Explanation:
Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches, and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain could face being struck by tsunamis.
Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way – by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, and volcanic eruptions.
Reports by international groups of researchers – to be presented at a London conference next week – will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories, and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.
Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods, and mudflows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.
At the same time, the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth’s crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future – and a fiery one.
Now, there is little doubt that there is a possible link between climate change and geophysical hazards, and that this is a topic that requires study. But to present the topic in this way is ridiculous given our current state of knowledge. Some elements of the quote above are probably untrue (melting glaciers will set off avalanches for example), and some of the remainders are speculative at best (e.g. widespread erosion in the UK, underwater landslides from the loss of ice sheets). Much of the rest has sensationalized climate impacts by presenting end member (i.e. large but unlikely) events as having a far great likelihood than is the reality – e.g. the UK being affected by tsunamis generated by underwater landslides caused by the Arctic melting. This is possible but is very, very unlikely, and there is little if any evidence that such events have occurred in the past.
But, unfortunately, it gets worse. Bill McGuire, the Director of the Benfield Hazards Research Centre at UCL, is quoted as saying the following:
‘” Not only are the oceans and atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms, and floods, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too,” said Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, at University College London (UCL).”Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something,”‘.
