What's fueling the current El Nino (and it's not global warming) 

What's fueling the current El Nino (and it's not global warming)

Written by James Edward Kamis, guest post on 31 December 2015.

The 2015 / 2016 El Niño is clearly having a dramatic affect on Earth’s climate: droughts, floods, storms, and most notably atmospheric temperatures patterns, and so-called global warming has nothing to do with it. Climate scientists, especially those advocating the theory of man-made global warming, are at a loss to provide us with an answer about what generated the massive pulse of energy needed to heat a huge portion of the Pacific Ocean and thereby fuel this monster El Niño.
Figure 1.) Looking north along a portion of the 1,200 mile long and 36,000 foot deep Mariana Trench / Tectonic Plate Boundary (white dashed line) and the bounding deep ocean mountains (green and yellow highlights) located in the far western Pacific Ocean. Red Lines denote the seafloor trace of vertical faults that may act as conduits to tap super-heated seawater from multiple rock layers (credit Armstrong and Gardner).
In fact their silence is absolutely deafening, especially given that this El Niño is one of the most significant climate events in the last 18 years, and therefore a golden opportunity to prove that their man-made global warming theory is credible. To date climate scientists have only provided us with very generalized explanations about what generated the current El Niño. These answers can be paraphrased as follows…”The current El Niño has been generated by unknown natural forces, not man-made atmospheric global warming”.
One theory is that the above-mentioned unknown natural forces are in fact geological in nature, specifically a long lasting pulse of super-heated seawater from a significant portion of a deep ocean geological fault zone. The term Deep Ocean Geological Mega-Fluid Flow System is used to describe these heretofore unrecognized and very large seawater heating systems.
Deep Ocean Mega-Fluid Flow Systems are located along Earth’s well-known deep ocean tectonic plate / continental drift boundaries. These boundaries provide the perfect combination of geological and oceanic features that allow for the capture, heating, and circulation of huge amounts of seawater.
Key geological features include: major thousand mile long tectonic plate boundary faults, adjacent flat lying rock layers of varying water flow capability, localized pockets of super-hot lava, numerous erupting hydrothermal vents, and open deep reaching vertical cracks / fractures.
Key oceanic features include: extremely pressurized seawater capable of penetrating deep into rock layers, thirty-five thousand foot deep ocean valleys, and strong laterally moving deep ocean currents.
These necessary and key geological and oceanic features exist and optimally work together in a few selective areas of Earth’s deep oceans. One such system optimal area is located in the far western portion of the Pacific Ocean just east of the Papua New Guinea / Solomon Islands. This specific deep ocean mega-fluid flow system is responsible for generating / fueling all El Niños, including the 2015 / 2016 one.
The details of just how deep ocean mega-fluid flow systems work is as follows:
Many of earth’s major tectonic plate boundaries / fault systems are found at very great ocean depths confined within deep ocean valleys (Figure 1). In these deep ocean fault valleys seawater pressure is extremely high. This extremely high pressured seawater has the ability to penetrate laterally into adjacent flat lying porous / high flow capacity rock layers that are exposed along the open fault traces.
As this new rock layer captured seawater, it is progressively forced by pressure laterally further and further away from the fault trend, it encounters hot lava pockets that act to super-heat the seawater. Eventually the laterally flowing, super-heated, and highly pressurized seawater that is trapped in the flat-lying rock layer encounters a open deep reaching vertical crack / fracture. The open fractures acts as a pressure release value that allows the pressurized super heated seawater to vent upward into the overlying ocean.
Another striking example of the power and extent of a deep ocean mega-fluid flow system went completely unnoticed by the scientific community. In March 2014, a minor 4.5 magnitude earthquake occurred along a very limited portion of the 1,200-mile-long Mid-Arctic Ocean Ridge / Rift System.
This rift system is a well known major tectonic plate / continental drift boundary that underlies the entire Arctic Ocean. Immediately following the earthquake, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) methane gas sniffing satellites recorded a 1,200-mile-long atmospheric methane gas anomaly centered vertically above the trace of the Mid-Arctic Ocean Ridge / Rift System.
Turns out the 4.5 earthquake was a signal that the hot lava / magma chamber that underlies the entire Mid-Arctic Rift System had moved and released a pulse of heat. This short time-period heat pulse activated the 1,200-mile-long Arctic seafloor mega-fluid flow system. The Arctic flow system began to capture, heat and circulate super heated seawater into adjacent flat-lying, porous / high-flow capacity rock layers.
Deep Ocean Arctic rock layers are unique because they contain small amounts of methane gas in a frozen state, so-called methane hydrates. As the Arctic flow system pressure pushed heated seawater through these methane hydrate rock layers it acted to thaw and release the methane gas into the flow system. This methane gas charged seawater eventually vented upwards along vertical fractures and into the overlying ocean.
The methane gas rose vertically through the ocean column and eventually into the Arctic atmosphere. A NASA map of the anomalous atmospheric methane pulse clearly shows it lies directly above the trace of the Mid-Arctic Rift and associated Arctic Mega-Fluid Flow System. Details of this March 2014 fluid flow event and earthquake are documented in a previous CCD post.
Another prominent active period of the deep Arctic Mega-Fluid Flow System occurred in the 1997-1998 time frame. This sustained heat and fluid expulsion pulse and associated methane release was responsible for a short melt rate increase of the Arctic Sea Ice during 2000-2005 time period.
A mega-fluid flow system associated with the giant West Antarctic Rift System is responsible for glacial melting of limited portions of the Antarctic ice sheet. See this previous CCD post for details of the Antarctic Mega-Fluid Flow System.
Deep Ocean Mega-Fluid Flow Systems act to fuel El Niños, melt ice sheets, and dramatically alter Earth’s climate. They will be proven to be one of the most significant discoveries of the century. A bold prediction to be sure, but a prediction and concept that fits well into the Plate Climatology Theory.
James Edward Kamis is a Geologist and AAPG member of 41 years and who has always been fascinated by the connection between Geology and Climate. Years of research / observation have convinced him that the Earth’s Heat Flow Engine, which drives the outer crustal plates, is also an important driver of the Earth’s climate.