According to USGS, the five largest earthquakes in Alaska all occurred prior to 1965, including three in an eight year period. Her claims of increasing frequency and intensity appear to have no basis.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/10_largest_us.php

The largest earthquake in the lower 48 states occurred in Missouri in 1811. Must have been the receding "St' Louis ice sheet." The largest earthquake in California occurred in 1857.

Additionally, the interior of the Greenland ice sheet is gaining mass. Why let the facts get in the way of a good AGW scare story?

Fantastic!

Now we can say that GW causes earthquakes too!

Is there ANYTHING that GW can't do?

Anybody keeping a count of the things that GW causes? Frankly I lost my count some time ago.

I may be wrong but it doesn't appear to take a 'scientist' to determine the rationality of such a premise, common sense can point one in the same direction, or in different ones.

The earth has a very plastic mantle contrary to what the average person understands. Plates at the surface move because of the intense heat in the core that causes molten rock in the mantle layer to move. The plates move in convection cells that form when warm material rises, cools, and eventually sink down. As the cooled material sinks down, it is warmed and rises again.

That brings up the question: According to the article: "It seems so, according to a computer model showing that earthquakes happen less often in areas covered by ice caps." Seems like the new 'scientific method' is to create and program the next 'computer model'. In other words, computer models are an excuse for laziness. So, the question: With a highly plastic upper mantle and a viscous inner mantle and obviously unequal convection zones throughout the plates would not the ice in question (assuming the ice is as significant as the article suggests)tend to displace the crust into the mantle just enough to allow adjacent ridge interaction at fault lines? Also if the convection zones Under the competing plates are unequal, it would appear that the ice itself creates an earthquake hazard. Furthermore, with a plastic mantle, and the pressure or the ice, would not this displacement create the need for the earth to expel magma along those fault lines thus releasing the pressure? If no pressure release, then it would appear that the pressure of the ice is not enough to affect the fault and earthquakes will happen anytime the earth takes a notion.

This observation is based upon the fact that scientists once thought that the plates just surfed on top of the mantle?s giant convection cells, but now scientists believe that plates help themselves move instead of just surfing along. Just like convection cells, plates have warmer, thinner parts that are more likely to rise, and colder, denser parts that are more likely to sink.

Just something to mull upon......

also, while I'm at it, an article by Roy Spencer:

The Sloppy Science of Global Warming http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=828

My "Tunnel" idea will return the thickness of the lost sea ice. It may take a few years to do so but computer modeling will verify this.They will also keep a lid on any earthquakes since the ice melt won't occur while the "Tunnels" are in cooling phase operations. Anyone interested?

Must be grant/subsidy time again ......

In a way, I'm relieved that once we are finished controlling the climate, we will be able to control earthquakes that we can't identify nor predict within hundreds of years. But control them we shall or until we have to alter earth's orbit to avoid the devastating effects of the sun in the near future .....(hundreds of thousands of years) !

Amazing what we can do when we concentrate our efforts and programming skills (models) to create, resolve and confirm any project we deem necessary!

Too bad simple pollution control and resource conservation is sooooooooo boring. It could of been beneficial to direct some attention this way. But of course it lacks alarm and notoriety and most importantly is measureable. New age enviros detest anything for which they can be held accountable. It is much simpler to invent a project that will always be funded that represent immeasurable changes in only hundreds of years ....Great work if you can get it !

More ice ....more pressure ......less earthquakes. Less ice ....less pressure .....less earthquakes ........Hmmmmmmmmmmm sounds like less ice is the way to go ......once the pressure balances itself off, of course. Oh wait ! We can all jump in the air at the same time around the world and control that too ......Wow we are good!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jump_Day

I guess there are loonies everywhere ! LOL

Darren,

Check out http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm - he already has earthquakes blamed on Global Warming. I think I saw acne blamed on it too...

Alaska is the most active area for earthquakes anywhere, with the most occuring before all of this devastating global warming phenomenon. They average 120 earthquakes a week in Alaska, at least they did, I wonder what the average is now. There are alot of areas that do not and have not had ice sheets for quite a few years and have had frequent quakes, I'm not sure the quakes are increasing I believe it the quacks. Thats it this global warming is leading to alot more earth quacks.

Gary, 36 billion was just a joke,{over exaggeration I know thats something us deniers don't do except for fun ha!ha!} you never know though, anyhow on a lighter note happy easter to all out there reading, as its beginning to look alot like Christmas, to bad its easter, as its suppose to snow/ this much I know /at my ownnnn front door! Brrr..its cold !!Where in the heck is this global warming stuff at anyway!!

Time for the daily "Patrick Henry has weak reading comprehension" post.

PH - It is the number of earthquakes, not the intensity.The article is about a lot more than Alaska.

The author was talking about:
"why Scandinavia experienced a surge in tectonic activity around 9000 years ago, whereas few earthquakes occur there today. They realized that the earthquake flurry coincided with the melting of the Fennoscandian ice sheet, which blanketed the area in the last ice age."

PH try not to let your knee jerk so strongly every time Brett posts an article.

Just looking at some earthquake facts: Appox:80,000 a month, Gary you figure out the year total

Approx: 2,600 a day

Approx: 2 a minute

Occur up to several hundred miles beneath the surface and there trying to say that several hundred meters of ice will stop them and a several hundred meters of dirt and rock won't???
They go onto ask if earthquakes can be prevented, They say no, but hey maybe if you put your building on an ice cap you will be alright. As long as it doesn't melt.

Hi Getting Warm,

You said: "It is the number of earthquakes, not the intensity".

The article said "so when the ice melts, earthquakes occur more STRONGLY and more frequently".

So the article actually talks about frequency AND intensity.

I'd brush up on your own reading comprehension before commenting on that of others.

More scare mongering from the folks who brought you the AGW scam. Natural warming could indeed bring this about.

More computer models?

"Can you put a freeze on earthquakes? It seems so, according to a computer model"

"They found that the vertical stress placed on the Earth's crust by a heavy ice sheet can suppress many types of fault from slipping and causing a quake."

I would REALLY like to take exception to this. Now it could just be the reporting, but it seems to me that what they did was to develop a computer model that SEEMS to indicate what their assumption was going in. They FOUND NOTHING. How do I get a job where I can report results so carelessly?

On a tangentially related subject: Drifting off to sleep last night I thought of the "Ice Man". No, not Val Kilmer...... the rather well preserved body that they found in the ice in Northern Italy several years ago. His body had been undisturbed by animals, so it was assumed that he died, was covered with snow and lay there for 5000 years or so. When the Egyptians were building the pyramids he had already been there for 1000 years. Fascinating. Anyway. It occured to me that snow levels in that area must now be about what they were 5000 years ago.

Easter week end here in Milwaukee. Airport's closed. Expecting 10 to 16 inches of a really wet and excruciatingly hard to shovel snow. I'm sure that there was an AGW model that predicted this.

All the best,

Aaron

Seems the National Geographic may have a new study showing a massive volcanic eruption may have caused global dimming in AD 500.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080319-global-dimming.html

Shows how the Earth can instantly change the climate without our involvement.

Darren,

Is there ANYTHING that GW can't do?

Evidently the icecaps can't keep volcanoes down in Antarctica (Mt. Erubus is a good example.). But, then maybe the ice forced the rock to surface along with the magma.

/sarc off.

Getting Warm,

why Scandinavia experienced a surge in tectonic activity around 9000 years ago, whereas few earthquakes occur there today. They realized that the earthquake flurry coincided with the melting of the Fennoscandian ice sheet, which blanketed the area in the last ice age.

Following that logic, there should be even more earthquakes now, since the ice sheet is absent. My money is on plate tectonics.

A two mile thick ice sheet, at about 64 lbs per cubic ft., resting on constantly moving tectonic plates of rock, 8 to 120 miles thick weighing 180 lbs per cubic ft., does not seem like much of a deterent to the plates. They will move when they need to and cause quakes, regardless of the ice.

Puts me in mind of a child trying to hold down a 6 ft, 250 lb wrestler.

Hi getting cold,

As Damo pointed out, the article addresses both frequency and intensity of Alaska earthquakes, and seems to have no historical basis for either claim. But nothing new about that. Most AGW papers are about 90% fiction.

try not to let your knee jerk so strongly every time I post a response to an article.

I do hope the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is keeping warm through the near record cold spring in northern Europe.

http://www.accuweather.com/world-forecast-15day.asp?partner=forecastfox&traveler=0&locCode=EUR|NO|NO011|OSLO&metric=1
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp4.html

At least they can worry about global warming to keep themselves from getting too chilly.

prediction: "Global warming center" will not exist within 18 months. There will be retractions everywhere, scientist backing down, politicians saying we never said this or that. Just you watch..
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
Hits to global warming sites are currently declining exponetially (ie realclimate etc)

I used to live in the suburbs of Anchorage from 87-02. I experienced many earthquakes in that time. There werent many that would make our fridge fall over, but there were many that would disorient you shortly while you were walking, and many more that i couldnt feel due to the low magnitude. Personally, I'd prefer lots of small low magnitude earthquakes over the big ones that can kill. I believe we should praise global warming, after all, it is the blame to everything. you can blame good stuff on invisible friends too.

Hello all, 6+ inches of snow here in Northern Indiana today and still 8+ inches of ice on the lake I live on. I am taking my kids Easter Egg hunting tomorrow via the snowmobile. If the eskimos can comment on their ice observations, I guess I should too. Normally, our ice is long gone by now on the lakes around here. As I stated earlier, we are still at 8+ inches on my lake and other surrounding lakes. This is a crazy Spring. We will still have ice into April. I haven't seen that for many, many years. Of course that is just my backyard, actually front yard observations.

News summary for the week.

Had-Crut reports that we are having the coldest temperatures in 22 years.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g17.dat
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g17.htm

NOAA predicts that below normal ENSO temperatures will persist through the year.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
(Slides 27/28)

Ski report.
From October onwards, ski areas were proclaiming 2007/8 as a record season: Austria's early snowfall enabled Kitzbuhel to open earlier than ever before, on 2 November; Aspen/Snowmass in Colorado set a new record for December snow, with an accumulation of 118 inches; only halfway through January, Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia was able to announce that for a third successive month, the snow had exceeded normal levels.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-news/article3541323.ece

January snow anomalies have been above normal for 7 out of the last 10 years, including a record this year.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=1

Worldwide sea ice is 1 Mkm2 above normal.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

Top scientists Branson and Blair announce that the "world is on fire"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/20/business/deal.php

One more bit of fun news from our AGW friends.

Kansas lost a chance to win a $10 billion refinery because of the recent rejection of a Western Kansas coal plant expansion

Dallas-based Hyperion Resources Inc. is no longer considering Kansas as the site for a new oil refinery and is leaning toward South Dakota, said legislative leaders. Those lawmakers objected when a regulator denied a permit for the coal plant because of concerns about carbon emissions.

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/10571

Britain and France to take nuclear power to the world

Britain and France are to sign a deal to construct a new generation of nuclear power stations and export the technology around the world in an effort to combat climate change.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/22/nuclearpower.energy1

Our European friends have decided to trade nuclear proliferation for a 0.00008 increase in the atmospheric concentration CO2. This is the most brilliant idea out of France since they sold nuclear technology to Saddam in the 1980s. Maybe they can help Iran develop breeder reactors now?

After all, "a little nukie never hurt anyone."

I want to take this moment to thank Al Gore and James Hansen for enabling clear thought and brilliant foresight amongst the world's political leaders.

Marie's posts typifies the tactics of the Denial Machine, which is to throw a barrage of irrelevant links at you, all in the hopes of distracting from the discussion. It's kinda like someone who, because they know they're outmatched, decides to throw dirt in their face.

It appears that next year La Nina will either be very weak or will be nonexistent. So much for the negative PDO...we can't even get a Nina to persist for more than a year.