Global warming is causing earthquakes

6.6.2012

Professor Bill McGuire, a British government advisor and member of Government's Natural Hazard Working Group, warns before the age of "geological havoc" caused by global warming. According to Professor McGuire, climate change is already affecting solid ground. Geological disasters are caused by melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels. Ice weights down to the ground beneath it and when it starts to melt, the land begins to rise. Melting water flows into the oceans, which are more heavy and increase the pressure on the seabed.

Research shows that something similar happened at the end of the last Ice Age, when Scandinavia raised by 300 meters, which caused earthquakes which measured 8 on the Richter scale. There was also a tsunami wave that hit Scotland and the Shetlands. Around the same time, Iceland was hit by 1,500 years of increased volcanic activity.

According to Professor McGuire, the average temperature in Alaska has increased by three degrees over the last fifty years. In Alaska, the Alps and New Zealand the number of landslides is increasing, because permafrost, which held the rocks on mountain slopes, melts down.

-tk-