Guest Post by Steven Goddard
We have all seen lots of pictures of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption now, with steam and ash billowing up in the air. The eruption started one month ago, and as the Guardian reports, The eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano is unlikely to have any significant impact on climate but has caused a small fall in carbon emissions, experts say.
The Guardian editors seem to have forgotten that the volcano itself is spewing massive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Perhaps their kinship with Plane Stupid is having an impact? Plane Stupid’s goal is to stop plane traffic in the UK, and they must be thrilled by the flight ban and the damage to the economy.
Added:
Volcano CO2 budget (CO2 is emitted independent of ash) ~200,000 tons per day X 30 days of eruption = 6,000,000 tons of CO2.
Plane CO2 Budget – assumes half of EU planes haven’t flown for the past six days 340,000 EU tons per day X 0.5 EU shutdown X 6 days = ~1,000,000 tons of savings.
People using alternative transportation (as Anthony and the BBC pointed out) as a replacement for aircraft – cars, trains, battleships , etc. ~1,000,000 tons of extra CO2 Is a battleship more “green” than a jumbo jet?
The total gain is 6,000,000 – 1,000,000 + 1,000,000 = 6,000,000 tons of excess CO2 from the volcano. The temporary aircraft shutdown has little or no net impact on CO2 emissions, but the volcano has a large impact.
Video and reader poll follow.
Below is a video chronology of the glacier and volcano, giving a feel of the events of the past month. First video shows what the glacier looked like prior to the eruption.
The next video shows the first night of the eruption – March 21. Note the similarity to Hawaiian volcanoes – lava fountains and little steam or ash.
By March 24, some steam and ash is starting to appear as glacial meltwater begins to mix with the magma.
By April 14, flash flooding from glacial melt began to pour down the side of the glacier.
The flooding was widespread and devastating downstream.
By April 17, the eruption was primarily steam, CO2 and ash.
Should climate modelers start differentiating between man made CO2 and “organic” natural CO2?
Reader Poll :
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[Sarcasm Mode On]
Volcanic CO2 is far less harmful to the environment because no one makes a profit from it.
[Sarcasm Mode Off]
I believe they are estimating that the amount of CO2 from the volcano is much less than the CO2 from the planes that would have been flying, and will probably mention the fact that CO2 released high up is different to CO2 released low down.
I have seen reports stating that the volcano is emitting less CO2 than the grounded jets would have.
Walt Meir (sp?) posited on this very blog that there was a unique chemical signature to man made CO2. Willis Eshenbach agreed with him.
I have yet to see what this secret signature is.
Could anyone shed any light on this, or are they as I suspect full of the digestive waste products of cattle?
************
Alice (07:49:50) :
I believe they are estimating that the amount of CO2 from the volcano is much less than the CO2 from the planes that would have been flying, and will probably mention the fact that CO2 released high up is different to CO2 released low down.
************
But … but … CO2 is well-mixed, no?
Great poll.
Your poll reminds me of a question my mother used to ask when when a passel of kids were bouncing through our small house. She’d grab of of us – either me, my siblings, or one of the neighbor’s kids – and ask, “Do you live here or do you ride a bicycle?”
The back-peddling has begun:
According to the the Guardian’s source (Information is Beautiful) for the amt. of CO2 emitted daily by the volcano, was first quoted at 15K tons/day compared to the total Euro airline industry’s output of 344.1K tons/day. Today the source made a minor correction to its estimate:
UPDATE 3 – 20th April – : More new info and some shame for us. According to leading geologists, Eyjafjallajoekull is emitting between “150,000 and 300,000″ tons of CO2 a day (source). Despite the attentions of the Icelandic vulcanologists and detailed research, our calculations were apparently off by a factor to 10. Many apologies for this error. The volcano *is* belching huge gobs of CO2 into the atmos. Arguably, still less than the amount that would’ve been emitted by the grounded planes. We’ve corrected the diagram. Thanks to all the commenters who helped us refine and correct our calcs.
(source: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/planes-or-volcano/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InformationIsBeautiful+%28Information+Is+Beautiful%29&utm_content=Bloglines)
If you have plenty of time, fly
If you have to be there on time, drive.
Well, at least the planes aren’t emitting 3,000 tons of sulphur dioxide per day according to this link:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/planes-or-volcano/
Actually, there was some confusion (likely originally due to an incorrect post at the blog Information is Beautiful) that suggested that the volcano emitted less CO2 than the grounded planes. That has now been corrected, and you can see the magnitude of each here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/correction-apology-planes-or-volcano/
(Note that the data still suggests the volcano emits less CO2 per day than the European aviation industry, just not quite as much less as initially suggested).
How much CO2 is the volcano spewing out? You seem to imply you know how much?
it might make an interesting post to compare thast figure with the daily anthro CO2 emissions…
Haha, I love the article and the picture of the two CO2 molecules.
Turns out the graph being widely circulated yesterday was out by a factor of ten!
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/correction-apology-planes-or-volcano/
But who knows if those figures are right either
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8cc536b2db245bb0c34359dccb86d29a.161&show_article=1
[Sarcasm mode off]
Volcanic CO2 is less beneficial to the State than Man-made CO2 because
they have not (yet) found a way to tax it.
[Sarcasm mode on]
(apologies to Mr. Middleton)
Too bad it isnt spewing out as much as the planes. Will mean less tree-growth in the amazonas, and in the deserts.
That’s not CO2 or ash from the volcano! That’s angel dust blessings from Gaia!!
Thanks for collecting up these videos and posting them …
@Steve in SC (07:56:49) :
Walt Meir (sp?) posited on this very blog that there was a unique chemical signature to man made CO2. Willis Eshenbach agreed with him.
Just a guess here… But “man-made” CO2 (actually fossil-fuel-derived) is from carbon that’s been trapped in the earth for a long time. As such, its Carbon-12 to Carbon-14 ratio would be dramatically different from “above the ground” emissions like cow farts. Of course, the CO2 emitted by volcanic eruptions should also have an “older” carbon constituent…
None of that is actually germane to the discussion at hand, of course. But I have yet to see any discussion of atmospheric C12:C14 ratios that would conclusively indicate what percentage of atmospheric CO2 is actually derived from human activities.
You miss the point.
Years ago, when I was a practising forester, I would catch periodic hell from various environmentalists (especially in our own organization) when a skidding machine would cross a fish-bearing stream. These crossings were done very infrequently to access otherwise inaccessible portions of harvest units and were strictly limited as to timing, location, and total crossings.
At one point the same people obtained money to improve fish habitat in some of those same streams and spent one whole summer wallowing down the streams with large track-hoes rebuilding channels and pulling logs into the creeks.
When I suggested that there was some gross hypocricy afoot, the individual in charge of the projects told me it was not hypocricy because “their hearts were pure”.
I would suggest, therefore, that you look into your heart (or theirs) when you attempt to criticize your betters.
Even if we would cancel all air traffic for an entire year it would only reduce the the CO2 emissions by a meager 1.5 %. costing the economy billions of dollars a day.
Air transport is a real soft spot of our economy and security.
Without it we are back into the Stone Age!
Not to mention there is a lot more driving going on.
I guess the “bad” CO2 molecules are sad because of all the lies being told about them…
A BBC correspondent pointed out last evening that his attempts to travel back from Helsinki to London weren’t going too well, but that he had calculated the CO2 cost/head of the various boats/trains/cars/etc involved in the whole journey, and found it to be almost identical to the CO2 cost of the flight/head.
Which is nice to know.
Even IF manmade C02 is different from “natural” C02, it’s NOT causing the devastation that the models predicted.