Volcanism Altering Bering Sea Eco-Systems, Not Climate Change

Volcanism, primarily ocean floor in nature, is the most feasible and plausible cause of recent alterations to the Bering Sea physical and biological systems, not climate change.

Since 2014, multiple changes to the Bering Sea’s physical and biological systems such as a rise in seawater temperature, sea ice melting, alteration of commercial fish migration patterns and the very sudden die-off of certain sea bird species have made front-page news.

Many scientists have been quick to attribute these supposedly ‘unnatural’ events to human-induced atmospheric warming or climate change without mentioning or giving due consideration to emissions from active volcanic features that circumvent the entire Bering Sea and populate its seafloor.

This immediate jump to a climate change cause and event effect relationship is especially difficult to understand knowing that frequently during the last five years we have been informed of yet another eruption from a Bering Sea area volcano located in either Russia, Alaska, or on the Bering seafloor.

So, let’s take a moment to review Bering Sea volcanic activity and its likely effect on the area’s physical and biological systems.

The central Bering Sea’s seismically active and still volcanically active Bogosloff Volcano (Figure 1) erupted an estimated 60 times during the 2016-2017 time frame.

These eruptions acted to push massive amounts of chemically charged ash, heat, and hot lava into the Bering seawater and atmosphere.

The successive lava expulsions acted to build this sub-sea volcano upward, eventually forming it into its present-day configuration as an above-sea volcanic island with significant extension into adjacent seafloors (Figure 2).

The volcanic island of Saint Paul has a long history of volcanic eruptions (see here).

It is noteworthy to mention that in 1943, the United States militia personnel stationed on this island witnessed a five-day-long seafloor volcanic eruption just offshore from this island, strengthening the notion that the seafloor of the Saint Paul region is still volcanically active (see here).

It is very possible that the recent die-off event was the result of seafloor emissions from either the Bogosloff volcano or seafloor volcanos off Saint Paul Island.

Importantly, seafloor volcanic emissions from both the Bogosloff and Saint Paul Island areas are not monitored.

Sudden die-offs of marine animals in limited geographic areas can often be traced back to local pulses of volcanic emissions, especially those sub-ocean in nature (see here, here, here and here).

Next up is the sudden warming of the Bering Sea during the last four months as per NOAA Sea Surface Temperature Maps (see here, here, here, and Figure 3).

Sudden sea warming that does not fit the trend of very minor and steady global atmospheric warming during the last 20 plus years.

Even more telling, recent research concludes that the melting of Arctic Ocean sea ice is NOT the result of Arctic atmospheric warming, rather the result of ocean warming.

Ocean warming here is likely to be geologically induced primarily from active Arctic Ocean seafloor volcanic features as noted by numerous climate change Dispatch articles (see here, here, and here).

Knowing that Arctic Ocean sea ice is melting from seafloor geologically induced warming, it is logical to then relate the recent sudden onset of extensive Bering sea ice melting as also geologically induced.

Then there is the sudden and continued warming of the entire Bering Sea beginning in the year 2014. For many years before 2014, Bering seawater temperature and sea ice extent remained within normal post-glacial so-called warming period limits (see here). Nothing Unusual.

Then things changed very rapidly. This change here is the likely result of a geologically induced 2014-2015 El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event.

An event that acted to also alter Bering Sea marine animal migration patterns and populations such as, but not limited to, pollock migration patterns and phytoplankton growth strength.

This event also signaled the beginning of changes to Bearing sea ice distribution patterns (see here). Geologically induced warming of the Pacific Ocean has continued since the initial 2014 warming event, keeping Earth’s largest ocean at above-normal temperatures.

Finally, multiple, ancient, worldwide mass extinctions of marine life by huge pulses of volcanically induced emissions into the oceans and atmosphere are proven by numerous research studies (see here, here, here, and here).

So, the connection between marine animal die-offs and volcanism is a natural process, some would say a necessary natural-selection process.

In summary, recent changes to the Bering Sea’s physical and biological systems are most likely the result of a combination of regional and local volcanically induced emissions of heated and chemically charged fluids into oceans and atmosphere.

It is difficult to understand why this possibility is not at least mentioned in the hundreds of media and research articles describing Bering Sea changes.

James Edward Kamis is a retired professional Geologist with 42 years of experience, a B.S. in Geology from Northern Illinois University (1973), an M.S. in geology from Idaho State University (1977), and a longtime member of AAPG who has always been fascinated by the connection between Geology and Climate. More than 42 years of research/observation have convinced him that the Earth’s Heat Flow Engine, which drives the outer crustal plates, is an important driver of the Earth’s climate as detailed at his site Plate Climatology Theory.