Old Faithful, Not So Faithful Anymore?

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.