More volcanic eruptions?
Accelerating climate change?

In a week that has seen some very worrying headlines suggesting that highest ever carbon emissions are putting our climate on the brink of irreversible change, with dreadful consequences for food prices and social unrest, we’ve also uncovered some interesting scientific research about the impact of climate change on volcanoes.

Scientists from Delft University of Technology and the University of Iceland have been researching the contribution melting ice caps might make to increased volcanic activity in Iceland.  With many of the active volcanoes there covered in ice, they estimated ice thinning on Vatnajokull (the largest ice cap) to be about 25cm per year at the centre and 60cm per year at the edge.  It is thought the ice cap plays a part in keeping magma under the earth’s surface in Iceland under high pressure. As the ice melts the pressure is reduced, which may lead to the formation of greater volumes of magma, a bit like popping a cork in a champagne bottle.

It is not yet clear whether this greater volume of lava is then more likely to erupt on the earth’s surface, or fill the gaps in the crust made when the pressure is reduced, or both.  But what is clear is that the impact of climate change is having real, and often unexpected consequences, which only further research can help us understand. Iceland’s volcanoes will always erupt as they sit on a mid-ocean ridge, however it is possible these eruptions may become more commonplace as a result of our changing climate.  Read the scientific paper here.

Meanwhile, researchers from the US National  Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado have found evidence that the thawing of Arctic permafrost could transform the Arctic from a ‘sink’ for Carbon Dioxide to an accelerator of climate change. The tipping point could come as soon as within the next 20 years, according to an article in the Independent.

More reasons for individuals to act now to make a difference to climate change in order to reduce these uncertainties in the future.