[Raain]

I follow the 'Earth changes' on this website: Earth Changes -- Sott.net

It's quite interesting to see all the crazy weather events/patterns, earthquakes tsunamis, volcanic eruptions which all seem to be happening much more frequently all reported in the one place.

This isn't a thread about the end of the world or anything related to 2012 conspiracy theories but I think a lot of us are seriously asking what the hell is up with our planet? is it global warming? global cooling? is ice melting or thickening? is it something to do with the sun or space? Is tectonic activity on Earth increasing? is the planet becoming 'unstable'? Do scientists even have any clue themselves as to what is happening?

What is your view or theories on any of this?

Also do you think the planet can experience a sudden dramatic change in climate or tectonic activity or do you believe these events happen over the course of thousands and millions of years?

I am no climatologist but it just seems daft to me that we assume catastrophic changes on Earth happen only over millions of years, I mean I know there is ice cores which help us determine the spacing between ice age periods and interglacial's, still don't see why some rare event couldn't cause things to happen very quickly.

Here is some of the most interesting articles I've found on the web on this topic:

70 Trillion cubic feet of New Arctic Ice (Modern Survival Blog)

Large-scale seismic activity rising along planet's southern pole -- Earth Changes -- Sott.net

Ice Age Next? - Bering Sea Teeming with Ice -- Earth Changes -- Sott.net

Here is an image of winter 2011 taken from Winter storm: Map shows most of Northern Hemisphere covered in snow and ice | Mail Online

 

[Airy]

The large scale seismic article is particularly interesting with the 3d visual of earth's imbalanced and already stressed gravity signature. They mentioned it would already take a 'catastrophic correction'. Wish they'd elaborate on that part.

 

[Raain]

The large scale seismic article is particularly interesting with the 3d visual of earth's imbalanced and already stressed gravity signature. They mentioned it would already take a 'catastrophic correction'. Wish they'd elaborate on that part.

I think it's relating to the theory of tectonic crustal displacement. Were the entire crust of the earth shifts due to the build up of ice at the south pole.

I think the theory is heavily criticised but theoretically it must be possible Albert Einstein worked on the idea http://www.2012hoax.org/einstein

 

[Desolan]

One of the more believable theories I know of for possible sudden and dramatic climate change is the large scale or perhaps exponential release of the Methane Hydrate reserves in the ocean. This theory essentially states that with the warming of global waters we could reach a tipping point where these hydrates melt, cause further warming from being in the atmosphere, which leads to further melting of the hydrates and further heating.

 

[Raain]

One of the more believable theories I know of for possible sudden and dramatic climate change is the large scale or perhaps exponential release of the Methane Hydrate reserves in the ocean. This theory essentially states that with the warming of global waters we could reach a tipping point where these hydrates melt, cause further warming from being in the atmosphere, which leads to further melting of the hydrates and further heating.

Read something like that before but dismissed it because it only seemed to relate to global warming and not other phenomena like global cooling and seismic activity.

 

[sprinkles]

Well things do tend to happen slowly unless they are helped along in some way.

Things don't usually happen for completely no reason, there are events that lead up to it. A volcano for example won't simply erupt without having the right amount of pressure first.

In other words a sudden, dramatic change needs a dramatic cause, or a dramatic passing of a threshold some times in the case of tectonic plates - the pressure that causes a sudden earth quake was probably building up some time before the plates get to the precise point that they can't hold each other in place anymore.

 

[Raain]

Things don't usually happen for completely no reason, there are events that lead up to it. A volcano for example won't simply erupt without having the right amount of pressure first.

I wasn't really implying that, change on Earth happens very slowly for the most part but I also think it can happen very fast due to a catastrophic global event. Catastrophism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[sprinkles]

I wasn't really implying that, change on Earth happens very slowly for the most part but I also think it can happen very fast due to a catastrophic global event. Catastrophism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sure, it can happen that way, and we might not even know why specifically.

My main point is that if the earth is falling apart somehow, then it has been heading that direction for a while. There are catastrophic thresholds, and even chain reactions where one catastrophe will initiate another, but they don't just suddenly happen.

If you think of a stick that has a breaking point, and pressure is slowly put on it over a period of time, you might not even know about it until the stick finally breaks. When it breaks it seems sudden and drastic, and could be a catastrophic failure, but some catastrophes are a long time in the making. The main problem with them is that we can't always see what leads up to them nor predict the chain effects they might have.

 

[bellisaurius]

You should read about the Dryas events. One of the bits in the wiki should make you think twice about how stable earth's climate is more generally:

The Younger Dryas saw a rapid return to glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between 12.9–11.5 ka BP[6] in sharp contrast to the warming of the preceding interstadial deglaciation. It has been believed that the transitions each occurred over a period of a decade or so,[7] but the onset may have been faster.[8] Thermally fractionated nitrogen and argon isotope data from Greenland ice core GISP2 indicate that the summit of Greenland was approximately 15 °C (27.0 °F) colder during the Younger Dryas[7] than today. In the UK, coleopteran fossil evidence (from beetles) suggests that mean annual temperature dropped to approximately 5 °C (41 °F),[9] and periglacial conditions prevailed in lowland areas, while icefields and glaciers formed in upland areas.[10] Nothing of the size, extent, or rapidity of this period of abrupt climate change has been experienced since.[6]

There are theories, but nothing exactly overwhelming. I believe that there is some anthropogenic global warming, and I often think it's a good thing because things like the dryas can and do happen. A couple extra degrees makes for some bad stuff, but it might also give a bit more of a buffer from the more harmful direction. I don't think that gets talked about enough*

*yes, I realize there is the possibility that warming would shut down the halocline current, but I'm thinking of the planet as a whole.

 

[Arclight]

It's pretty apparent that the Earth is in a constant state of meteorological and geographical flux. Looking at the BIG picture.. I would say it's business as usual.

Are there more earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts or floods ? .. Not over history.. There are spikes and drops all though out the charts.. But as the Human population grows and inhabits more of the Earth, the likelihood of these events affecting humanity certainly grow.
It's very possible things are hitting one of those spike periods .. Some data totally suggests it.

I also know humans love sensation and hype. The media is a sensational hype machine.. Makes it difficult to know who and what to trust.

 

[wiarumas]

Broken? No... thats not the right word for it.

Even if the entire world erupted in flames followed by a million years of ice, the planet would not be "broken." Just a small change for the Earth; like a blink of an eye for you.

 

[Spreu Weizen]

The large scale seismic article is particularly interesting with the 3d visual of earth's imbalanced and already stressed gravity signature. They mentioned it would already take a 'catastrophic correction'. Wish they'd elaborate on that part.

From my own experience as a geophysicist it’s nothing to worry about, although, I too would like to see them explain this. The Antarctic region is littered with zones, faults and boundaries of all types and to see seismic activity in the area isn’t (and haven’t been) uncommon. Frankly, most of the exposed bedrock (60-70%) is of magmatic origin and there is enough metamorphic material to go around.
In the region near Southern Shetland Islands we’ve got four plates at work; Antarctic plate, South American plate, African plate and Scotia plate. I don’t have time to explain tectonics now but you don’t have to be geologist to realize this is going to cause earthquakes one way or another and these swarms could have a number of causes which are in no way related to “tectonic instability”.

 

[vanilla_dream]

my take on this one is, that our social catastrophes (e.g. pollution by irresponsible people, etc.) have expanded exponentially, and the consequences on these are manifested in the more massively outlandish environmental behaviours that we're now observing. it just goes to show that the future of this planet lies in our hands and we all have to act on this before it's too late. It has been predicted that if ice in the Arctic region continue to melt in the current rate, then we may not be seeing polar bears in the wild by 2030. So we may have to watch the situation of the polar bears closely to determine how worse our planet has become.

however, I have another hypothesis that kind-of contradicts my first proposal. maybe our planet is going "all crazy" as it naturally should, just as how it did billions of years ago, like during the divergence of Pangea into 7 continents. Then a period of balance and widespread tranquility comes, then after a long period of time, the cycle begins again. Like @Arclight said, it's only now that we have acquired tremendous awareness of it because we now have the technology that enables us to do so. So maybe, the role we humans play is that we have inadvertently become the regulators of how fast our world is going to deteriorate. Either way, it's inevitably going into one direction, which is, going downhill until such a point when Earth restores herself again for a new generation of Earth-dwellers.

As it is, these are just my hypotheses. Feel free to disagree.