Volcanoes do not change climate

Suppose we are trying to push over a brick wall. We have to get our body into a certain position to achieve that. It will not fall over by itself or by looking at it. Nature is never random, and just as organization is needed for any human event such as a child’s birthday party, to create a big spectacle like a volcano, massive resources must be marshalled.

To produce one thunderstorm requires the energy input equivalent to a dozen Hiroshima-sized bombs, because that is how much energy gets released, and one cyclone releases the energy of 45,000 thunderstorms every second. The huge forces needed can be supplied by gravitational combinations of moon and sun in particular positions.

It is one of the shortcomings of Western science that it does not look to the moon as a trigger for seismic events. Yet extraordinarily high new moon tides were recorded just before both the 4 September and 22 February Christchurch earthquakes. Media never links new moon to volcanoes, nor volcanoes to kingtides.

Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted on June 12, 1991, day of new moon in perigee and day of kingtide. It combined the gravitational force of sun and moon, and moon the second closest to earth for that year.
The night of 3rd of June, 1886 was also a new moon night. An extreme high tide was reported at Maketu. It was the night of the Mt Tarawera eruption.

As regards Tarawera we have this account (source: Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 1886) “a wave was noted on Lake Tarawera, causing waters to rise about 2 feet above the ordinary level, which broke on the shores, washing boats out of the sheds, and causing some alarm to the Maoris, who, apparently, had never witnessed anything of the kind previously”.

“Some visitors to Rotomahana found that the Pink Terrace had been in eruption, throwing out mud for several yards round, an occurrence also never noted before.” The Pink and White Terraces were badly damaged. Exactly a week later on the 1st quarter moon Mt Tarawera erupted again, completely wiping out what was left of the popular tourist attraction.

These events can happen when the moon comes close and causes stress within the earth. Exactly where on earth the moon comes closest to on perigee can affect that location the most. But contrary to what environmentalists say, such events do not affect climate. Earth scientists claim Mt Pinutabo’s eruption affected global climate. But using NIWA’s own statistics for, say Auckland, which is part of the globe, we find that average maximums for the years before 1991 were in decline anyway and simply continued to decline for a year after Pinatubo then slowly increased again.

A cool NZ winter followed the Pinatubo eruption but it was going that way already. Average minimums too showed the same trend. Whatever was making the temperatures go down started in 1990 and could not fairly be attributed to Pinatubo a year later. Rain figures, too showed no appreciable post-1991 change. Due to the cooling of both maxima and minima, Auckland rainfall increased slightly in 1992, but then dropped sharply after 1992 as average maxima rose.

Sunshine was expected to decline because of supposed blocking of sun’s rays by high level ash, instead sunshine in the UK rose after Pinatubo. After 1991, there was no appreciable change up or down of sunshine hours or intensity. Neither were Pinatubo effects felt closer to the Philippines. Sunshine in Japan was already trending down due to urban development and thick polluting city haze preventing instrumentation from receiving data.

Pinatubo in 1991 did not cause anything that wasn’t already happening. Japanese Meteorological Organisation’s sun radiation levels show no change until an increase two and a half years after June 1991. In 1998 there was a bigger descent in the sunshine graph, but no big nearby volcano to blame.

Eyjafjallajokull erupted in Iceland in 2010. The volcano was declared an environmental disaster and because ash was found in the engines of planes 600 miles away, long-term planet damage was predicted. Eyjafjallajokull’s last previous eruption had been in 1821, firing non-stop black ash into the atmosphere for 14 months. But over the intervening 180 years between 1821 and 2010 the climate in Iceland did not change, either in temperature averages or rainfall amounts.

The media overlooked that volcanoes are a fact of life and in Iceland Eyjafjallajokull often erupts. Volcanoes are due to cycles and location of the moon putting stress and internal pressure on earth’s inner core. The climate is due to location with respect to geography, which includes distance from the equator, and climate anywhere has its own embedded cycle.
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On 13 December we have a new moon close-perigee combination. This particular new moon, this time directly over NZ’s longitude, will be second closest to earth for the year. An eruption or other seismic activity is likely during the time frame of the middle of December. It will have nothing to do with climate change. The process has been going on for billions of years yet the planet is still here and seasons come and go at the same time of year as they have always done.

Nothing added to the air is ever going to change climate. It is important to point this out because if volcanoes can affect our climate then Man could also do it by introducing particles of pollution to the air every day. It may look that way on computer models but this is not how it works in reality. You could fill the sea with ink impurities and yet the tide would be totally unaffected. And you could fill the air with man-made or natural pollution but it will never change climate. The weather is the tide of the air.

Ken Ring of www.predictweather.com is the author of the Weather Almanac for NZ for 2013, (publisher Random House)