Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Volcanoes and Climate - Two Way Street

 Vatnajökull glacier shown in lower right, NASA photo

There has been a lot in the news lately about Iceland's volcanoes, the increased activity at one named Katla, and the potential for a major eruption soon. As you probably know, such an eruption could kill people nearby.... and far away due to air pollution, poison agriculture, disrupt air traffic over Europe, and if large enough, even cool the global climate for several years.

What I did not know previously is that some of the increased volcanic activity is attributed to global warming. From the title linked article by Professor Andy Hooper:

"This trend (of increased volcanic activity) is being exacerbated by climate change. Vatnajökull (Iceland's largest glacier) has lost an estimated 400  billion tonnes of ice since the end of the 19th century. This has reduced the pressure on the hot mantle material beneath the crust, leading to increased magma generation. At the end of the last ice age, this same effect led to eruption rates some 30 times higher than at present. The current rate of ice loss is much lower than then, but we can still expect the formation of extra magma equivalent to that which erupted from Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 every 10 years or so."

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