Old Faithful, Not So Faithful Anymore?
July 10, 2008
National Geographic has put up an interesting news post today suggesting that Old Faithful and other Yellowstone geysers may be suffering from some effects of global warming.
A long-term study of Yellowstone National Park’s iconic geysers suggests that dry spells caused by climate change are slowing—and may even stop—the geysers’ clockwork-regular eruptions.
The article then suggests that the timing of eruptions at the famous geysers have slowly grown longer over a short period of time, leading many to believe that global warming is causing a shorter supply of water to the geysers.
It does sound like an interesting concept, doesn’t it?
No one knows for sure what is going on with the geysers of Yellowstone. For years it has been known that these geysers have erupted at a specific time interval day in and day out. Over the course of a set number of years, most visitors to the park would not notice a shift in eruption timings.
When you go to Wikipedia (ahhh, wikipedia. The online encyclopedia famous for not being right. Right?) and look up Old Faithful, there happens to be an interesting bit of information posted in the entry.
Over the years, the length of the interval has increased, which may be the result of earthquakes affecting subterranean water levels. These disruptions have made the earlier mathematical relationship inaccurate, but have in fact made Old Faithful more predictable. With an error of 10 minutes, Old Faithful will erupt 65 minutes after an eruption lasting less than 2.5 minutes or 92 minutes after an eruption lasting more than 2.5 minutes. The reliability of Old Faithful can be attributed to the fact that it is not connected to any other thermal features of the Upper Geyser Basin.
You can clearly see that there are a number of different theories floating around. Are earthquakes causing the difference, or is it global warming? Whatever the cause is, one thing is clear: The Yellowstone geysers’ seem to be a bit off on their timing.
Tip of the hat to the Thinking Outside blog for bringing the original National Geographic piece to my attention. Nice work.
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Written by Jason A. Hendricks · Filed Under Global Warming, Yellowstone |
I’m a bit skeptical about attributing geyser eruption intervals on global warming- especially in an age where everything from increased bouts of kidney stones (AFP yesterday) to the California wildfires is automatically (and often without a second thought) blamed on global warming.
On the flip side of the Yellowstone coin, consider Clepsydra Geyser, which erupted regularly every 3 minutes until the 1959 Hebgen earthquake. Now it erupts continuously, 24/7.
I don’t mean to discount the very valid environmental concerns that spark the passion of so many and give rise to the global warming specter. But these days, the best way to get me to laugh something off is to tell me that global warming caused it.
seems that I remember back in the 70s when I lived in Montana there was some talk about Old Faithful putting the horns on the Park..erupting off schedule sometimes..it was blamed then on global cooling and the coming ice age..said the snow wasn’t melting as before and not enough water hitting the magna or whatever that hot stuff is called…