Donald Trump and many others are extremely sceptical about the facts concerning global warming. The scientific consensus is that global temperatures are rising due to global carbon emissions, which is plausible enough, but it fails to take into account the single greatest cause of climatic change, which is self regulation by the forces of Mother Earth herself.
The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is arranged from 1 to 8, with each number increasing 10 times. VEI 8 is very rare. The Yellowstone Park eruptions were all VEI 8, being 2.1 and 1.2 million years ago followed by one about 640,000 years ago. These were enough to fill the Grand Canyon with material and would be one of the possible causes of Ice Ages, according to some vulcanologists, for even if such large eruptions do not always coincide with the commencements of actual Ice Ages. they may reinforce the process with yet more cooling by blocking out the Sun.
VEI 7 eruptions are still very large and occur about once every 1000 years or so. Mt Tambora in the Lesser Sunda Islands erupted at VEI 7 in April 1815 and caused a caldera to form. This severely reduced global temperature. The romatic poets such as Lord Byron noted how the weather changed in 1816. Across the USA there was snow in July and massive crop failures with resultant famine occurred in Europe, China and the USA. Global temperatures went down by between 0.4 to 0.7 degrees centigrade, sufficient to temporarily reverse current global warming trends.
VEI 6 eruptions occur on a regular basis, sometimes twice a century. Even these can be significant. Novarupta in Alaska 1912 also created a caldera and modified the temperatures in Africa and elsewhere. If two or more of these VEI 6 eruptions occur close together, then that will compound the resultant change in climate. An eruption today on the same scale as 1815 could have a huge impact on world population, which is now considerably higher than it was in 1815.
The Huaynaputina eruption in 1600 at VEI 6, was perhaps the principal cause of the mini Ice Age that saw the London Thames freezing over in the following years.
Along with these eruptions, we have the potential of massive explosions from nuclear sources, as has nearly occurred several times in the last 70 years. This likewise, has the potential to create a nuclear winter. The Sun itself erupts solar flares, that have so far been observed to reach 30 million miles from the Sun, but sideways on so that the Earth was not affected. However, regular solar flares do emit enough energy to disrupt electrical facilities and in 1859, were sufficient to melt huge transformers, enough to knock out all the computerised vehicles on the Earth facing the event at that time. In March 1989, electricity was wiped out in Quebec for this very reason.
Then there are the regular visits from exploding asteroids, such as the recent one filmed over Chelyabinsk in Siberia in 2013, and the amazing Tunguska explosion also in Siberia in 1908, that flattened a vast forested area. Clearly these are extremely regular events and it is now well understood that the vast volcanic crater on the tip of Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico wiped out the Dinosaurs and most of life on Mother Earth.
Recently, it has been discovered that the Pacific Ocean has a vast number of underwater volcanoes, any number of which has the capacity to explode to create new lands and climates.From 1963 to 1967, Surtsey Island was created by a volcano off Iceland. More recently, volcanic ash from Iceland in 2010 severely reduced air traffic in NW Europe.
For all these reasons, we may question whether our presumed human warming of global temperatures has actually been preventing a potential Ice Age, given the fact that in the last million years, Ice Ages have dominated the climate. That is not to assess human climate change as being positive, but I do not believe 'scientific consensus' when it comes to such questions. The fact is, that whatever we think of Donald Trump, such scepticism of the so called 'facts' is perfectly acceptable and there is clear evidence that scientists have been altering the data when it suited them. Positive outcomes in scientific tests are thus very suspect and we would be wise to be cautious in assessing data.
For where Mother Earth is concerned, if she wished to make us extinct, well it wouldn't take long to starve us all out.........
