Volcanoes Can Affect Climate
Volcanic gases like sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide affect climate change. Sulfur dioxide can cause cooling by forming sulfate aerosols, while volcanic carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, potentially causing warming. Despite significant volcanic emissions, human activities contribute more to climate change.
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Volcanoes can significantly impact climate change through the release of volcanic gases like sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Sulfur dioxide can cause global cooling by forming sulfate aerosols that reflect radiation from the Sun, cooling the Earth's lower atmosphere. In contrast, volcanic carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, potentially promoting global warming. Major eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991, have led to temporary declines in surface temperatures. While volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide are substantial during eruptions, human activities release far more carbon dioxide annually, contributing significantly to climate change. Efforts are ongoing to better understand and estimate global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions. Despite the significant impact of large volcanic eruptions, human-induced carbon dioxide emissions surpass those of volcanoes, emphasizing the role of human activities in driving climate change.
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22 commentsBut we're nowhere near the "stop digging" stage; in fact, we are at "we might be digging at maximum speed now, because at least we're not digging noticeably faster every coming year" stage.
Whatever we do, we will need to restructure the global economy to drastically reduce CO2 emission. Any potential "alternative" solution is an auxiliary measure we could employ on top of decarbonization; it cannot replace decarbonization.
Check out the Year without a Summer for a historical example:
> The year 1816 AD is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F). Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest of any on record between 1766 and 2000, resulting in crop failures and major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.
> Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia).
We worked hard to get the sulfur compounds out of our fuels... What if that was a long term mistake. Perhaps we should be putting extra sulfur in our jet fuels.
Acid rain was not that bad... was it?
/s
News at 11 ! /s
I hope that a moderately dry and educational page like this would not be taken down for political satisfaction.
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