© Fredrik Fransson
Fredrik Fransson and crew witnessed this volcano rear its head above the water's surface to form a new island in the Pacific in 2006. Increasing underwater vulcanism causes more water to evaporate from the Oceans.
Fredrik Fransson and crew witnessed this volcano rear its head above the water's surface to form a new island in the Pacific in 2006. Increasing underwater vulcanism causes more water to evaporate from the Oceans.
The images in the email were taken from a post on the blog operated by Fredrik Fransson and the crew of the yacht 'Maiken'. In August 2006, the Maiken was sailing in the South Pacific near Tonga when it came across a large area of floating volcanic stones (pumice). When lava with a high gas and water content erupts from a volcano and then cools it can produce pumice, a very light rock material filled with gas bubbles. Pumice is the only kind of rock that can float on water. A large mass of pumice floating on the ocean surface is known as a "pumice raft".
Comment: We covered this story in 2006 and are reposting it now along with these eyewitness photographs. As we outlined in our recent installment of Connecting the Dots, this undersea activity, including the birth of a whole new island, does not bode well for our planet because increased undersea volcanism means that the ocean water is being heated. This heating of the water can lead to increased evaporation and heat pockets of the lower atmosphere. At the same time, the upper atmosphere is cooling due to increased comet dust (or other cosmic dust entering the solar system from who knows where?) - the evidence for which is the increasing number of fireball sightings being reported over the past dozen years or so, not to mention reports of colourful snow and high-altitude noctilucent clouds. The cosmic dust is electrically charged and tends to create drag on the Earth's rotation, slowing it down marginally. This affects the magnetic field which then increases earthquakes and volcanism, and a feedback loop gets going.
When the increased moisture in the lower atmosphere hits the cooling upper atmosphere, the result is torrential rains and/or increased snowfall depending on location and season of the location. It can also produce odd effects like falling chunks of ice, extraordinary hail storms in the middle of summer, and so on. There have been many reports of these phenomena over the past dozen years or so.
In short, we are witnessing the process of the initiation of an ice age and while the drama reported in the above story is entertaining, it is also a grim reminder of what is really going on in our solar system.