Is there an actual thing called a “Volcano Season”?
Well, here we go again. When scientists can’t explain something, they create explanations. They do have the most creative minds among us, right?
Whenever they can’t explain something such as the mystery of why volcanoes are increasing, they decide to come up with a simple explanation to make sure we all feel better about it. And lately, that explanation has to do with the word “season” because it sort of, psychologically, puts us lesser minds at ease. I mean think about it…the holiday season, the fall season, the rainy season, football season. Sounds so nice, right?
Well, now scientists would like to add the volcano season to the list so that we’re not too alarmed about the awakening volcanoes all over the world.
Last year when it became obviously clear that there was an increase in fireballs, especially after the explosion over a Russian city, scientists decided that February was fireball season. Nothing to see hear, please move along folks.
Fireballs have been back in the news this past month with increasing reports of sightings. But, hey, maybe fireballs have two seasons, February and September. That works. No, it doesn’t. There really is a rapidly escalating rise of fireball sightings over the past few years and don’t let the so-called experts fool you.
It’s the same with volcanoes. The year 2013 saw 83 eruptions. What is the average year? About 50 to 60, or an eruption every week. The year 2013 was a record year since records began. There hasn’t been a year with 83 eruptions and now this year, 2014, has already seen 65 eruptions. We are only three quarters of the way through the year and yet, we’ve already seen 65. Given, many of these were ongoing eruptions that may have carried over from the previous year, which was somewhere in the 20’s. So, that still gives us around 45 volcanoes. That means, at the current rate, we’ll see at least another 15 eruptions this year putting us right around the same amount as last year. That’s two consecutive extremely high years for volcanic activity.
That’s why scientists are asking why. Why are the volcanoes awaking? Truthfully, they don’t know.
I’m going to share with you an excerpt from my book, Fever Rising, about what I think is causing the increase in volcanoes and it also has to do with the increasing earthquakes. In the book, I focus in depth on why there is an increase in earthquakes in Chapter 12. I examine the volcanoes in Chapter 13. In the earthquake chapter I talk about a couple of similar theories that explain the rise having to do with global warming. When the ice melts, the earth spews fire!
Before I show the excerpt, I’d like to share with you what scientists have said could happen from a rise of 23 volcanoes in one year. First, temperatures globally could cool at least 2 degrees and probably for a few years. This will affect the world in huge ways, including agriculturally from the volcanic winters for the northern portions of planet. There will be devastation to crops causing famines worldwide. This will also slow down the global warming on a temporary basis because the ash clouds will block out the sun. This is only temporary though, because as the volcanoes have increased, that’s methane gas spewing out into the atmosphere only adding to the domino effect of chain reaction global warming.
Here is a link to Jonny Mnemonics Jumping Jack Flash Hypothesis where he presents his MISA theory about melting ice causing pressure on plate tectonics.
I go over this theory in the book, but I also go over a similar theory by James McGuire, which he presented in his book, Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.
Here is the excerpt:
There is a theory proposed a few years back in a book by James McGuire entitled Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, where the author states that the melting ice at the poles relieves pressure on the earth’s continental plates. The slightest pressure change will cause tectonic movement resulting in earthquakes. Basically, as the atmosphere heats up we experience rapid thawing of Arctic ice from both sea and land (permafrost). As the ice retreats, all that weight relieves pressure on the Earth’s crust which would naturally cause it to adjust.
According to an article on NPR.org the summer of 2012 saw the most dramatic ice melt in several thousand years. It literally smashed records. Of course there is always melt in the summer time, about half the ice, but the article points out three quarters of the ice melted. The previous record for ice melt was in 2007, also within the time frame of the rapid methane increase in the atmosphere. The additional ice melt in 2013 was the size of Texas. That’s a lot of ice and a lot of weight on the continental plates.
From NPR.org, September 11, 2012
This melting trend is accelerating because the ice in the Arctic is getting thinner as the region warms. A few decades ago, lots of ice in the Arctic was 10 feet thick and would clump up as wind pushed it around the northern coastlines.
"That ice used to survive and stir around in the Arctic for decades and create a very thick mass that could survive a few warm summers," Scambos says. "We don't get that anymore. We get persistently warm summers that have gradually eroded the ice cover until it's very, very thin and not stable."
As the ice retreats relieving pressure on those plates, it causes the water levels to rise, which is another point of pressure on the Earth’s crust. Keep in mind that the plates underneath the oceans are more fragile than land-based plates. Taking that into consideration, you can see that it’s not going to take much extra mass to cause seismic instability. Every square mile of water that is one meter deep is nearly 6 billion pounds. Sure, the waters haven’t risen that much, but consider any additional height is going to add billions of pounds of extra mass into the oceans and the level of the water rising isn’t going to be the same throughout the globe. Some areas are going to experience more sea level rise than others. That’s more pressure on certain areas which would heighten the seismic activity.
Here is a brief description of how Jonny Mnemonic describes this extra mass on his website.
JumpingJackFlashHypothesis.blogspot.com
By Jonny Mnemonic
Think about your average volcano sticking out of the ocean. It may have 100 square miles (10x10 miles) where added mass could have some effect. So if the sea level around that volcano is increased by one meter then the amount of newly-introduced weight affecting that volcano is 570 billion pounds. If it was 99% of the way to blowing its top already then that might just be plenty to push it over the edge. The same is true of faults, except their area is often much larger.
Are the sea levels really rising? Yes, according to the climate experts, predicting that by the end of this century the sea level will rise 80 centimeters, or 2.6 feet. This is nearly that one meter we were talking about a minute ago that’s going to add nearly 6 billion pounds of weight to the Earth’s crust per every square mile. How can this kind of weight not have an effect on the plates underneath the oceans?
Some of these climatologists actually believe that it could rise to two meters instead of one. Beyond the unimaginable devastation that a two meter rise would do to the coastal cities around the planet, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis would make these places uninhabitable. We would be faced with an entirely different world than the one we know. Consider that half of the world’s population lives within 62 miles of a coast.
I believe that these experts are being generous by giving us till the end of the century. As I’ve discussed in an earlier chapter, this threat is here and now. The increasing anomalies are now and I don’t think the public is being given accurate numbers. Earthquakes have risen each year since 2009 at an alarming rate.
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