting that I made the same kind of uninformed, snap judgments I disparagingly accuse others of.

So after your response I went back and actually read your post and am now interested in getting these -- so thanks for pointing me back that way!

[Gabi Hayes]

46. most reviews are pretty positive, and I thought the books were fascinating from

several standpoints.

very far ranging digressions, from Buddhism to rock climbing to Emerson to evolutionary biology, to tree houses in Rock Creek Park, to freganism (which was a story on NPR yesterday!)

can't recommend it highly enough, especially the overarching theme of global economic/scientific solutions to the ecological crisis

[gateley]

48. Just ordered the first one -- thanks for bringing them to my attention. nt

[Gabi Hayes]

49. more than welcome....I bought one, got the other two from the library.

"Antarctica" is fascinating, too.

[Ilsa]

43. Here's another thread discussing it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2982846


Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes

Paul Brown in Ilulissat The Guardian Saturday September 8 2007

The Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off. Scientists monitoring events this summer say the acceleration could be catastrophic in terms of sea-level rise and make predictions this February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change far too low.

The glacier at Ilulissat, which supposedly spawned the iceberg that sank the Titantic, is now flowing three times faster into the sea than it was 10 years ago.

[DemGa]

45. Seize the day, for tomorrow we are screwn....nt

[BornagainDUer]

50. I heard on the radio that there have been FOUR major quakes in Indonesia in

the past few days. All were above 6.0

[JNelson6563]

53. Sadly

The world will not stop warring until we're all up to our necks in water.

Julie

[earth mom]

56. Obviously we need Gore to run more than ever. nt