As Yellowstone Bubbles, Experts Are Calm

Something is stirring deep below the legendary hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone, the first and most famous national park in America -- and home to a huge volcanic caldron.

Parts of the park have been rising the past three years at a rate never before observed by scientists. They believe that magma -- molten rock -- is filling pores in the Earth's crust and causing a large swath of Yellowstone to rise like a pie in the oven.

But that doesn't mean you should cancel any vacation plans. Scientists see no sign that Yellowstone is about to blow its top.

"There's no evidence of eruption," said Robert B. Smith, a University of Utah geophysicist and co-author of a new report on Yellowstone's unusual behavior, published today in the journal Science. The park's recent rise is "just part of the natural process."

That said, scientists are watching Yellowstone very closely. This latest glimpse of its unsettled nature offers a reminder that human-driven climate change is taking place on a planet that isn't an inert bystander.

Several volcanoes are currently rumbling in Indonesia, and one, Mount Kelud, in East Java, could be close to a major eruption. Climate scientists who try to understand global warming are trying to put volcanic eruptions into their models. Material blown high into the atmosphere by volcanoes can block sunlight and temporarily cool the planet, even though a volcano also produces prodigious amounts of greenhouse gases. In 1815, the eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia, led to the famous "year without a summer," in which crops failed across the Northern Hemisphere.

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