If a volcano erupted six miles from my house, I think I might have a total evacuation too
....and everyone else would be slipping in it!
Not sure why I'm bothering. Anyway...
Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1991). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)
- http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html
You may return to... err, whatever this thread was meant to be about. Oh yeah, it was meant to be about volcanoes and global warming and "hazarding a guess". Well, I hazarded a fact, which will probably turn this thread into another "It's all a conspiracy" hazard, I mean theory (underlined because it isn't proven, it's just a theory - the conspiracy that is)
Trouble is, volcanoes emit much more than CO2. Lots of sulfur dioxide and particulates, fer'instance.
Plus hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen.
Sulfur dioxide actually causes global cooling, though, as sunlight tends to reflect off of it and scatter back into space rather than being trapped. Big eruptions usually precipitate global drops in temperatures of a degree or two.
So this eruption is just nature's way of counteracting tailpipe emissions. No big deal.
That article about how man-made activities emit so much more than volcanoes I believe is looking at a typical year, in which there are no huge eruptions. Some thing like Mount St. Helens or this new (very old) one in Chile don't fit neatly into the annual average. They put the needle right off the end of the scale. This volcano is on the coast of Chile, which is the west. Granted, Chile is not a wide country, but the ash is blowing from the Pacific coast across the Andes, across Argentina, and all the way to the Atlantic. The plume is up to 12 MILES high.
Takes a lotta tailpipes to equal that.
Sulfur dioxide actually causes global cooling, though, as sunlight tends to reflect off of it and scatter back into space rather than being trapped. Big eruptions usually precipitate global drops in temperatures of a degree or two.
So this eruption is just nature's way of counteracting tailpipe emissions. No big deal.
Yeah, some scientists were actually thinking about pumping sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in order to counteract global warming.
Not sure why I'm bothering. Anyway...
Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1991). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)
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http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.htmlYou may return to... err, whatever this thread was meant to be about. Oh yeah, it was meant to be about volcanoes and global warming and "hazarding a guess". Well, I hazarded a fact, which will probably turn this thread into another "It's all a conspiracy" hazard, I mean
theory (underlined because it isn't
proven, it's just a
theory - the conspiracy that is)
Does Gerlach's study account for the periodic increases of volcanic emissions that accompany major eruptions? Or does he only calculate the average over time of the emissions from non-erupting volcanoes? Gerlach is often cited on the web, but I didn't find the text of his paper.
I don't doubt that on average man releases more CO2 than volcanoes. Mostly volcanoes sit idle and emit an occasional belch. But we're not discussing the routine squirts from near dormant volcanoes. We're talking about the major eruption in Chile this week.
You'd be hard pressed to convince me that among single events, a volcano eruption can be matched by anything man can do. Some people like to pretend that mankind is the equal of mother nature. Every so often she reminds us that this simply isn't so.