By now, everyone’s heard the story of climate change and disaster—disappearing ice caps, rising sea levels, increased hurricane activity, and a bevy of other impacts that could (and in some cases are) raining down on our warming planet. It seems the latest chapter, though, is still being penned by geologists and others investigating the slower, less obvious effects climate change might have on volcanoes and earth movement.

“The fact is we are causing future contemporary climate change,” Bill McGuire of the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre at University College London, told Nature. “[Geological hazards are] another portfolio of things we haven't thought of.”

Until recently, that is. Volcanologists, oceanographers, climatologists, seismologists, and others with an interest in climate and geomorphological change met last week to discuss the topic at a conference hosted by the center. According to news reports, there was general consensus on several points—climate is affecting geology and there needs to be more awareness of exactly how.

“Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well,” McGuire is quoted as saying in a Reuters’ AlertNet article. “The whole earth is an interactive system. In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change.”

According to some models—and scientists agree there is a need for more and better models—those geological aspects could feature mayhem of biblical proportions. Events could include a series of succeeding disasters such as more explosive volcanoes, which would trigger underwater landslides, which could in turn set off huge tsunamis.

The domino effect—and a large portion of the uncertainty surrounding what will actually happen—lies in the stability ice gives volcanoes, both by providing a protective cap and by moderating the rate at which magma decompresses, according to Nature.

"As thick ice is getting thinner, there may be an increase in the explosivity of eruptions," Hugh Tuffen of Lancaster University said in the article.

Tuffen has studied volcanoes in many areas, including Iceland and Chile, and said that it would be hard to tell what the effects on different types of volcanoes would be without more research, according to Nature.

What we can say for sure is the same old climate change story. We need more information and to plan for worst-case scenarios—which is exactly what conference attendees plan to do. A follow-up meeting has been tentatively set for September 2011.

"We still don't really know what the threat over the next 100 years will be," says Tuffen. "I don't think we should be scaremongering, we should be thinking about hazard mitigation."