Arctic volcanos.

dorlomin · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 05, 2007 Posts: 1061

So like can a volcano melt the arctic ice cap?
The arctic ocean has an area of about 14 million km^2 and a depth on average of around 1km (not too accurate a figure) so a volume of around 14 million cubic kilometeres. This would be about 14^15 cubic meters. 1000 liters per cubic meter gives us around 14^18 liters in the arctic. To raise that all by just one centegrade would require (at 1000 grams per liter and at one calorie per gram) about 14^21 calories. At 4.1 joule per calorie that would be 57^21 joules. That is just short of SIXTY TIMES the estimated energy of toba super volcano!!!!!!!!!!!
link

BUT we dont need the greatest volcanic activity since the Deccan traps to heat the arctic when the air temperature has been rising anyway.

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Lore · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:41 pm Post subject: Re: Arctic volcanos.

The problem, even if this were a hyperactive chain of volcanos, which it is not, is that it’s two miles below the sea ice, with thick intervening layers of water that don’t exchange much heat.

Scientists have known about Arctic volcano activity for some time, this is nothing new and does not offer a reasonable explanation no matter how you contort the idea as a interpretation for Arctic ice cap melt.
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jbrovont · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 16, 2006 Posts: 644

Excellent debunking! It's nice to see people doing the math on this stuff - otherwise it leaves people's imaginations to appeal to the denialists "explanations."

Major props Smile

zoidberg · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: Re: Arctic volcanos.

"not allowing for any of the heat being lost to warming the 4 km thick sea water column, or air, or evaporation) "

Ok the seawater absorbs zero percent of the heat energy. Thats ridiculous.

jbrovont · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 16, 2006 Posts: 644

From the wiki:

Thermochemical calorie (calth): 4.184 J exactly.[1]
15 °C calorie (cal15): the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 14.5 °C to 15.5 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm). Experimental values of this calorie ranged from 4.1852 J to 4.1858 J. The CIPM in 1950 published a mean experimental value of 4.1855 J, noting an uncertainty of 0.0005 J.[1]
20 °C calorie: the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 19.5 °C to 20.5 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm). This is about 4.182 J.
4 °C calorie: the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 3.5 °C to 4.5 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm).
Mean calorie: 1/100 of the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 0 °C to 100 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm). This is about 4.190 J
International Steam Table Calorie (1929): (1/860) W h = (180/43) J exactly. This is approximately 4.1868 J.
International Steam Table Calorie (1956) (calIT): 1.163 mW h = 4.1868 J exactly. This definition was adopted by the Fifth International Conference on Properties of Steam (London, July 1956).[1]
IUNS calorie: 4.182 J exactly. This is a ratio adopted by the Committee on Nomenclature of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences.[2]

It would appear that the definition of a calorie (measure of heat energy) is based on ... how much energy is absorbed by a gram of water to raise it's temperature. So sea water really does absorb heat energy - more actually, than the above units, because it's salty. A portion of that heat energy would never even reach the ice where it could cause melting, as the circulation of the water under the ice would carry some of the warmed water out from under the ice cap before it ever reached the surface.

It's also significant to note that surface melting and sub-surface melting are very different animals. Sub surface melting doesn't have the capability to cause the melt water perferations observed in the melting ice that causes sudden collapse.

dissident · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 415

An important detail is that the heat spewed by the volcano does not simply loft itself in a plume to the surface. It is advected by the deep current and can reach the surface thousands of miles from the source. Vertical mixing in the oceans occurs primarily in the shallow surface layer (about 100 m). Who needs to be bothered by details when a soundbite "explanation" will do.

Valdemar · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:02 am Post subject: Re: Arctic volcanos.

Of course seawater absorbs thermal energy! Geez, are we to think it is above the laws of thermodynamics now?

The problem here is scale. The waters will be warmed by the lava flows, yes. But nowhere near the amount of energy is being pumped out to explain the melting we're seeing all across the Arctic region, not just a localised geo-thermal anomaly.
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ClimateSanity · Coal Joined: Jul 13, 2008 Posts: 1

making the estimate that the ice is about 3 meters thick in the arctic. (Of course, it is much thicker some places and much thinner in others.) Then the energy of Mount St. Helens would melt about 100 square kilometers of ice in the Arctic. (Assuming the energy were transmitted straight to the ice, without heating the water.)

The bottom line: The Arctic goes through some serious changes in sea ice extent every year as the season change. The sea ice extent changes by about 10 million square kilometers every year. 100 square kilometers is about one hundred thousandth of that. It would take a thousand volcanos the size of Mount St. Helens every year to account for just 1% of the yearly Arctic ice loss.

The numbers for the above conclusion are worked out: http://climatesanity.wordpress.com

Best Regards

Serial_Worrier · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 05, 2008 Posts: 233

link Tiny life forms on the sea surface, called phytoplankton, gorged on the food, and storing up carbon as they grew. They then sank to the sea floor and decayed, stripping the ocean of oxygen. Hey that's our fossil fuels!