Legal Insurrection by Leslie Eastman 11/16/2023
Looking at volcanoes in Iceland, Italy and California…realizing “they have the capacity to disrupt and override all of our collective efforts aimed at controlling GHG concentrations.”I have been monitoring the reports coming from Iceland after the nation declared an emergency and issued evacuation orders for a popular tourist location, as 1,400 earthquakes were recorded in 24 hours, indicating a volcanic eruption could be imminent.
The earthquakes are continuing, and a nearly 10-mile magma tunnel appears underneath the evacuated town. It appears that there is much more magma associated with this developing event than there was with the 2021 eruption of Fagradalsfjall.
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Attention is now turning to two super-volcanoes, as seismic activity around them may indicate large deposits of magma are now on the move.
One question that many people ask is how much greenhouse gas volcanic eruptions give off. Geologist and climate expert Dr. Matthew Wielicki thoroughly answers this question, looking at emissions data from direct and indirect measurements.
Although, large volcanoes can have emission rates that are equivalent to humans for a short time. For example, Mount St. Helens is estimated to have emitted up to 25 million tonnes of CO2 per hour during the first few hours of its eruption in 1980. This is equivalent to the daily CO2 emissions of a small country like Estonia, for the first few hours of the nine-hour eruption. It is important to note that such eruptions are rather [rare].
….However, looking at the geological record, there have been periods where volcanic activity, especially from super-volcanic eruptions, released massive quantities of GHGs, exceeding all human emissions.
For example, the Central Magmatic Province (CAMP) is a large igneous province (LIP) that formed approximately 200 million years ago. It is one of the largest LIPs on Earth, and it is thought to have been formed by a series of eruptions. The CAMP is estimated to have released between 6.5 and 13.4 trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is equivalent to approximately 100-200 years of human CO2 emissions at current rates.
In summary: Everyday volcanic activity does not release significant amounts of CO2 when compared with human activity, but one large eruption – especially from a super-volcano – is a greenhouse gas game-changer:
More:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/11/a-look-at-the-real-greenhouse-gas-emissions-impact-of-volcanic-eruptions/
