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© Alamy/Greg Vaughn
Stiger antallet af vulkanske udbrud globalt? Ja. I det 20. århundrede var der i alt 3,542 vulkan udbrud globalt. Det bliver sådan cirka til 35 udbrud per år. Det lyder måske af meget, men ifølge Volcano Discovery er omkring 36 vulkaner i udbrud lige nu. Med andre ord, det antal vulkaner der er i udbrud mens du læser denne artikel er større end det 20. århundredes årlige gennemsnit.

Og alt dette er del af en større tendens. I 2013, bevidnede vi det største antal vulkan udbrud som vi havde set ske på et år, og 2015 ser allerede nu ud til at blive endnu et år til rekord bøgerne. Over den ganske klode begynder vulkaner, der længe har været i dvale, at vågne op, og det har forvirret mange videnskabsfolk.

Heldigvis, har de seneste års udbrud været relative små. Men videnskabsmænd fortæller os at hvis vi ser et udbrud med størrelses orden 7 eller 8 (VEI), vil den mængde frigivne energi svare til en million atombomber der detonerer på samme tid, og sådan et udbrud ville bogstaveligt talt transformere vores civilisation fra den ene dag til den anden.

Det sidste VEI 7 udbrud som verden bevidnede var i Indonesien 1815.

Ifølge the Express, resulterede det enorme udbrud, i et "år uden sommer" og skabte hungersnød over hele kloden...
Det drabelige udbrud fra Mount Tambora i Indonesien forårsagede hvad er kendt som 'Året Uden Sommer' i 2015, som afgrøder slog fejl og kvægbestande døde i store dele af den nordlige hemisfære - der forårsagede den værste hungersnød i hundreder af år.

Dog har akademikere advaret om at sandsynligheden for en lignende katastrofe, i de næste 85 år, der kunne se Jorden sat tilbage til 'pre-civilisations tilstande', estimeres til at være 1 ud af 10.

Grundet tæt befolkning, vil et udbrud der dræbte titusiner kun to århundreder siden, nu være 'kataklysmisk' for nutidens befolkning, advarer de.

"Store vulkanske udbrud kan potentielt have indflydelse på klima, antropogenisk infrastruktur og resssource forsyninger på en global skala," skrev et panel af geologer, økonomer og klima videnskabsfolk fra European Science Foundation, i en ny afhandling.
Hvis du ikke tror at sådan en begivenhed kunne ske idag, burde du holde for øje at den globale fødevare produktion knapt kan følge med den globale fødevare efterspørgsel. Faktisk vil verden indenfor nogle år, spise mere en den kan producere. De globale fødevare reservelagre er på et farlig lavt niveau, så et 'år uden sommer', ville være absolut kataklysmisk.

Og lige nu er nogle af Jordens største vulkaner begyndt at vågne op.


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For example, consider what is happening at one of the most prominent volcanoes in Iceland...
Small earthquake swarms occurred at shallow depths during the past days near the volcano. The quakes were located approx. 6-10 km south of Hekla volcano and at shallow depths around 5 km. The largest quakes were two magnitude 2.6 events at 4 km depth on Thursday (9 April). It is impossible to say whether the earthquakes are linked to volcanic activity and thus might be precursors of a new eruption, but Hekla is probably the most likely candidate volcano for the next eruption to occur on Iceland.

One of the country's most active, and the most frequently erupting volcano, Hekla has been believed to be "due" and have its magma chamber filled for several years now. Known for not giving much precursory signals (and only few earthquakes), an eruption would not be a surprise at all. Hekla volcano's last eruption was 15 years ago.
In Japan, a swarm of earthquakes around Mount Zao has authorities extremely concerned...
Fears of fresh eruption of Mount Zao, a volcano that sits on the border of the Yamagata and Miyagi prefectures, rattled Japan after the country's meteorological agency recorded 12 volcanic earthquakes on Tuesday. The seismic activity prompted warnings of a volcanic eruption, with the agency asking the public to stay safe from falling rocks in a 1.2 km radius of the volcano, The Japan Times reported.
And a massive volcano near the border between North Korea and China is showing signs of life. If Mount Paektu were to fully erupt, scientists tell us that the energy released could potentially be equivalent to "1,000,000 nuclear weapons all going off at the same time"...
More than 1,000 years ago Mount Paektu blew its top, sending tons of rock and magma spewing into the air and blanketing the much of the region in a thick layer of ash.

"It's hard really to imagine the scale," Oppenheimer said, "but you're talking about something like 1,000,000 nuclear weapons all going off at the same time in terms of the energy involved."
If an eruption of that magnitude were to happen today, it would truly be a global event.

For instance, consider the chaos that an eruption in Iceland in 1783 caused. The following comes from the Daily Mail...
In Iceland an estimated 20 - 25% of the population died in the famine and from fluorine poisoning after the fissure eruptions ceased.

Around 80% of sheep, 50% of cattle, and 50% of horses died because of dental and skeletal fluorosis from the 8 million tons of hydrogen fluoride that were released.

There is evidence that the Laki eruption also weakened African and Indian monsoon circulations, reducing precipitation over areas in Africa.

The resulting famine that afflicted Egypt in 1784 caused nearly one sixth of the country's population to die out.

In Britain the summer of 1783 was known as the 'sand summer' because of the ash fallout and an estimated 25,000 people died due to breathing problems.
The truth is that volcanoes are far, far, far more of a threat to our climate than human activity is. All throughout history, volcanic eruptions have instantly changed the climate in a dramatic way. The following list was compiled by Wikipedia...
Most recently, the 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo, a stratovolcano in the Philippines, cooled global temperatures for about 2 - 3 years.

In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa (Krakatau) created volcanic winter-like conditions. The four years following the explosion were unusually cold, and the winter of 1887-1888 included powerful blizzards. Record snowfalls were recorded worldwide.

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a stratovolcano in Indonesia, occasioned mid-summer frosts in New York State and June snowfalls in New England and Newfoundland and Labrador in what came to be known as the "Year Without a Summer" of 1816.

A paper written by Benjamin Franklin in 1783 blamed the unusually cool summer of 1783 on volcanic dust coming from Iceland, where the eruption of Laki volcano had released enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide, resulting in the death of much of the island's livestock and a catastrophic famine which killed a quarter of the Icelandic population. Northern hemisphere temperatures dropped by about 1 °C in the year following the Laki eruption.

In 1600, the Huaynaputina in Peru erupted. Tree ring studies show that 1601 was cold. Russia had its worst famine in 1601-1603. From 1600 to 1602, Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia had exceptionally cold winters. The wine harvest was late in 1601 in France, and in Peru and Germany, wine production collapsed. Peach trees bloomed late in China, and Lake Suwa in Japan froze early.
Are you starting to get the picture?

These kinds of events have happened many times before, and scientists tell us that they will happen again.

Here in the United States, people are closely watching the supervolcano that sits under Yellowstone national park. In recent years the ground in Yellowstone has been rising, and many observers are concerned that we are witnessing the lead up to a full-blown eruption.

If a full-blown eruption of Yellowstone were to occur, all of our lives would instantly change. The following are some facts about Yellowstone that I put together for a previous article...

#1 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone could be up to 1,000 time more powerful than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.

#2 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone would spew volcanic ash 25 miles up into the air.

#3 The next eruption of Yellowstone seems to be getting closer with each passing year. Since 2004, some areas of Yellowstone National Park have risen by as much as 10 inches.

#4 There are approximately 3,000 earthquakes in the Yellowstone area every single year.

#5 In the event of a full-scale eruption of Yellowstone, virtually the entire northwest United States will be completely destroyed.

#6 A massive eruption of Yellowstone would mean that just about everything within a 100 mile radius of Yellowstone would be immediately killed.

#7 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone could also potentially dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away.

#8 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone would cover virtually the entire midwest United States with volcanic ash. Food production in America would be almost totally wiped out.

#9 The "volcanic winter" that a massive Yellowstone eruption would cause would radically cool the planet. Some scientists believe that global temperatures would decline by up to 20 degrees.

#10 America would never be the same again after a massive Yellowstone eruption. Some scientists believe that a full eruption by Yellowstone would render two-thirds of the United States completely uninhabitable.

#11 Scientists tell us that it is not a matter of "if" Yellowstone will erupt but rather "when" the next inevitable eruption will take place.

Are you beginning to understand why the rise of volcanic activity all over the planet is such a big deal?

Just a single VEI 7 or VEI 8 eruption could fundamentally alter the way that we all live our lives in a single moment.

Despite all of our knowledge and all of our technology, the forces of nature are still vastly more powerful than we are, and scientists assure us that someday the United States will be directly confronted with that reality.