Fire under the ice: volcanic eruption under the Arctic

[Laura]

Fire under the ice: Gigantic volcanic eruption discovered under the Arctic
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/160630-Fire-under-the-ice-Gigantic-
volcanic-eruption-discovered-under-the-Arctic

"a series of 300 strong earthquakes over a period of eight months indicated
an eruption at 85° N 85° E in 4 kilometres water depth in 1999"

Seems these scientists are surprised by this but it's just another semi-hit
for the Cs.  On Feb. 18, 1995, they made the passing comment:

" Volcanic eruption under arctic ice in 1996."

Well, we know their dates and timing are often pretty  terrible.  But we
also don't know that there was NOT a smaller eruption under the Arctic in 1996...

For all we know, this is the main reason for the melting of the arctic ice cap.

[Adrian Adcock]

Interestingly, having read the latest article on SOTT re the "possibility of the volcanism under the ice causing the melting" ..... go to the WHOI site and read their disclaimer which seems to be pointed at the article from Investor's business daily. Link here http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=44586&ct=162#sidebar.

Regards to all
Adrian

[anart]

This phrase is interesting:

Colder and/or saltier seawater is denser than fresher and/or less salty seawater.  Waters in the Arctic depths remain trapped near the bottom. They do not mix much with surface waters. Almost no heat is transmitted all the way up to the underside of the ice.

OK - but - once the volcano has spewed out hot lava, that water at the bottom near the volcano is no longer so cold or dense, thus, it must rise.  The very fact that they've posted this disclaimer - and it is that - just read it - is really interesting.  Granted, considering the volcanoes are over 2 miles under water, it very well may be that very little heat 'rises to the top' - however, there is an introduction of heat into the system - that was not there before, thus there must be some effect.  There have also been other submarine volcanoes 'discovered' over the last four years, so heat is being introduced into the system.  

I am certainly no expert on such things, though, so perhaps those with more expertise could comment - and it could be that the volcanoes do not affect the ice caps - but this disclaimer - this is interesting.

[bngenoh]

Arctic volcanism, very interesting:

Scientists have made a biological discovery in Arctic Ocean waters as dramatic and unexpected as finding a rainforest in the middle of a desert. A NASA-sponsored expedition punched through three-foot thick sea ice to find waters richer in microscopic marine plants, essential to all sea life, than any other ocean region on Earth.

The finding reveals a new consequence of the Arctic's warming climate and provides an important clue to understanding the impacts of a changing climate and environment on the Arctic Ocean and its ecology. The discovery was made during a NASA oceanographic expedition in the summers of 2010 and 2011.

[...]

The microscopic plants, called phytoplankton, are the base of the marine food chain. Phytoplankton were thought to grow in the Arctic Ocean only after sea ice had retreated for the summer. Scientists now think that the thinning Arctic ice is allowing sunlight to reach the waters under the sea ice, catalyzing the plant blooms where they had never been observed. The findings were published today in the journal Science.

"If someone had asked me before the expedition whether we would see under-ice blooms, I would have told them it was impossible," said Kevin Arrigo of Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., leader of the ICESCAPE mission and lead author of the new study. "This discovery was a complete surprise."

That is an indication of warmer waters, is it not?

"The distribution of underwater volcanoes tells us something about what is happening in the centre of the Earth," says John Hillier of the University of Cambridge in the UK. That is because they give information about the flows of hot rock in the mantle beneath. "But the problem is that we cannot see through the water to count them," he says.

[...]

Hiller says he was surprised to find that the density of small volcanoes dropped in the area around Iceland, as Iceland is known to be a hotspot for volcanic activity.

Another surprise was that he found fewer volcanoes on the seabed around Hawaii, another volcanic hotspot. He says his findings may mean that researchers need to re-assess their understanding of how submarine volcanoes are formed.

In 2006, a team of researchers from Japan discovered a new type of volcano which also defied conventional theories of volcanism. The "petit-spot" volcanoes, aged between one to eight million years old, did not sit at tectonic plate boundaries or over volcanic hotspots.

And a blast from the past:

Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

    The eruptions - as big as the one that buried Pompei - took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.

    Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.

    But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.

    What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

Folks need to understand that the Arctic Ocean is a fairly closed system because it resides in a large bowl shaped depression with only limited outlets that rise to much shallower depths,

The natural basin that is the Arctic Ocean is possibly the reason why Arctic water temperatures were rising because the warming caused by these massive underwater explosions couldn't really circulate out of the basin. Is this the real culprit for why the ice and glaciers have been receding in the Arctic and ice as been growing in the Antarctic? Seems highly possible.

[MnSportsman]

This phrase is interesting:

Colder and/or saltier seawater is denser than fresher and/or less salty seawater.  Waters in the Arctic depths remain trapped near the bottom. They do not mix much with surface waters. Almost no heat is transmitted all the way up to the underside of the ice.

I agree with you Anart...in your post above...


I hope I would not sound "flippant", but even though I can understand the Arctic is much bigger than an analogy I am going to try to use, the principle seems to be about the same:

   Imagine you have a pot of water sitting outside in below the freezing point of water ( > 32 degF./0 degC. ) & it forms a skim of ice on the surface of the water, or  perhaps you could imagine a pot that has many icecubes floating in that water. If you take that pot & place it on a burner, the heat at the bottom makes the molecules vibrate faster as they heat up & the heat will then rise up to the suface where the ice is. Whether it is a low heat or a high heat, the heat(heated water) will eventually reach the underside of the ice at the top, & dependant on the duration of the heating time/amount of heat generated, the ice will likely start to melt from below, & the below ice water will heat up, even if the ice continues to form above.

Maybe that analogy is over simplified, but since it seemed to me that the "principles" are the same. So, if a volcano is erupting below the surface & acting as a "heat source", no matter the depth, that warmed water is going to rise, & as it rises it encounters even warmer water, & so on til it reaches the ice.

Makes sense to me, although I am not a scientist. I have certainly heated pots of skim ice water here in the North while outside in below freezing weather & have boiled water for both cooking & making hot beverages. (It is a also a means to purify water if someone found the need.) So I know this works on this smaller scale. Would it not work the same as in a larger scale? Regardless of if it was salty water or not?

This "Whoi" I think... just might be full of "Hooeey".

[bngenoh]

As a simple model, it is generally correct as I see it MnSportsman, but as we all know, "all models are wrong, but some are useful," as some scientist I can't remember said.

Regarding the warming in the Arctic, and likely all throughout the Oceans, salinity and thus the Thermohaline Circulation are likely to be greatly impacted:

Although everyone knows that seawater is salty, few know that even small variations in Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) can have dramatic effects on the water cycle and ocean circulation. SSS tells us the about the concentration of dissolved salts in the upper centimeter of the ocean surface. Throughout Earth's history, certain processes have served to make the ocean salty. The weathering of rocks delivers minerals, including salt, into the ocean. Evaporation of ocean water and formation of sea ice both increase the salinity of the ocean. However these "salinity raising" factors are continually counterbalanced by processes that decrease salinity such as the continuous input of fresh water from rivers, precipitation of rain and snow, and melting of ice.

Salinity & The Water Cycle

Understanding why the sea is salty begins with knowing how water cycles among the ocean's physical states: liquid, vapor, and ice. As a liquid, water dissolves rocks and sediments and reacts with emissions from volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. This creates a complex solution of mineral salts in our ocean basins. Conversely, in other states of ocean water such as vapor and ice, water and salt are incompatible: water vapor and ice are essentially salt free.

Since 86% of global evaporation and 78% of global precipitation occur over the ocean, SSS is the key variable for understanding how fresh water input and output affects ocean dynamics. By tracking SSS we can directly monitor variations in the water cycle: land runoff, sea ice freezing and melting, and evaporation and precipitation over the oceans.

[...]

Salinity & Ocean Circulation

Changes in salt concentration at the ocean surface affect the weight of surface waters. Fresh water is light and floats on the surface, while salty water is heavy and sinks. Together, salinity and temperature determine seawater density and buoyancy, driving the extent of ocean stratification, mixing, and water mass formation. Greater salinity, like colder temperatures, results in an increase in ocean density with a corresponding depression of the sea surface height. In warmer, fresher waters, the density is lower resulting in an elevation of the sea surface. These height differences are related to the circulation of the ocean. The changes in density bring warm water poleward on the surface to replace the sinking water driving the global thermohaline (heat & salt) circulation within the ocean called the Global Conveyor Belt.

[...]

Salinity & Climate

The Global Conveyor Belt is the principal mechanism by which the oceans store and transport heat. The ocean stores more heat in the uppermost 3 meters than that of the entire atmosphere and acts as a "global heat engine." Since salinity is a key ingredient in the global thermohaline circulation, SSS will help us discover how climate variation induces change in global ocean circulation.

[...]

By tracking SSS we can directly monitor variations in the water cycle: land runoff, sea ice freezing and melting, evaporation and precipitation over the oceans. These changes may reflect changes in the global Earth system or other natural or human-induced changes.

To track changes in SSS patterns over time, scientists monitor the relationship between two primary processes in the oceans: evaporation, which controls the loss of water; and precipitation which governs the gain of water.

Makes me think of the mechanism the C's put forth for Ice Ages:

Q: Okay, let me get more specific: the Atlantean land that was supposed to have existed in the Atlantic Ocean... what was the farthest north of any part of Atlantis that was in the ocean, that no longer exists?
A: It is “time for you” to know that Atlantis was not a nation, land, Island, or continent, but rather, a civilization!

Q: Well, I sort of think that the Azores and the Canary Islands are sort of...
A: Yes, but many other places too. Remember, the sea level was several hundred feet lower then...

Q: Why was the sea level several hundred feet lower? Because there was ice somewhere or because there was not as much water on the earth at that time? 
A: Ice.

Q: Was the ice piled up at the poles? The ice sheet of the ice age?
A: Yes.   

Q: So, Atlantis existed during the ice age? 
A: Largely, yes. And the world’s climate was scarcely any colder away from the ice sheets than it is today.

Q: Well, how could that be? What caused these glaciers?   
A: Global warming.

Q: How does global warming cause glaciers? 
A: Increases precipitation dramatically. Then moves the belt of great precipitation much farther north. This causes rapid buildup of ice sheets, followed by increasingly rapid and intense glacial rebound.

See this thread as well: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,26634.0.html

[bngenoh]

About volcanism:

The gases are what cause lava to erupt. Just as bubbles form in an opened can of soft drink, so do sulfur gases, carbon dioxide, and water vapor in rising magma. The result is that rising magma expands, and this in turn makes it rise faster. The gases leave the lava and enter the atmosphere, where they influence its composition and affect the global climate in various ways.

"The gases are what cause the lava to erupt," CO2 is a big gas in volcanism, second to water vapor:

Volcanic gases undergo a tremendous increase in volume when magma rises to the Earth's surface and erupts. For example, consider what happens if one cubic meter of 900°C rhyolite magma containing five percent by weight of dissolved water were suddenly brought from depth to the surface. The one cubic meter of magma now would occupy a volume of 670 m3 as a mixture of water vapor and magma at atmospheric pressure (Sparks et. al., 1997)! The one meter cube at depth would increase to 8.75 m on each side at the surface. Such enormous expansion of volcanic gases, primarily water, is the main driving force of explosive eruptions.

The most abundant gas typically released into the atmosphere from volcanic systems is water vapor (H2O), followed by carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Volcanoes also release smaller amounts of others gases, including hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen chloride (HCL), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and helium (He).

CO2 is critical for photosynthesis, refer to the above ie phytoplankton in the arctic, along with everything else in the thread (warmer arctic waters due to volcanism)