Scientists have uncovered the unusual role of volcanoes
Oct 25, 2017 9:56:33 GMT
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Post by Διαμονδ on Oct 25, 2017 9:56:33 GMT
Scientists have uncovered the unusual role of volcanoes in climate change!
Volcanic eruptions not only cool the planet, throwing in the air a huge amount of aerosols, but also cause the glaciers to melt faster because of the huge masses of ash emitted during these same cataclysms, said in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.
"We all know that the dark snow and ice are melting faster than their white counterparts, it's all very simple and obvious thing even for a child. But, on the other hand, previously, nobody has been able to show that outbreaks of volcanism, and episodes of rapid melting of ice in the past were linked," said Francesco Moscatiello (Francesco Muschitiello) of Columbia University (USA).
Earth's volcanoes are now considered one of the key "conductors" of our planet's climate. They can raise the temperature on its surface, throwing huge masses of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and to reduce it, filling the atmosphere with particles of ash and aerosols microcephaly reflecting the rays and heat of the Sun.
Humanity in the entire brief history of its existence has already experienced several such disasters. For example, the eruption of the SUPERVOLCANO Toba, which occurred about 70 thousand years ago, led to the occurrence of a "volcanic winter" for a few years and an almost complete disappearance of people. Its smaller counterparts, the explosion of the island of Tambora in 1815 and the mass eruption of volcanoes in South America in 530 BC, caused a massive famine and the plague outbreak.
Moscatiello, and his colleagues found that volcanoes are not always clearly affect the climate, and simultaneously causing the melting of the ice, and "volcanic winter" by studying sediments from the sludge formed at the bottom of the dried up of the Baltic ice lake. It was a large temporary body of water that covered a significant part of modern Scandinavia during the ice age in summer, when melt water from the glaciers started to drip into the basin of the future of the Baltic sea.
This lake, current estimates of geologists, originated about 12 thousand years ago, at the end of the ice age. it lasted a few thousand years, accumulating at its bottom volcanic ash, pollen and other organic pieces, can tell a lot about the climate of the era during which they originated.
Climate scientists in this case were more interested in the content and appearance of its bottom sediments. Their thickness, as the researchers explain, is a kind of analogue of tree rings – the wider each layer of silt, the more water should enter the lake from the slopes of the retreating glaciers.
This feature of the Baltic lake helped scientists to understand the role in its formation and filling played the volcanoes, comparing the change in thickness of layers of silt with a volcanic substances have been found in deposits of ice formed in Greenland in the same era.
This comparison, contrary to expectations of scientists, showed quite a strange picture. During the eruptions, vybrasyvalsya large quantities of aerosols into the atmosphere, the rate of melting of glaciers did not fall, and grew or remained the same, despite the fact that such emissions have lowered the average temperature by 3.5 degrees Celsius throughout Scandinavia.
The reason for this anomalous behavior of glaciers, as the authors of the articles, was volcanic ash – even a small amount, according to climatologists, might lower reflectivity of the ice at 15-20%, which significantly would increase the warming of the glaciers with the light and warmth of the Sun and accelerate their melting.
One of these eruptions, as scientists assume, could dramatically accelerate the rate of accumulation of water in the Baltic lake, which led to the formation of a channel between the ocean and this body of water and the birth of the Baltic sea.
All this, according to Muscatello, indicates that volcanoes could play a much bigger role in the end of the ice age than today, say scientists, and that their emissions affect the climate is not as straightforward as previously thought.
ria.ru/science/20171024/1507481865.html
Volcanic eruptions not only cool the planet, throwing in the air a huge amount of aerosols, but also cause the glaciers to melt faster because of the huge masses of ash emitted during these same cataclysms, said in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.
"We all know that the dark snow and ice are melting faster than their white counterparts, it's all very simple and obvious thing even for a child. But, on the other hand, previously, nobody has been able to show that outbreaks of volcanism, and episodes of rapid melting of ice in the past were linked," said Francesco Moscatiello (Francesco Muschitiello) of Columbia University (USA).
Earth's volcanoes are now considered one of the key "conductors" of our planet's climate. They can raise the temperature on its surface, throwing huge masses of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and to reduce it, filling the atmosphere with particles of ash and aerosols microcephaly reflecting the rays and heat of the Sun.
Humanity in the entire brief history of its existence has already experienced several such disasters. For example, the eruption of the SUPERVOLCANO Toba, which occurred about 70 thousand years ago, led to the occurrence of a "volcanic winter" for a few years and an almost complete disappearance of people. Its smaller counterparts, the explosion of the island of Tambora in 1815 and the mass eruption of volcanoes in South America in 530 BC, caused a massive famine and the plague outbreak.
Moscatiello, and his colleagues found that volcanoes are not always clearly affect the climate, and simultaneously causing the melting of the ice, and "volcanic winter" by studying sediments from the sludge formed at the bottom of the dried up of the Baltic ice lake. It was a large temporary body of water that covered a significant part of modern Scandinavia during the ice age in summer, when melt water from the glaciers started to drip into the basin of the future of the Baltic sea.
This lake, current estimates of geologists, originated about 12 thousand years ago, at the end of the ice age. it lasted a few thousand years, accumulating at its bottom volcanic ash, pollen and other organic pieces, can tell a lot about the climate of the era during which they originated.
Climate scientists in this case were more interested in the content and appearance of its bottom sediments. Their thickness, as the researchers explain, is a kind of analogue of tree rings – the wider each layer of silt, the more water should enter the lake from the slopes of the retreating glaciers.
This feature of the Baltic lake helped scientists to understand the role in its formation and filling played the volcanoes, comparing the change in thickness of layers of silt with a volcanic substances have been found in deposits of ice formed in Greenland in the same era.
This comparison, contrary to expectations of scientists, showed quite a strange picture. During the eruptions, vybrasyvalsya large quantities of aerosols into the atmosphere, the rate of melting of glaciers did not fall, and grew or remained the same, despite the fact that such emissions have lowered the average temperature by 3.5 degrees Celsius throughout Scandinavia.
The reason for this anomalous behavior of glaciers, as the authors of the articles, was volcanic ash – even a small amount, according to climatologists, might lower reflectivity of the ice at 15-20%, which significantly would increase the warming of the glaciers with the light and warmth of the Sun and accelerate their melting.
One of these eruptions, as scientists assume, could dramatically accelerate the rate of accumulation of water in the Baltic lake, which led to the formation of a channel between the ocean and this body of water and the birth of the Baltic sea.
All this, according to Muscatello, indicates that volcanoes could play a much bigger role in the end of the ice age than today, say scientists, and that their emissions affect the climate is not as straightforward as previously thought.
ria.ru/science/20171024/1507481865.html