Dear Editor,
Earthquakes are one of the many dangerous and destructive natural disasters that can occur anywhere in the world, and as the recent quakes in Turkey and Syria demonstrate, they are definitely cause for concern. To begin with, there is no link between weather and earthquakes. This makes sense because earthquakes occur underground, where surface temperature and conditions have no bearing. However, climate change has the potential to affect earthquakes. This is due to the fact that the only true variable in earthquakes is the amount of stress on a fault line. According to NASA, the most likely scenario is that climate change causes surface water to add to the stress on a fault. There are also droughts. Droughts, according to NASA researchers, can change the size of mountains due to water loss. In theory, this could result in a change in stress on faults. Other studies have found that groundwater extraction during droughts can affect stress by essentially changing the weight of the planet’s crust, which can cause changes between both sides of a fault line and causes an earthquake. Then there are glaciers, which move as well. Glacial earthquakes can occur as glaciers shift due to climate change. Therefore to reduce earthquakes lowering stress loads is very much essential. In other words, climate change could play a role in earthquakes.
VijayKumar H K
[email protected]
Raichur, Karnataka
Environmentalist
