Volcanic Ash affecting European Climate?

I've noticed this just by observing lately, it's speculation on my part, but it's something I'm surprised nobody else seems to have picked up on. I'd appreciate the views of you guys.

How much has the presence of this ash cloud begun to affect the climate in the UK and in Europe?

This has been the coldest May I can remember. The air temperatures outside over the last couple of weeks have been more consistent with late March/early April. It snowed in Dundee the other day. It's often snowed here during April, but never during May(I know that's a relatively minor difference, but it's still worth noting). Parts of the UK are getting frosts right now.
I know there's low solar activity at the moment, which could be causing it as well, but to me it seems like too much of a coincidence that we're having the coldest spring for ages while there's this volcanic ash about.

Anyone else in Europe noticed unusually chilly weather/strange weather patterns?

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It's likely that the ash will be having some affect. But it should not be forgotten that we also had by far the coldest winter for ages as well before the ash cloud.

Yesterday I read an article on this very topic. It was noted that somewhere in the early 19th century (I think, in 1815) there was a volcano eruption. As a result, the year 1816 or something was called 'a year without summer'. From April till September there were heavy rainfalls and snowfalls in Europe. Maybe there's something going on with the climate again...It makes me laugh when I think of all those jerks alarming about global warming. Where the heck is this? Where? Wheeere?!!! Only 2 days ago they switched off central heating in my town. They normally do it at the beginning of April. It's 22 deg. today in my town...but it's gonna be 12 in three days. :/

Well, if joking, we can suppose that Mother Nature tries to show us how much civilization sucks. One ash cloud is enough to ground air traffic. One cold winter is enough to make people swear and get stuck in snowdrifts as never before :P Well, mankind isn't well prepared for living in the world they're born into.

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I am one of those jerks alarming about global warming. I am right here.

A small volcano won't change much. Even if it runs for years, the poles will still melt. You'd need a volcano many times larger to make a real difference, and even then it will only be symptom relief. The problem would not be fixed.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Morbid, what are your thoughts on Lovelocks Gaia hypothesis?




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Morbid Wrote:
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> I am one of those jerks alarming about global
> warming. I am right here.
>
> A small volcano won't change much. Even if it runs
> for years, the poles will still melt. You'd need a
> volcano many times larger to make a real
> difference, and even then it will only be symptom
> relief. The problem would not be fixed.

Yup. A small volcano probably won't change much. I only wanted to highlight the fact that such things have already happened in a similar sequence. If there was 'a year without summer' at some point in history, this might as well be the case this year - who knows?

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abdelkader schrieb:
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> Morbid Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I am one of those jerks alarming about global
> > warming. I am right here.
> >
> > A small volcano won't change much. Even if it
> runs
> > for years, the poles will still melt. You'd need
> a
> > volcano many times larger to make a real
> > difference, and even then it will only be
> symptom
> > relief. The problem would not be fixed.
>
> Yup. A small volcano probably won't change much. I
> only wanted to highlight the fact that such things
> have already happened in a similar sequence. If
> there was 'a year without summer' at some point in
> history, this might as well be the case this year
> - who knows?

"the year without a summer" was caused by the tambora in indonesia. the eruption was one of the 5 strongest eruptions in the last 10000 years. it was more than 1000 times stronger than what we experienced in the last weeks. i doubt we'll see any measurable effects on our climate.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

I will be honest. I never heard of it, before you asked.

I have taken a quick run down of the wikipedia page on it and reflected on the theory for an hour or so. My opinion is thus no better supported than the quality of the wiki article.

That caveat presented, I would say, I find the theory pretty @#$%& brilliant. As far as I can see, it is a natural consequence of Darwinism. Darwinian evolution demands, that every time there is a instability in a given biological system, there is a niche for organism to exploit. With evolution, that will happen eventually, and that species will thrive, opening up other instabilities that other creatures can exploit.

I see that one of the major critics is Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, which is brilliant book. It is ridiculous that he is a critic of the theory, as he probably the biggest Darwinian on the planet, but there you go. Several other Darwinians have joined him in this critique, and it seems to me, that they fail to realize (or maybe the material that describes the theory fails to properly explain), that the reason for this mechanism, is not inside the living organisms, but it is a consequence of the laws that govern those organisms.

I also see that the Gaia theory has been criticized for being teleological, which means it runs towards an end purpose... well hello?!? So does the theory of the Big Bang (the universe will either collapse on itself or expand until it disperses its energy so much that it will freeze over. We don't know which one, but regardless of that, it is inevitable). Darwinism is also teleological if you think about it. Teleological arguments are also used in physics and chemistry. In any case, this is used to link the theory to new age hippie circles, thus trying to discredit it as a spiritual movement rather than a theory by association, because teleological traditionally have been linked to God's will. I find this an unsavoury way to attempt to discredit a theory.

I do see a weakness though. According to the theory it is the interaction of the biomass, understood as the biosphere, through the atmosphere, oceans, and soil that forms the entity and hence the self-regulating cybernetic system. In this biomass, humans, and hence human activity, are also a part. Volcanos, solar activity and meteors are not. The theory itself relies on the process of evolution (that is life!) to create the equilibrium.

Humans are the only creature on the planet, that has harnessed the ability to create systemic instability, and then exploit it ourselves. The entire human endeavour since we became sentient, has been to work on speeding up and further develop this capacity. At first it wasn't much, like fire, agriculture, animal husbandry and so on. But now we are at a point, where we can change the entire face of the planet in less than a generation, should we wish to do so. With an atomic holocaust, we can do it in less than an hour!

In short: We can radically change the fundamental conditions for all other forms of life, faster than any evolutionary process can ever handle. Thus, even though we are a part of evolution, in many more ways than we can understand, we are also somehow above it, because we act as a much stronger force on life, because we can act much faster than evolution can respond. That is what has set us at odds with the rest of the biosphere. But the theory holds biosphere as biomass, which we are a part of. This is most problematic.

To further clarify: We know how fast evolution can work. Some of the best examples are large animals, that become trapped on small islands, with no natural predators. Let us have a group of horses stranded on an island that is 100 square kilometres. With no natural predators, they will breed, and their numbers will grow unchecked. The main evolutionary pressure will be as always, the ability to survive and the ability to breed. In this case, that will be determined by the very limited amount of plant matter to be eaten. As numbers increase, the share of food available to each horse dwindles. Thus ability to secure and utilize food will be paramount both for survival and replication.

Situations like this have happened many times during the course of natural history. The successful evolutionary response is usually miniaturisation. This might seem odd, as a smaller horse should have LESS chances to reproduce. That might be true, but in a famine situation, as we have generated, it will be best suited to survive, and hence replicate. Large horses are not strong when they starve, and thus do not reproduce, as they will be beaten be smaller horses that are well-fed. Thus the horses shrink in size with each new generation.

This is perhaps one of the most extreme forms of evolutionary pressure that you can generate that doesn't wipe out the test populace before it can adapt. As a consequence, evolution is working in overdrive. But even in these conditions, it still takes about 6000 years for the horses to adapt (a scary consequence of this, is that our emotional response system, thinking capacity and instincts are most likely wired up to handle the life of the caveman!). Given this, all large forms of life are screwed, when man is around. With size usually comes a slow reproduction cycle, and that is the real killer, as evolution does not work in units of years, but in units of generations.

This being the fact, it seems the only forms of life that are thriving with our presence, is stuff like viruses, bacteria, amoeba, algae and stuff like that... maybe even banana flies can keep up. But as we all know, birds and frogs cannot.

Thus I cannot see, we as humans, who are part of the biomass, framed in the term "biosphere", are following the theory as it is described. We are not trying to establish "optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet". It is my honest opinion, that the Gaia theory should be able to account for that, and while I can see human activity has been discussed extensively, I cannot see this particular point has been addressed. If this critique can be developed further, it probably has the capacity to snowball into a mortal wound for the theory.

Taking the opposite stance, if we assume, that the theory is correct, and that there is a proper explanation for my critique, then it would follow, that the planet as a cybernetic system, would work very hard to exterminate us. This is also discussed in "The Revenge of Gaia". I have to say, despite my own critique seems intellectually strong to me, my gut feeling is going with "The Revenge of Gaia".

As Agent Smith puts it in "The Matrix":

"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure."

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Why restrict it to our planet? There are scientists who say the universe as such sort of is conscious on the quantum level.

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

Sure. I'll buy that. In fact, I already believe that.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Vader schrieb:
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> Why restrict it to our planet? There are
> scientists who say the universe as such sort of is
> conscious on the quantum level.

i heard of that before, the idea of a conscious universe is sometimes used to explain quantum mechanics to laymen as some particles indeed behave as if they were conscious. i wouldn't take it too literal.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

It all depends how you define consciousness

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

agreed

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Too much harmony.

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

Global Consciousness Project
NOOSPHERE

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[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2010 03:21AM by mortal.

That's possibly far-fetched, but still very interesting. Where/how do you find this stuff mortal?

Regarding the idea of global warming, I have to disagree with those who say we're heading for Armageddon or anything similar, or that the recent rise in temperature is unstoppable. My belief is that human activity since the Industrial Revolution has contributed to a rise in global temperatures that was happening anyway, as that period coincided with a rise in solar activity and a time of relatively little volcanic activity. I think that any rise in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide will have a pretty minor effect on climate compared with - for example - a period of reduced solar activity, like we're apparently heading into now. I think the global cooling that would produce would outweigh any effect from greenhouse gases.
We have made a difference and have helped the temperature to rise, but I think it's been played up a lot.

@abdelkader: Yeah, in 1815 Mount Tambora blew its ass off. It was the biggest volcanic eruption in recorded history, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7. And in 1816 there was literally no summer apparently, there was snow and ice in Europe and North America in July and August, lots of heavy rain everywhere throughout the summer too, and lots of strange weather phenomena.
It was a consequence of a combination of things, and one of them was a solar minimum then too(The Dalton Minimum).

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EC83 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's possibly far-fetched, but still very
> interesting. Where/how do you find this stuff
> mortal?
>
> Regarding the idea of global warming, I have to
> disagree with those who say we're heading for
> Armageddon or anything similar, or that the recent
> rise in temperature is unstoppable. My belief is
> that human activity since the Industrial
> Revolution has contributed to a rise in global
> temperatures that was happening anyway, as that
> period coincided with a rise in solar activity and
> a time of relatively little volcanic activity. I
> think that any rise in greenhouse gases like
> carbon dioxide will have a pretty minor effect on
> climate compared with - for example - a period of
> reduced solar activity, like we're apparently
> heading into now. I think the global cooling that
> would produce would outweigh any effect from
> greenhouse gases.
> We have made a difference and have helped the
> temperature to rise, but I think it's been played
> up a lot.

Yup. That's what I think about it, more or less.

> @abdelkader: Yeah, in 1815 Mount Tambora blew its
> ass off. It was the biggest volcanic eruption in
> recorded history, with a Volcanic Explosivity
> Index of 7. And in 1816 there was literally no
> summer apparently, there was snow and ice in
> Europe and North America in July and August, lots
> of heavy rain everywhere throughout the summer
> too, and lots of strange weather phenomena.
> It was a consequence of a combination of things,
> and one of them was a solar minimum then too(The
> Dalton Minimum).
They didn't say anything about the soalr minimum in the article I read. Thanks for the info.

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