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Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study
Yahoo News ^ | June 25, 2008 | AFP

Posted on 06/26/2008 6:37:07 PM PDT by bobsunshine

PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.

Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.

But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.

What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.

"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study.

But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system."

The mid-ocean ridge runs 84,000 kilometres (52,000 miles) beneath all the world's major seas except the Southern Ocean, and marks the boundary between many of the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Germany; News/Current Events; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: alfredwegener; arctic; environment; gakkelridge; geologists; geology; germany; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; massachusetts; northpole; northwestpassage; science; veraschlindwein; volcano; volcanoes
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Maybe this is why the Arctic Ice mass is receding while the Antarctic ice mass is growing at historic rates.
1 posted on 06/26/2008 6:37:08 PM PDT by bobsunshine
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To: bobsunshine

OK we need to make Volcano’s illegal/sarc!


2 posted on 06/26/2008 6:40:23 PM PDT by Halo-JM
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To: bobsunshine

Guess the volcano’s theme song is “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On”. Or maybe “Boom, Boom, Boom”.


3 posted on 06/26/2008 6:41:42 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: bobsunshine

Maybe. I wonder what the total heat input of the ocean ridges and undersea volcanoes is compared to solar and atmospheric, and how that affects the currents and temperatures.


4 posted on 06/26/2008 6:41:49 PM PDT by Brian S. Fitzgerald
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To: Halo-JM
Al Gore warned us this would happen. HE WARNED US!!!

5 posted on 06/26/2008 6:42:24 PM PDT by xDGx
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To: bobsunshine

Beat me to it: the real cause for the Arctic sea ice melt.


6 posted on 06/26/2008 6:42:25 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: bobsunshine
Volcanic activity has shaped our atmosphere and oceanic temperatures for Mega Millenia.

I agree that we need a carbon tax. This is a tremendous opportunity to Tax Arctic_AL_Gorge and take his phoney Oscar as well.

(SARCASM Off)

7 posted on 06/26/2008 6:43:03 PM PDT by Young Werther (Julius Caesar (Quae Cum Ita Sunt. Since these things are so.))
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To: Brian S. Fitzgerald

I’ve read where atomospheric ash from volcanoes actually cools the planet. What they do under water, I guess, is another issue. Hard to think that ash, in this case, would make it to the air. Of course, what do I know? (zero)


8 posted on 06/26/2008 6:46:00 PM PDT by CanaGuy (Go Harper!)
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To: bobsunshine

Gee, I sure hope these eruptions didn’t release any dangerous illegal pollution into our precious biosphere.


9 posted on 06/26/2008 6:50:48 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Without the second, the rest are just politicians' BS.)
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To: The_Reader_David

There’s also a lot of volcanic activity under Greenland. The continent is scattered with hot springs.


10 posted on 06/26/2008 6:53:35 PM PDT by ETL
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To: xDGx

Ewwwww, not that again! I’ve got to go brush my teeth and rinse my eyes.


11 posted on 06/26/2008 6:58:35 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U
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To: TribalPrincess2U

Al is just a volcano of looooooooove.


12 posted on 06/26/2008 7:00:02 PM PDT by xDGx
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To: The_Reader_David
From Ohio State University News, Dec 2007...

EARTH'S HEAT ADDS TO CLIMATE CHANGE TO MELT GREENLAND ICE

COLUMBUS , Ohio -- Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland 's ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice.

They have found at least one “hotspot” in the northeast corner of Greenland -- just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.

The researchers don't yet know how warm the hotspot is. But if it is warm enough to melt the ice above it even a little, it could be lubricating the base of the ice sheet and enabling the ice to slide more rapidly out to sea.

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/hotgreen.htm

13 posted on 06/26/2008 7:00:21 PM PDT by ETL
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To: bobsunshine

Wow! Great minds think alike. I also read this with the same impression - that this may be the real cause of the arctic melting, not man-made warming from increased CO2.

All the talk of CO2 levels and how to capture the CO2 and reduce it - may in the end cause irreparable harm to the planets’ eco-system, that is the trees and other foliage.


14 posted on 06/26/2008 7:15:17 PM PDT by Gumdrop
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To: Halo-JM

... then only criminals will have volcanos.


15 posted on 06/26/2008 7:15:46 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch (H2OLY: The chemical formula for holy water.)
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To: Gumdrop
I also read this with the same impression - that this may be the real cause of the arctic melting, not man-made warming from increased CO2.

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation periods. Now look very carefully at this relationship between temps and CO2 levels and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the graph indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000 year period actually lagged behind temperature increases ...by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "runaway greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. -ETL

_______________________________________________________________


"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago [Myr]. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present." [also see 180 million years ago, same thing happened]:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

16 posted on 06/26/2008 7:24:55 PM PDT by ETL
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To: bobsunshine
"Maybe this is why the Arctic Ice mass is receding while the Antarctic ice mass is growing at historic rates."

Shut up. You'll ruin Al Gore's scam.

17 posted on 06/26/2008 8:50:27 PM PDT by cookcounty (Obama reach across the aisle? He's so far to the left, he'll need a roadmap to FIND the aisle.)
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To: bobsunshine

Conclusion: Global Warming causes massive Arctic undersea vulcanic eruption.


18 posted on 06/26/2008 9:56:16 PM PDT by ricks_place
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To: ETL

trying to save your comment.


19 posted on 06/27/2008 3:23:58 AM PDT by larryjohnson (FReepersonaltrainer,USAF(Ret))
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To: bobsunshine

Quit capping carbon and start capping volcanoes!


20 posted on 06/27/2008 8:54:47 AM PDT by mmichaels1970
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