A case against anthropogenic climate change Part 2
Part 1 in this series demonstrated that the recent Arctic temperature anomalies are not caused by IPCC-modeled climate forcings, such as Anthropogenic Forcing or Polar Amplification. Part 2 demonstrates that these anomalies are caused by an IPCC-ignored climate forcing: Geothermal Forcing
Geothermal energy
Geothermal energy is defined as heat energy emitted by Earth’s interior. It is very efficient in accumulating ocean heat, as its energy must pass through the entire ocean column before it can be lost to the atmosphere as heat radiation.
Geothermal energy was not considered by the IPCC AR5 as a separate climate forcing or as a component of the “Volcanic” forcing, as it was assumed to be largely constant over the 1951-2010 period. This assumption is demonstrably false: recent geothermal energy changes show significant geographical correlation to the Arctic temperature anomalies.
Recent geothermal energy changes in Arctic Ocean seafloor
The planetary process that generates Earth’s geomagnetic field also generates significant Earth-interior waste heat [1,2]. The process converts a relatively constant power source, PS, into geomagnetic power, PM, and waste heat – that is geothermal – power, PG [1].
Ps = PM + PG
Earth’s geomagnetic field strength has been decreasing since ~1700 [3] (declining PM), which roughly concurs with Earth’s warming since the “Little Ice Age” climatic minimum around 1650. More geothermal energy (increasing PG) has therefore become available since ~1700 to warm the Earth. This heat however is not distributed evenly over its surface.
The geomagnetic field is generated by outer core current circuits, termed SWICs [2], e.g. the North American and Eurasian SWIC circuits in Earth’s northern hemisphere (Fig. 1). The SWIC circuits act as planet-sized electromagnets, whereby circuiting electric current energy (Fig. 1,2) is converted into magnetic energy in their centers (PM), as well as Ohmic heat along their peripheries (PG).
The 1900-2020 decrease in global geomagnetic field strength is largely due a decline in the North American SWIC’s magnetic strength, PM, which causes observable decreases in geomagnetic field strength over North America, as well as extra heating (PG) along its SWIC periphery (Fig. 2).
Geomagnetic field strength animations (https://geomag.colorado.edu/main-magnetic-field) demonstrate that geomagnetic field intensity over North America decreased steadily between 1910-1944 and 1976-present (PG increases), the two recent periods of global warming.
As reported by the IPCC [16], the temperature anomalies during both periods of global warming mainly occurred along the North American SWIC boundary: “the most pronounced warming [occurred] in the Arctic during the cold season, followed by North America during the warm season, the North Atlantic Ocean and the tropics.”.
This observation is confirmed by Figs. 2 & 4: the extra geothermal heat is mainly noticeable at the North American SWIC periphery. The steep drop in geomagnetic field intensity over North America between 1995-2018 resulted in a sharp increase in the heating of the SWIC circuit periphery that concurs with the observed Arctic temperature increase (Fig. 3).
1995-2023 Observations
The acquisition of high-quality Arctic water temperature and geothermal heat flow measurements is extremely difficult due to the Arctic’s remoteness and unique challenges (ice cover, deep water).
Comprehensive surveys documenting regional Arctic Ocean average temperature changes over the are 1995-2023 period are non-existent, so temperature anomaly maps (Fig. 4) are used as a proxy for Arctic Ocean water temperatures.
The 2016-2023 January anomaly maps (Fig. 4) show two persistent positive Arctic temperature anomaly regions (East Beaufort Sea, North Barents Sea) that lie along the North American SWIC periphery and that are especially pronounced during years when the infrequently-occurring East Siberian Sea positive anomaly is absent.
A 2001 sonar survey [8] revealed two previously undiscovered active volcanoes on the Gakkel ridge (“V” in Figs. 2,4).
The Gakkel Ridge is historically one of the slowest spreading ridges on Earth, so the discovery of active volcanoes came as a great surprise to the oceanographers, causing them to significantly modify their models to reflect the newly-discovered major increase in geothermal heat flow [9].
The discovered volcanoes are conspicuously close to the largest positive Arctic temperature anomaly in the North Barents Sea (Fig. 4), which constitutes the largest Arctic area that no longer freezes over during winter, that is it forms the largest negative ice cover anomaly.
The co-location of the Artic temperature anomalies with modeled and observed geothermal anomalies confirms geothermal heating is likely the dominant Arctic climate forcing.
The increased geothermal heat flow at the North American SWIC periphery is also observed in the North Atlantic. The North American SWIC periphery passes through Iceland (Fig. 4), which had 7 distinct volcanoes erupting between 1995 and 2020, of which slightly less than half (Eyjafjallajökull, Holuhraun, Fagradalsfjall) had been dormant for over a century. [10]
(Fagradalsfjall last erupted 6342 years ago), confirming increases in geothermal heating along the North American SWIC periphery are increasing volcanism along the Mid-Atlantic ridge as well as the Gakkel ridge.
Geothermal Energy
The absence of comprehensive Arctic data sets causes any quantitative analysis to be highly uncertain [12]. Semi-quantitative calculations however show that Geothermal Forcing is plausibly causing Arctic ‘climate change’.
While the number and size of the Gakkel Ridge volcanoes is uncertain, a quick back-of-the-envelope demonstrates their 1995-2020 heating potential. The Kilauea, Hawaii volcano produces an average volume of roughly 0.1 km3/y of 1000 °C lava [1].
Each gram of lava releases 400 cal when cooled to 0 °C, so a 0.1 km3 volume of lava, roughly corresponding to 3.1014 g, can raise the temperature of 1200 km3 of sea water by 0.1 °C per year, or a 3600 km3 volume by 0.8 °C, over the 1995-2020 period.
The two discovered volcanoes therefore potentially heat a 2400 km2 area of 3 km deep water by 0.8 °C over 25 years. The extrusion of lava is however only part of the geothermal story.
The volcanoes are indicative of a very hot Arctic Ocean floor caused by a recent, dramatic increase in regional geothermal heat flux, whereby the venting of huge volumes of 350 °C hydrothermal fluids [11] near the Gakkel Ridge also has great potential to heat significant volumes of water.
The geothermal heat flow near an active ridge (~160 mW/m2) is roughly 0.1 W/m2 greater than the average ocean floor heat flow (~60 mW/m2). Recent heat flow measurements of 104-127 mW/m2 for the Arctic Amundsen Basin (~100 km left of the Gakkel Ridge in Fig. 2c) confirm a higher-than-average local geothermal heat flux that is over double the magnitude predicted by previous ocean heat flow models [13].
Such high heat fluxes are not readily explainable by sediment, crustal or lithospheric scale effects [13], but instead are very likely due to recent increases in geomagnetic waste heat along the North American SWIC periphery.
The recent doubling of the Arctic floor heat flux results in a doubling of the conductive (geothermal) heat flux as well as a doubling of the hydrothermal fluid temperatures that are vented.
Geothermal Forcing
The large uncertainties associated with any geothermal energy calculations suggest that a different approach is needed for estimating the Arctic’s geothermal forcing. As explained above, the changes in geothermal heat energy are due to a reduction in the North American SWIC magnetic power which causes increased heating power at the SWIC periphery.
The relative geothermal forcing can therefore be assessed by estimating the yearly change in North American SWIC magnetic field strength.
Figure 5 demonstrates that a relatively large North American SWIC magnetic moment in 1880 caused a North Pole location (blue magnetic moment sum in Fig. 5) that lay near King William Island, Canada (70 °N, 97 °W), but that the decreasing North American/increasing Eurasian SWIC magnetic moment caused its position to migrate (red magnetic moment sum in Fig. 5) to its current location, relatively close to Earth’s geographical pole (86 °N, 146 °E).
The yearly distance (= the yearly speed) travelled by the North Pole over the course of a year is therefore a measure of the change in North American SWIC magnetic moment strength, and can therefore be used as a measure of the relative geothermal forcing.
The North Magnetic Pole locations between 1590-2025 were downloaded from NOAA [14] and converted to yearly North Pole speeds using the Haversine method. The NOAA data features 5-yearly step changes (Fig. 6, Top) that are artefacts of the 5-yearly magnetic model updates, so a LOESS-smoothed (three percent smoothing) data set was used for analysis purposes.
A quick visual comparison with the Global Mean Surface Temperature Anomalies (data source [15]) reveals the strong covariation between the two: the 1910-1942 and the post-1976 increases, separated by a decrease centered on 1960. The North Pole Speed is therefore a good measure of the relative Geothermal Forcing (GF).
Note that average Arctic winter temperature (Figs. 3,4) peaked around 2016-2018, and since 2019 has started to decrese due to the areal expansion of the East Siberian Sea negative anomaly. The Arctic therefore appears to be cooling after 2016, with 6 out of 7 years showing no East Siberian Sea positive anomaly. This cooling is also reflected in GMST (Fig. 6.)
Summary
Part 1 of this series showed that the Arctic temperature anomalies are demonstrably not caused by IPCC-modeled climate forcings, such Anthropogenic Forcing or Polar Amplification.
Part 2 demonstrated they are very likely caused by an IPCC-ignored climate forcing – Geothermal Forcing.
Part 3 will demonstrate that Geothermal Forcing is globally a better predictor of climate change than Radiative Forcing due to CO2.
References
[1] Verhoogen, J., 1980, Energetics of the Earth. National Acad. of Sciences Collection, doi: 10.17226/9579
[2] https://principia-scientific.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vogel_PROM_FINAL.pdf
[3] Jackson, A., Jonkers, A., Walker, M., 2000, Four centuries of geomagnetic secular variation from historical records. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 358: 957-990. dOI:10.1098/rsta.2000.0569
[4] https://www.comsol.com/blogs/course-modeling-electromagnetic-coils-in-comsol/
[5] http://www.geomagnetism.bgs.ac.uk/education/earthmag.html
[6] http://stellaeenergy.com/energy-transition-16-geothermal-energy
[7] https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2023/ retrieved 9 February 2023
[8] Report on East Gakkel Ridge at 85°E (Undersea Features), 2009, Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network, 34, no. 5
[9] https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/pr0367.htm retrieved 9 February 2023
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Iceland retrieved 9 February 2023
[11] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html retrieved 9 February 2023
[12] Rona, P.A., McGregor, B.A., Betzer, Bolger, P.R., Krause, D.C., 1975, Anomalous water temperatures over Mid-Atlantic Ridge crest at 26° North latitude, Deep Sea Research and Oceanographic Abstracts, 22, 611-618, https://doi.org/10.1016/0011-7471(75)90048-ISSN 0011-7471
[13] Urlaub, M., Schmidt-Aursch, M. C., Jokat, W., and Kaul, N., 2009, Gravity crustal models and heat flow measurements for the Eurasia Basin, Arctic Ocean. Marine Geophysical Researches, 30, 277-292.
[14] https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/poles/NP.xy
[15] https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
[16] Bindoff, N.L., et al., 2013: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
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