2017-07-07

Super Volcano Fears Reflect Current Mood

Newsweek: NATURAL DISASTER: 5.8 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE HITS MONTANA, RAISING SUPERVOLCANO CONCERNS
The earthquake, which was the eighth largest ever recorded in Montana and largest in 34 years, comes just weeks after a flurry of smaller earthquakes hit the region. The swarm of activity began June 12, and by the end of the month nearly 900 earthquakes had been recorded near the Yellowstone supervolcano, along the western edge of the park.

Though the heightened seismic activity has stoked fears of a possible supervolcano eruption, Jacob Lowenstern of the USGS told Newsweek that it is not without precedent.

“The swarm in 2010 on the Madison Plateau lasted at least three weeks. In 1985, there was one that lasted several months,” he said. “Yellowstone has had dozens of these sorts of earthquake swarms in the last 150 years it's been visited. The last volcanic eruption within the caldera was 70,000 years ago. For magma to reach the surface, a new vent needs to be created, which requires a lot of intense geological activity.”
One reason why the supervolanco story keeps popping up is trust in scientists and science is falling. At peak social mood, people believe science and scientsits have all the answers. As peak mood fades, people take a reasonable view of science. During periods of negative mood, trust in science is replaced with superstition.

Scientists haven't done themselves any favors with their global warming data manipulation and in the case of seismology, giving spectacularly ill-time advice.

Science: Seven-year legal saga ends as Italian official is cleared of manslaughter in earthquake trial
Investigations of Bertolaso’s role in the prequake reassurances began following the release of a police phone tap in January 2012, while the scientists’ trial was taking place. In the phone call, made to a local Civil Protection official the day before the experts met, Bertolaso said he was sending the scientists to L’Aquila to carry out “a media operation” in order to “shut up any imbecile,” most likely a reference to Gioacchino Giuliani, a technician at the nearby Gran Sasso physics laboratory who had reportedly raised a series of alarms about impending strong quakes in the weeks beforehand.

Bertolaso’s trial only got the go-ahead in October of last year, after the prosecutor in the original trial twice requested that the case against him be dropped. Following opposition to those requests by three relatives of the deceased and their lawyers, hearings got underway in March and concluded on Friday, only 6 days before the trial would have been timed out. (Italy’s “period of limitation” dictates that a verdict much be reached within 7.5 years of the event, in this case the earthquake.)

During Bertolaso’s trial, there was much discussion of the idea that lots of smaller tremors are a good thing because they discharge energy and therefore reduce the chances of a major quake taking place. Considered by many seismologists to be false, it was this idea that witnesses in the original trial said victims found particularly reassuring and that persuaded them to stay indoors. De Bernardinis relayed the notion to the public in a now infamous interview he gave just ahead of the scientists’ meeting on 31 March 2009—which is why he was convicted for manslaughter.
As for climate change: Study Finds Temperature Adjustments Account For ‘Nearly All Of The Warming’ In Climate Data
The peer-reviewed study tried to validate current surface temperature datasets managed by NASA, NOAA and the UK’s Met Office, all of which make adjustments to raw thermometer readings. Skeptics of man-made global warming have criticized the adjustments.

Climate scientists often apply adjustments to surface temperature thermometers to account for “biases” in the data. The new study doesn’t question the adjustments themselves but notes nearly all of them increase the warming trend.

Basically, “cyclical pattern in the earlier reported data has very nearly been ‘adjusted’ out” of temperature readings taken from weather stations, buoys, ships and other sources.

...“Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,” Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo, a study co-author, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “Each dataset pushed down the 1940s warming and pushed up the current warming.”

2 comments:

  1. Well someone better go tell Artic and Antarctic glaciers about the fudged data, they've been melting away on the assumption that rising global temperature readings were correct.

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  2. The glaciers that don't read fake news are growing.
    https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

    ReplyDelete