Last month a geologist tried to blame the 13km deep Haiti earthquake on global warming
At the American Geophysical Union meeting late last month, University of Miami geologist Shimon Wdowinski argued that the devastating earthquake a year ago may have been caused by a combination of deforestation and hurricanes (H/T Treehugger). Climate change is spurring more, stronger hurricanes, which are fueled by warm ocean waters.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=80278
By contrast, an actual educated geologist explains what really happened.
Simon Day, an expert in tsunamis and landslides with the Aon Benfield Hazard Research Centre, based at University College London, said analysis shows most of the ruptures that caused the 7.0 magnitude quake on January 12 last year did not take place as was initially thought on the main fault – the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden (EPG) Fault – which runs east-west, just to the south of the capital Port-au-Prince. While the temblor may have begun here, it consisted largely of a sequence of ruptures on other buried faults either side of the EPG Fault.
That suggests that the 2010 earthquake relieved little of the stress that has built up on that key fault since two major earthquakes in 1751 and 1770, which demolished much of Port-au-Prince. Consequently, further large quakes are a “very real possibility”, Day said.
“We can’t say there is going to be an imminent earthquake, but the point is that this is a seismically active region, and there is a hint in the historical data that quake activity in Haiti is clustered,” he told AlertNet.
“What is very clear from the aftershocks and land deformation (of last year’s earthquake) is that…the segment to the south (of Port-au-Prince) that moved in 1770 still hasn’t moved… It has been accumulating (land) deformation for 240 years, and that is a cause for considerable concern.”
Members of the AGU in attendance should have laughed Shimon Wdowinski out of the room. If in fact Shimon Wdowinski is a member of the AGU, the AGU should have reviewed his publication, advised the University of Miami that this was being done, then if appropriate suspended or cancelled his membership. Scientists have a moral and professional responsibility to present science that is credible ……….. not AGW crap. He should be humiliated.
He is only one of a string of self proclaimed scientists on the Climatology Band Wagon that are no longer involved in real science. The head group of the AGU are among the Chicken Little Brigade so your reasonable statement would seem like “sour grapes” to the “Believers”! Their fantasy is real and any claim that supports it is justified! Anyway what would a geologist know about things caused by the Magic of AGW! You have to believe to understand!!!! The Pigs are ready for take off on runway 57R!