Underwater volcanoes not melting the ice?
Jun 30th, 2008 by Moonage
That is a typical underwater volcano. I love to watch them. Something eerie looking, kinda alien. So, I finally found a story that gives me the opportunity to show at least a picture of one. Here’s today’s story:
Which, I read with special interest since CNN ran a poll about the story of the polar ice caps melting entirely this summer. There has been quite a bit of media interest and speculation as to why the polar ice caps are melting. Now, we had been through this scenario before. Everythign was melting in Greenland, and it was all man’s fault. Until, that is, they figured out there was a large volcano underneath Greenland heating everything up. Once they figured that out, Greenland hasn’t been mentioned since in the global warming debate and the polar ice caps immediately started melting. Not one person thought to see if the same thing was happening at the North Pole as it was in Greenland. Well, now that they have found that the same thing IS happening at the North Pole, this is what they figured out:
“We don’t believe the volcanoes had much effect on the overlying ice,” Reeves-Sohn told LiveScience, “but they seem to have had a major impact on the overlying water column.”
Now, I’m inclined to believe they don’t want to believe it has any effect on the overlying ice. My limited science background does tell me that heat rises. And, it also tells me volcanoes are very hot. Now, granted these volcanoes are under a lot of water, that heat still has to go somewhere. It just bugs me that although “scientists” are more than willing to research the connection of gases moving from continental US and photosynthesizing over the Arctic, thereby trapping the sun’s rays closer to earth and slightly warming the atmosphere by less than five degrees and thereby causing all of the ice at the North Pole to melt, they are unwilling apparently to explore the concept that a volcano releasing lava at 1,250 degrees directly below the ice would melt it.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would hope anyone reading these articles will scratch their heads as well.
My bet, in the not too distant future, someone is going to hypothesize that the extreme heat of those underwter volcanoes is contributing to the melting ice directly above them.
Duh.
Yeah, I scratched my head a bit too when I read that. I think the truth is that the underwater volcanoes are not directly the cause for the ice melt. As the heat from the volcano rises it is mixed in with the surrounding colder water and the addition of currents dilutes the heat even more. In the end the water at the pole might be a degree or two warmer than normal but all that heat is going to result in an increase in mean sea temps all over the world. This will result in global temps going up a tad which could indirectly make it warmer at the pole which will result in a smaller or missing ice pack.
Jeff
I agree with all that, but a degree or two is all we’re talking about with the global warming issue in general. It is that degree or two that is supposedly melting all the ice. The debate is where is that degree or two coming from. It just boggles me that in all the discussion, no one ever even mentioned there were volcanoes directly beneath the area who’s temps have been rising a degree or two. Now, the same arguments were made about Greenland several years ago. When they finally did an in-depth study, they realized very quickly those magma fields were the root of most of the warming as they were profoundly larger than originally expected, and growing. Now, we get all these alarming headlines about metling ice in the Arctic, and find out now that the same issue that affected Greenland is possibly affecting the Arctic. Seems like a good enough reason to explore more deeply IMO. Not to this “scientist”, he just dismisses it outright.
My bet, they’re going to find a lot more activity under the Arctic region than they originally thought was there. That whole region is heating up. And, it’s not man’s fault.
Of course its mans fault. The weight of all the humans on the planet are pushing down on the crust which compresses it and heats it up creating more magma which can erupt from volcanoes!! And if you buy that one……
Now we know what killed off the dinosaurs. I mean, they weighed a lot more than the average man does. So, it only stands to reason they heated up the Earth a lot faster.