the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 04 Mar 2024
Absence of causality between seismic activity and global warming
Abstract. There is no more consequential scientific matter today than global warming. The societal and policy implications, however, hinge upon the attribution of that warming to human activity, and specifically, continued societal reliance on the burning of fossil fuels. It was recently suggested that this warming can be explained by the non-anthropogenic factor of seismic activity. If that were the case, it would have profound implications. We have accessed the validity of the claim using a statistical technique (the method of conditional dispersion) that evaluates the existence of causal connections between variables, finding no evidence for any causal relationship between seismic activity and global warming.
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Status: open (until 11 May 2024)
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RC1: 'Comment on esd-2024-10', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Apr 2024
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The papers aims at showing the non-existence of correlation between seismic activity and climate variability.
The paper is very short, simple and easy to read.Â
I have a few comments about this paper that should be addressed in a revised version.The authors use an unconventional tool (to my knowledge this is used only for climate researches) to check the correlation between seismicity and climate.
I am wondering why do not use more classical statistical tools that have a solid theoretical mathematical basis. In essence, the authors should justify better their choice.
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As an additional comment, the authors use the count of earthquakes above M7. This is hardly justifiable, because a M8 releases 32 times the energy of a M7, and a M9 releases about 1000 times more energy than a M7. So, close M7 events do not have the same energy than a single M8 or larger.
In essence, I do not think that the number of M7+ is a good proxy to measure the seismicity index. Maybe considering the seismic energy could be more appropriate. Even better, the seismicity index could be quantified by the ground shaking at polar regions (or any other region of interest) produced by any single earthquake of the catalog used. This is feasible, but it would likely require an additional work made by a seismologist.Related to the previous point, if the interest is on the polar region, the seismicity index should be weighted according to the location of earthquakes, since earthquakes close to polar regions may produce stronger shaking in these regions, with respect to larger earthquakes that occur on equatorial regions. This is made simulating the ground shaking of each earthquake (seismic waves decreases with distance from the hypocenter), or, in cae the authors use the energy released by each single earthquake, weighting the distance of earthquakes to polar regions with an appropriate spatial decay (roughly speaking, the surface waves decay with 1/r only due to the geometrical spreading).
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Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2024-10-RC1 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Mikhail Verbitsky, 23 Apr 2024
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Our response is enclosed as pdf file
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Mikhail Verbitsky, 23 Apr 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on esd-2024-10', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Apr 2024
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The authors tried to prove the argument by  Leopold I. Lobkovsky , "Trigger mechanisms of gas hydrate decomposition, methane emissions, and glacier breakups in polar regions as a result of tectonic wave deformation", is wrong. The paper was published in an open-access journal of MDPI, which does not have a good reputation. From google scholar, I saw that the paper has been cited for 16 times; however, half of them are from Leopold I. Lobkovsky. I think most of researcher would not pay any attentions on such kind of papers. Â
In addition, I think that this MS is more like a comment on the paper of Leopold I. Lobkovsky rather than a formal academic paper.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2024-10-RC2 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC2 by Mikhail Verbitsky and Michael E. Mann', Mikhail Verbitsky, 18 Apr 2024
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Dear Anonymous Referee #2,
Thank you for your review. We understand that you do not have concerns regarding our method and conclusions, and we are grateful for that.
While we recognize that there is variable quality of the papers that appear in many journals, including MDPI journals, this is not reason for declaring them unworthy of comment or response simply for that cause, particularly when a novel—if seemingly unlikely—mechanism has been proposed and, as yet, remains untested or challenged, as is the case for the claimed relationship between seismic activity and warming. More detailed, overall supportive reviews by Referee #1 and Referee #3 do not challenge the merit of our analysis. Instead, they suggest some additional considerations to insure the robustness of our findings, which we look forward to incorporating in our revisions.
As far as the short nature of the contribution, we hasten to point out that it is not a regular paper but an ESD Letter, short contributions which are limited to no more than 2,500 words.
Thank you again,
Mikhail Verbitsky and Michael E. Mann
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2024-10-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC2 by Mikhail Verbitsky and Michael E. Mann', Mikhail Verbitsky, 18 Apr 2024
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RC3: 'Comment on esd-2024-10', Anonymous Referee #3, 18 Apr 2024
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The manuscript concisely elaborates on the viewpoint of "Absence of causality between seismic activity and global warming" with a very brief text. The curve in Figure 1 of the manuscript is highly persuasive.
However, I still have some doubts:
Firstly, what was the consideration behind only counting earthquakes of magnitude M>=7 in the manuscript, and does this have any impact on the results?
Secondly, how was the seismic activity index calculated in the manuscript?Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2024-10-RC3 -
AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Mikhail Verbitsky, 23 Apr 2024
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Our response is enclosed as pdf file
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AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Mikhail Verbitsky, 23 Apr 2024
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