Royal Society Stunner: “Observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere.”
Top scientists call for research on climate link to volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis
April 19, 2010
Periods of exceptional climate change in Earth history are associated with a dynamic response from the solid Earth, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity. This response is expressed through the adjustment, modulation or triggering of a wide range of surface and crustal phenomena, including volcanic and seismic activity, submarine and sub-aerial landslides, tsunamis and landslide ’splash’ waves glacial outburst and rock-dam failure floods, debris flows and gas-hydrate destabilisation. Looking ahead, modelling studies and projection of current trends point towards increased risk in relation to a spectrum of geological and geomorphological hazards in a world warmed by anthropogenic climate change, while observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/19/g ... cientists/
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 8/1919.toc
Guillas et al. present the results of a statistical study of a putative correlation between contemporary variations in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the occurrence of earthquakes on the East Pacific Rise (EPR). The authors observe a significant (95% confidence interval) positive influence of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) on seismicity, and propose that increased seismicity on the EPR arises due to the reduced sea levels in the eastern Pacific that precede El Niño events, and which can be explained in terms of the reduction in ocean-bottom pressure over the EPR by a few kilopascals. Guillas et al. note that this provides an example of how variations in the atmosphere and hydrosphere can drive very small changes in environmental conditions that are able, in turn, to trigger a response from the Earth’s crust. Most importantly, they speculate that, in a warmer world, comparable and larger changes associated with ocean loading due to global sea level rise, or unloading associated with the passage of more intense storms, may trigger more significant earthquake activity at submarine fault systems that are in a critical state.