Volcano's Emit Far More CO2 Than Man
May 4th 2007 00:03
Booyah!
Looking at Sampling Stations from across planet earth there was not one abnormal spike, surely if a volcano is going to blow well over 241 million metric tons of carbon dioxide someone would notice it, you'd pretty much be able to smell the sucker (or choke on it).
So no, there are no spikes at the sampling stations (at least none that do not fully recover back into the general linear upwards trend) one would assume an eruption that does what took man 10 years to do will take the CO2 equally long to at least die down and return to the same level as it were before indicating a flaw in this argument, either volcano's don't emit CO2 to such a high degree or the way they do it in is different to the way we do it.
There is a very slight trend, for example in Hawaii (which is volcano happy) we see continuous up-down spikes however the peaks and troughs of these up and downs average out to a single linear line. The line is going up because of something, more and more volcanic eruptions as the years go on?
Just think about it, if volcano's were causing this upwards trend would it continually increase? Shouldn't the number of volcanic eruptions in Hawaii increase proportionally to the amount of CO2 being detected on average? Theres something else contributing to this rise and the peaks and troughs are only telling half the story. Some people will point to fairies, others will point to the (pardon the pun) stinking obvious.
Volcanos naturally emit CO2 into the atmosphere, it's part of the earths natural cycle. So saying something like 'volcanos are more responsible for CO2 in the atmosphere than man made causes' is true but misleading. Misleading in that the earths atmosphere works in cycles, it has been like this for millions of years. In the past century, and certainly the past two decades, CO2 output has been increased because of human causes. To argue that the output of CO2 by man is very small, hence a non-issue, is looking at it rather blindly given that quantity isn't always the defining factor. For instance even a little bit of magnesium, in the realms of parts per million, can destroy a lake.
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Comment by Anonymous
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But what about big eruptions? The largest recent one was Pinatubo in 1991. US geologists estimate that between 40 and 240 million metric tons of CO2 were spewed into the atmosphere by the volcano on the day of the eruption in June 1991. Again, it sounds a lot, but that's only somewhere between 1 and 7 day's worth of human fossil fuel burning.
Claims that a single volcano produces more CO2 than humans do in decades is not only wrong, it is ludicrously wrong.
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Do humans polllute yes. Especially in 3rd world countries, China, and India.
Is man responsible for global warming, yes 1/10th of 1% of it.
Comment by Anonymous
All the volcanos combined equal about 150th of the total carbon dioxide load, when compared to what mankind generates.
Comment by JSG
December 04, 2009
Greenhouse Gas Observatories Downwind from Erupting Volcanoes
By Andrew Walden
Problems in the collection of atmospheric CO2 data parallel other absurdities in the global warming fraud. The Climategate scandal is exposing the massive and systematic fraud behind the fabrication of the worldwide temperature record necessary to make the case for global warming. But what about the record of atmospheric CO2?
The U.S. NOAA openly admits to producing a CO2 record which "contains no actual data." NOAA temperature stations sited in ways that artificially inflate temperatures have been exposed over the past two years. CO2 observatories have similar flaws. Two of the five NOAA "baseline" stations are downwind from erupting volcanoes. All five are subject to localized or regional CO2 sources.
Climategate collaborator Dr. Andrew Manning worked with Dr. David Keeling, founder of the Mauna Loa Observatory, where atmospheric CO2 is measured. Manning, whose name appears in 37 Climategate emails, tells BBC: (emphasis added)
The goal behind starting the measurements was to see if it was possible to track what at that time was only a suspicion: that atmospheric CO2 levels might be increasing owing to the burning of fossil fuels.
To do this, a location was needed very far removed from the contamination and pollution of local emissions from cities; therefore Mauna Loa, high on a volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was chosen.
Without this curve, and Professor Keeling's tireless work, there is no question that our understanding and acceptance of human-induced global warming would be 10-20 years less advanced than it is today.
Mauna Loa has been producing a readout which supports Manning's predetermined goal by showing steady growth in atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1959. This record, highlighted in Al Gore's discredited movie An Inconvenient Truth, is known as the Keeling Curve. A graph of the curve is engraved on a bronze plaque mounted at the entrance to the Observatory’s Keeling Building, 10,000 feet above sea level on the rocky north flank of Mauna Loa. According to the Observatory website: "The undisturbed air, remote location, and minimal influences of vegetation and human activity at MLO are ideal for monitoring constituents in the atmosphere that can cause climate change."
For some reason, they fail to mention the erupting volcano next door.
In the world of global warming climate modeling, massive volcanic explosions are tied to short periods of regional or even global cooling caused by the injection of volcanic gases and particulates into the upper atmosphere. For instance, Mt. Pinatubo's 1991 explosion shot twenty million tons of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, deflecting as much as 12% of the sun's warming rays.
Just thirty miles from the observatory, Kilauea's Pu`u O`o vent sends 3.3 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That's enough to change local CO2 concentrations without producing the kind of SO2 volumes needed to have worldwide temperature effects. Pu`u O`o has been erupting continuously since 1983. Since 2008 it has been joined by a second eruption even closer to the Observatory -- from Halema`uma`u Crater at the top of Kilauea.
The Nature Conservancy estimate of CO2 produced by human activity is roughly 5.5 tons from each of the world's six billion people. (If you exceed this amount, the Nature Conservancy will "offset" your excess carbon for a tax-deductable $20-per-ton contribution.) Pu`u O`o sends into "the undisturbed air" near "the remote location" the equivalent to yearly CO2 production from an average city of 660,000 people. Air trajectory charts show that most of the air reaching Mauna Loa Observatory first passes over Pu`u O`o and Halema`uma`u.
A USGS fact sheet produced in 2000 describes the effect of "volcanic air pollution" from Pu`u O`o. "On the Island of Hawai`i, the trade winds blow the vog from its main source on the volcano to the southwest, where wind patterns send it up the island's Kona coast. Here, it becomes trapped by daytime (onshore) and nighttime (offshore) sea breezes. In contrast, when light 'Kona' winds blow, much of the vog is concentrated on the eastern side of the island, but some can even reach Oahu, more than 200 miles to the northwest."
Volcanologists have measured CO2 concentrations as high as 48.9% at the Kilauea summit hotspot. After Halema`uma`u began erupting, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared the Big Island of Hawaii to be a federal disaster area. Forty-five of the forty-eight protea growers downwind of the eruptions have been wiped out by VOG.
In spite of the claims about "undisturbed air," there is a clear difference between eruption years and non-eruption years in the rate of growth of Mauna Loa CO2 readings.
During the 1969-74 Mauna Ulu eruption, also in Kilauea’s East Rift, Mauna Loa set two records for CO2 increase.
Kilauea’s East Rift again erupted in 1977, expelling 32 million cubic meters of magma -- and the 1977 rate of increase at Mauna Loa Observatory set another record.
In seven of the 25 years of continuous eruption since 1983, annual CO2 growth rates measured at Mauna Loa exceeded those of all previous years.
Average CO2 concentration increase for the 17 non-eruption years is 1.00 ppm.
Average CO2 concentration increase for the 33 eruption years is 1.62 ppm.
It wasn't always easy to win funding for Mauna Loa. Climategate collaborator Manning explains: "Dave Keeling suffered many sleepless nights, even as late as in the 1990s, being forced again and again to justify continued funding of his programme." A chapter of Spencer Weart’s 2008 book The Discovery of Global Warming lionizes Keeling’s efforts. Its title: "Money for Keeling: Monitoring CO2 Levels."
But the funding did start to roll in, and Mauna Loa is no longer alone. A "global network" of over one hundred CO2 stations is now headed by Mauna Loa and four other "baseline" observatories. Their readouts are used to produce a worldwide CO2 readout called GLOBALVIEW CO2.
If localized volcanic activity is affecting CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa, why would the "global network" be following along? Perhaps it's because all of the CO2 stations -- including the NOAA's other baseline stations at the South Pole; American Samoa; Trinidad Head, CA; and Pt. Barrow, AK -- are subject to localized, and in some cases regional, CO2 influences.
The American Samoa observatory is about 150 miles downwind from where the one-mile wide Nafanua volcano has emerged. The undersea volcano is described by University of Sydney marine scientist Dr. Adele Pile as producing an undersea environment with an acidic pH of 3 (similar to vinegar), carbon dioxide bubbling up "like champagne," and extremely hot venting water so toxic that "any life swimming into this pit immediately dies, except these amazing scavenging worms." Woods Hole oceanographers report they "discovered that hot, smoggy water from the crater was spilling over the top or through breaches in the crater rim and billowing outward. It formed a halo around the rim that was hundreds of feet thick and extended more than 4 miles." In addition, Samoa's lush tropical vegetation is a big daytime consumer of CO2 thus dropping CO2 levels sharply during the day and raising them sharply at night.
Trinidad Head Observatory is on a Northern California peninsula jutting into the Pacific about twenty miles north of Eureka, CA. Like Samoa, Trinidad Head is subject to substantial vegetation-driven changes in CO2 levels from the surrounding temperate forests and wetlands. The prevailing winds come in off the Pacific, which are influenced by coal-happy China.
The South Pole Observatory is just yards away from a power plant which burns jet fuel 365 days a year to provide electricity and heat for Amundsen Station. (Researchers claim that prevailing winds come from the opposite direction.) It is also about 800 miles from Antarctica's Mt. Erebus volcano, which has continuously erupted since 1972. Because the atmosphere's ability to carry water vapor is cut approximately in half by every ten-degree-C drop in temperature, the extremely low temperatures at the South Pole mean that only trace amounts of water vapor are in the atmosphere. CO2 mixes with water vapor in the atmosphere to form H2CO3 (carbonic acid), giving rainfall a slightly acidic pH and washing CO2 from the air. The uniquely dry and cold conditions of the South Pole prevent this from occurring, thus altering the natural atmospheric carbon elimination process and magnifying the effect of CO2 sources. Amundsen Station personnel and emissions from the 12,000-foot Mt. Erebus volcano are also implicated in the 1990s ozone hole scam.
The Observatory at Point Barrow, Alaska is about 170 miles downwind from the Prudhoe Bay headquarters of the North Slope oil industry. It is therefore subject to a localized increase in man-made air pollution, including CO2 emissions. Coincidentally, of course, the Barrow Observatory was established in 1973 -- just before construction began on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Barrow is also annually subject to several months of "Arctic haze," which University of Alaska Geophysicist Ned Rozell indicates is from ex-Soviet and new Chinese "iron, nickel and copper smelters and inefficient coal-burning plants."
CO2 produced by China's massive and growing reliance on coal is being used to justify CO2 controls on the U.S. and Europe. The Pacific bias of these five "baseline" locations is hard to miss. If one were seeking CO2 increases, downwind of China would be the place to go find them.
The NOAA's preference for warm maritime CO2 collection sites on ocean waters between 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south -- including many reached only by boat -- means that "flask network" collections are primarily conducted in highly humid areas. When the flasks are returned to Mauna Loa, the water vapor is removed by heating. This process breaks H2O out of the carbolic acid, leaving behind the CO2 to be measured in the dry air sample. Besides the South Pole, few CO2 flasks are sent to low-humidity desert areas with less airborne carbolic acid to measure as CO2. All of these variables create the opportunity for mischief.
Local CO2 consumption by photosynthesis can produce a profound daylight decline and nighttime increase in CO2 concentrations. Calculations to account for these and other local or regional fluctuations create a lot of room for "hiding the decline," "fudge factors," and the other CRU-style techniques characteristic of politically-driven "post-normal" science.
As the Copenhagen talks approach, the November 23 AP headline blares: "Mauna Loa Observatory's carbon dioxide readings near worst-case scenario." In the midst of the Climategate revelations, the AP replicates global warming front-man Geoff Jenkins' 1996 Climategate scam by releasing "projected" CO2 concentrations of 390 ppm early -- the "highest for the past million years" -- "for the silly season."
In 2008, Mauna Loa readings of 387 ppm were supposed to be "The highest in 650,000 years," according to the U.K.'s Guardian. Can't they make up their minds?
Of course, neither the AP nor the Guardian makes note of the fact that the latest CO2 increases come in the midst of a climatic cooling cycle. Nor are the "paleo"-records of CO2 "for the past million years" questioned, even as "paleo"-temperature records are completely discredited as being the fraudulent work of politically motivated hacks at the East Anglia CRU.
Instead, AP-readers are expected to trust "[t]he Mauna Loa researchers [who] extend their measurements through their 'flask network' -- containers sent to dozens of places around the world each week or carried on commercial ships so people can fill them with air and send them back to be measured for CO2 and other gases."
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) boldly announces the methodology behind its worldwide CO2 chart created from these "Flask Network" readings:
GLOBALVIEW-CO2 is derived using the data extension and data integration techniques described by Masarie and Tans [1995].
The impetus for the work done by the many cooperating organizations and institutions is to make atmospheric measurements of trace gas species that will facilitate a better understanding of the processes controlling their abundance. These and other measurements have been widely used to constrain atmospheric models that derive plausible source/sink scenarios. Serious obstacles to this approach are the paucity of sampling sites and the lack of temporal continuity among observations from different locations. Consequently, there is the potential for models to misinterpret these spatial and temporal gaps resulting in derived source/sink scenarios that are unduly influenced by the sampling distribution. GLOBALVIEW-CO2 is an attempt to address these issues. ...
In case readers don't get the point, the NOAA also explains (emphasis in original):
GLOBALVIEW-CO2 is derived from measurements but contains no actual data. To facilitate use with carbon cycle modeling studies, the measurements have been processed (smoothed, interpolated, and extrapolated) resulting in extended records that are evenly incremented in time.
Processed, smoothed, interpolated, and extrapolated? Data extension? Data integration? No actual data? Making atmospheric measurements that will facilitate a predetermined conclusion?
This all sounds very familiar.
Andrew Walden is editor of Hawaii Free Press.
Comment by Kamid
The point is that the earth itself, through simply just a lawn or a land of soil or anyplace emits high levels of CO2. So in all, either vulcanos nor human produced Co2 will or can matter at all in this total Co2 level.
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Comment by lordgarion514
Please note that he link is from UCLA.
My question is IF humans are the main cause of co2 and hence global warming why is it that vast millions of years BEFORE humans even existed do we have evidence that not only was the co2 level higher but that the water lever was 75-120 FEET higher than today. Also for those who don't know they are several places on earth where fossilized coral reefs just happen to be located around 100 feet ABOVE current sea levels.
Now this begs at least a few questions. 1) Why was the sea level so much higher before humans if we cause global warming(and hence rises in sea levels) 2) Why was the sea levels so much higher for such a long time that large coral reefs we able to form under water. 3) If for millions of years the sea level was 75-100 feet higher than it is today who has the knowledge(considering the very short time span we have been keeping records when compared to the age of the earth itself) 4) How do we not know. or even consider it normal that the change in co2 AND changes in sea level rises to be a completely normal cycle the earth goes through on a continuous basis just on a time scale so large we stupid humans can't even begin to understand it?
Yes climate change is real but all evidence clearly shows it is not a steady increase or decrease in temperature but that it varies in short and long cycles and that we don't really have a clue as to what is going to happen.
2010 was supposed to be the hottest ocean surface temperature in god know how many decades and all the experts predicted we would see more and bigger hurricanes because of it. 2nd highest was 1998. Well guess what in the cooler period between 1998 and 2010 we had more and bigger hurricanes during those years(and NO I did not say there was more and bigger hurricanes every year between those 2 record years. How odd if our "science" is so good don't you think?
If the sea level was 75-100 feet higher BEFORE humans how can ANYONE say that what is happening now is not simply a readjustment to what is REALLY normal?
But either way it WILL suck for those living on or near the coast. But if we poured all our resources into "fixing" it all we will really do is slow it down...a bit. But never stop it.
Comment by lordgarion514
Also Google a little thing called "the year with no summer"
Ice ages come in many forms and occur and end at different rates. And yes the mini ice ages we call the year with no summer WAS preceded by several years of warmer than normal weather which lead to bumper harvests and an increase in population.
Please people, learn the basics of earth history before trying to blame EVERYTHING bad on humans. If you think you are such a harmful influence on this planet then help it out and jump off a cliff or something.
Comment by lordgarion514
But you are mostly correct. It's not JUST volcanoes that produce natural greenhouse gasses,It comes from many natural sources. Take methane for example, it's something like 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 and(believe it or not someone actually studied this, probably with government money, that a single moose produces enough methane(think about the back end of said moose from eating all that grass, just like cows) in a single year to cause more GH effect than a large jetliner crossing the Atlantic, and there's a LOT of moose in the world. This natural methane production(in varying quantities of course) applies to all animals that live almost solely on grasses(actually this applies to all animals, including humans, that pass "gas") But ruminants produce way more than "normal animals". Methane is also produced by decaying organic matter(dead animals and plants, even the leaves and branches that fall off of plants and trees,this includes those in the oceans, rivers and lakes as well)
If you combine all this natural methane production(and other GH gases produced by rotting organic matter) with the MASSIVE amounts of GH gases given off by volcanoes and compared them to what humans produce. you get a number that says humans produce LESS than 5% of all GH gases(if you include water vapor) If you take out human produced water vapor the percentage of GH gases released into the atmosphere in a year drops to less than 1%. Mount St. Helens produces between 500 and 1,000 tons a day of carbon dioxide.Worldwide, people and their activities pump 26 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere, he said. The total from volcanoes is about 200 million tons a year — or less than 1 percent of the man-made emissions. This is year after year and goes through the roof(so to speak when one goes boom, esp. the "mega" varieties. Of course these are estimates, esp. on the man made amount. Volcanoes are easier to measure). But just to save an argument I'll agree the human produced amount is within a few percentage points. But as I said above methane is 20 times more potent so it takes 20 tomes of CO2 to equal 1 ton of methane. And there are untold trillions of tons of decaying animals and plant matter pumping out methane, plus the methane from all animals that pass wind, ruminants especially. then you have to add in that water vapor, a strong GH gas and is produced by every square inch of water on the planet, not to mention every square inch of ICE and SNOW as well(by way of sublimation)
This link: Really Long Link
Gives a short, easy to understand explanation on ice ages. It also confirms that we should be heading towards another another ice age, which we are not. Now even if all the science, which has more or less been refuted because of outright lying, sloppy methods or using incomplete data were correct, I personally would rather have a big warming trend than an ice age any day.
Remember from my earlier post that the last ice age(a "mini" ice age thank God) only took a few years to kick in. Most ice ages cover vasts amounts of the earths surface and take years, even decade or centuries to fully develop.
Really Long Link
Human contribution to global warming, or cooling, as both seem to have taken turns over the last several decades is absolutly impossibly to know for sure since we don't have the technology or accurate /complete records far enough back in time to even begin to make a REAL scientifically accurate answer. Add to this that we are behind schedule for massive volcanic eruptions(look up what they can do to food supplies for many years) and we are behind schedule for a major ice age already, which would kill billions, not to mention, if i remember my astronomy history correctly we are also past due for an earth changing impact from space. So basically no matter how you look at it we are on borrowed time so getting worked up over our less than 5% addition to worldwide greenhouse gas production seems a bit silly don't you think?
Comment by polococta
I feed plants: trees, grass etc. They like it. They need it to survive.
Comment by Orgruff
Volcanos and cows farting have been going on for millions of years, and yes the climate does change from time to time but there has never been a rate of change this quickly before.
Concentrated Solar Thermal combined with geographically distributed wind farms would cost a little to set up but save hundreds of billions in fuel costs over a decade.
Misdirecting people by getting them to argue over stuff like volcanos #less that 1% of human co2 emissions# is just one tactic of big oil and big coal companies to keep us arguing while we que up at the gas station.