JoNova

A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).

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Stop the press: Solar panels could stop Earthquakes

Experts predict a warmer world will be “geologically turbulent”. Join the dots, get a solar panel, and stop the world cracking up ok?

Below one national news outlet speculates about the effects storms, melting ice and floods have on crustal plates, and fault lines. It’s possible, unknown, or at least not-entirely-ruled-out that man-made CO2 could maybe theoretically lead to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. The story contains stacked “ifs”, “buts”, “coulds” and caveats, plus some links that are not-statistically-significant and several “unknowns”.

This is essentially one-sided scientific rumour mongering. Quick let’s transform our economy.

h/t Andrew V

This is what our future looks like if climate change goes unchecked

Jamie Seidel

… experts predict a warmer and more geologically turbulent future for the planet.

The US Geological Survey has discovered there is one link between weather and earthquake.

Just one link?

Major storms, such as cyclones and hurricanes, can produce substantial changes in atmospheric pressure. This sometimes triggers a ‘slow earthquake’ – a slow but steady movement that does not create any noticeable jolt.

“They note that while such large low-pressure changes could potentially be a contributor to […]

December 14th, 2019 | Tags: , | Category: FakeNews, Geology, Global Warming, Media-matters | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Global warming means a global fall in wildfires

Strangely, despite NASA Giss “discovering” that the world has heated a lot since 1998, fires have declined.

Apparently increasing our CO2 emissions means less fires. Tell the world.

Figure 2. Wildfire occurrence (a) and corresponding area burnt (b) in the European Mediterranean region for the period 1980 – 2010. Source: San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. [37].

This new paper points out that the perception is that fires are worse than they have ever been, but that this is simply not true, not in the last thirty years, and not in the last few hundred either. It also documents how much money and effort we put into suppressing almost all fires and that this is in contrast to tens of thousands of years where humans used fire as a tool. Suppressing fires is getting increasingly expensive and sometimes costs lives as well.

Putting things in perspective. We spend a lot of money to avoid death and damage by fire, yet earthquakes kill 700 times as many people and floods kill 1,800 times as many people. There is something primal about fire that we feel driven to stop.

Table 1. Global comparison of human and economic losses derived from wildfire, earthquakes and flood […]

July 30th, 2018 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Supermoon today — Moon at closest point for 70 years. [News: 7.9 Quake hits New Zealand]

…

BREAKING: Massive magnitude 7.9 earthquake hits New Zealand tonight at midnight local time. 90km North of Christchurch. Thankfully, so far there are no reports of injuries or deaths. UPDATE: One Two deaths now reported. The quake was rated 7.4 initially but upgraded to 7.9 by Geoscience Australia. The small tsunami is expected to reach Australia around now (3 – 4am AEST). Many New Zealanders were evacuated and moved to higher ground for fear of the tsunami estimated at 2.5 – 5m. For more see NZ TV News and Twitter: #Earthquake. Maybe it’s connected to the full moon, maybe it isn’t. Best wishes to all our New Zealand readers.

UPDATE: Another strong 6.4 Earthquake has hit NZ, and a lot of small ones.

UPDATE: Clarence River got blocked, a lake formed, and has breached due to the quake. There were possibly two simultaneous quakes at midnight last night. In 2010 the fault rupture was about 30km long. This time it was about four times as long (about 3:30ish on the video). There have been over 400 aftershocks small earthquakes. h/t Tom.

UPDATE: NZ Geo’s say the big quake was 7.5. They are clocking up the aftershocks by the minute […]

November 14th, 2016 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |