It seems there’s really no complete measurements on how much CO2 is coming out of volcanoes, both active and inactive.
From Livescience: Long Invisible, Research Shows Volcanic CO2 Levels Are Staggering (Op-Ed)
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In 1992, it was thought that volcanic degassing released something like 100 million tons of CO2 each year. Around the turn of the millennium, this figure was getting closer to 200. The most recent estimate, released this February, comes from a team led by Mike Burton, of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology – and it’s just shy of 600 million tons. It caps a staggering trend: A six-fold increase in just two decades.
These inflating figures, I hasten to add, don’t mean that our planet is suddenly venting more CO2.
Humanity certainly is; but any changes to the volcanic background level would occur over generations, not years. The rise we’re seeing now, therefore, must have been there all along: As scientific progress is widening our perspective, the daunting outline of how little we really know about volcanoes is beginning to loom large.
Quiet monsters
The exhalations of our planet can be spectacularly obvious. The fireworks, though, are only part of the picture. We now know that the CO2 released during volcanic eruptions is almost insignificant compared with what happens after the camera crews get bored. The emissions that really matter are concealed. The silent, silvery plumes which are currently winding their way skyward above the 150 or so active volcanoes on our planet also carry with them the bulk of its carbon dioxide. Their coughing fits might catch the eye — but in between tantrums, the steady breathing of volcanoes quietly sheds upwards of a quarter of a billion tons of CO2 every year.
We think. Scientists’ best estimates, however, are based on an assumption. It might surprise you to learn that, well into the new century, of the 150 smokers I mentioned, almost 80 percent are still as mysterious, in terms of the quantity of CO2 they emit, as they were a generation ago: We’ve only actually measured 33.
If the 117 unsampled peaks follow a similar trend, then the research community’s current projection might stand. But looking through such a small window, there’s no way of knowing if what we have seen until now is typical or not. It’s like shining a light on a darkened globe: randomly, you might hit Australia, and think you’d seen it all – while on the edge of your beam, unnoticed, would be Asia. Our planet’s isolated volcanic frontiers could easily be hiding a monster or two; and with a bit of exploration, our estimate of volcanic CO2 output could rise even higher.
You’d think that would be enough. That might be my fault — I tend to save the weird stuff until the end. Recently, an enigmatic source of volcanic carbon has come to light that isn’t involved with lava — or even craters. It now seems that not only is there CO2 we can’t get to, there’s some we can’t even see.
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Even more incredibly, it even seems that some volcanoes which are considered inactive, in terms of their potential to ooze new land, can still make some serious additions to the atmosphere through diffuse CO2 release. Residual magma beneath dormant craters, though it might never reach the surface, can still ‘erupt’ gases from a distance. Amazingly, from what little scientists have measured, it looks like this process might give off as much as half the CO2 put out by fully active volcanoes.
If these additional ‘carbon-active’ volcanoes are included, the number of degassing peaks skyrockets to more than 500. Of which we’ve measured a grand total of nine percent. You can probably fill it in by now — we need to climb more mountains.
Related articles
- Long Invisible, Research Shows Volcanic CO2 Levels Are Staggering (Op-Ed) (livescience.com)
- Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung continues to erupt (abc.net.au)
- Volcano spews ash 3km high (stuff.co.nz)
PS: Using IPCC-approved confidence level calculation methodology, I find my work significant at the 95% certainty level.
@Willis: “it would still only be about 4% of human emissions.”
Ah, missed that. That’s why I’m curious about the isotope ratios. If it doesn’t alter things it’s a big nothing for the A in AGW regardless the scale. Though it will certainly put any optimistically over accurate model or sink/source pairs out of joint.
@Ball: “No wonder Keeling has to make such dramatic manipulative adjustments to his Mauna Loa readings.”
Yeh, I’ve been wondering about that since that last mention. May or may not be material to things, but if it’s claimed it’s not, then surely there’s been work done on the problem.
TonyB
Most of current global warming is concentrated in the Arctic area. There is a magmatic fissure all across Arctic, but quantities of either lava or CO2 discharges is not known. What is known is that nearby Island’s active volcanoes which number just over 1% of the world’s total, it is estimated that they produced more then 30% of the total lava eruption since 1500 A.D.
This is what happens when people just make stuff up.
The so called carbon cycle carbon budget is classic climate science (TM IPCC).
Numbers pulled out of the hat(polite version),to support a preconceived notion, repeated endlessly and that fail when compared to reality.
We do not know the number and magnitude of volcanoes on the planet, we have no quantitative measurements of the outgassing, but we can pretend to understand the cycle of atmospheric CO2, fossil Carbon,plant life on global basis..gas release from erosion….
I need to sell more unicorn fencing to my local government, can’t have any “unprotected” citizen getting run through by any wild unicorns.
Precautionary principle for principle less people.
Speaking of isotope ratios, it’s amazing to me, although maybe should not be, how much elementary basic science had not yet been done when the whole complex universe of “climate science” became “settled” c. 1988 or whenever.
Here’s a attempt actually to measure the C13/C14 ratio in gas being emitted from a volcano in 2004:
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?id=83609
Abstract
Carbon isotope ratio analysis using a laser-based technique has been performed in the field, on the gaseous emissions from an active volcano. We here describe that 13CO2/12CO2 determinations can be carried out in a quasi-continuous regime using a compact, selective and sensitive diode laser spectrometer at a wavelength of 2 µm. Within the Solfatara crater (near Naples, Italy), in a very harsh environment, we were able to determine relative 13CO2/12CO2 values, on the highest flux fumarole, with an accuracy of 0.5 ‰. Regular and frequent observations of the carbon isotopes in volcanic gases, which become possible with our methodology, are of the utmost importance for geochemical surveillance of volcanoes.
© 2004 Optical Society of America
Well, obviously we have to stop the volcanoes from releasing the CO2 or fit them with “carbon-capture’ technology.
I prefer the first option. I’m not sure what we need all those volcanoes for, but we should try to find some non-polluting alternative.
I have a great idea….let’s put one of those CO2 measuring thingys on top of one…..snark/
Tell me again….why anyone should care about CO2
An interesting presentation on volcanic CO2 by Prof. Ian Plimer from around 2011. Submarine volcanics is the Prof’s focus from about 15:30 onward.
I love it. In the landfill and landfill gas to electricity industries, you have to account for CO2 using fairly good instruments, have calibration programs, lots of reporting and permits are affected by the amount of landfill gas. All to precisely measure GHG’s so we can control the climate. And here we find that the expert climate scientists don’t have a good handle on major natural sources. Maybe the expert climate scientists ought to get off their duffs, shut down the high-carbon footprint computer modelling and go out into the world and make real measurements.
@Willis Eschenbach says: November 16, 2013 at 2:43 pm ,
Willis where do you get the number “on the order of 33 gigatonnes of CO2 ” for human emission’s ?
Now I have heard numbers for man made CO2 anywhere fro 9 to 33 gigatonnes , who is the central authority for this elusive number and how did they derive this number ?
Too bad Red Adair is no longer with us, or we could call his crew in to cap them all, at least those 150 known offenders.
milodon: “Speaking of isotope ratios, …”
Ah, brilliant. So yes, a big nothing for the isotope ratios on the whole if that’s at all representative.
Willis-from the article-
“We think. Scientists’ best estimates, however, are based on an assumption. It might surprise you to learn that, well into the new century, of the 150 smokers I mentioned, almost 80 percent are still as mysterious, in terms of the quantity of CO2 they emit, as they were a generation ago: We’ve only actually measured 33.”
That 4% is based on an estimate taken from 33 surface volcanoes. So if that’s based on 20% of the 150 volcanoes that they know of, and assuming that all the ones they haven’t measured are at the same levels (which we know they aren’t) then aren’t we closer to somewhere like 20% of human emissions? Saturday…math brain is asleep…
As to the number of volcanoes on earth, there is a published paper somewhere that estimates the number under the sea as in the millions.
Note most volcanos don’t ‘erupt’ or breach the surface, they are simply areas of melted rock, which grades into areas of elevated temperature rocks with distance, and most are under the ocean associated with mid ocean ridge spreading centres (which extend for tens of thousands of kilometres), and island volcanic arcs, such as most of the Philippines or Indonesia. The volumes of rock which are heated or melted are large.
Periods in earth’s history seem to have more and less tectonic activity, including rates of continental drift, and these times also seem to have more volcanism (as you would expect), and also more abundant proliferation of life, such as in the Cambrian.
But it’s a balance, if there is too much volcanism there can also be more mass extinction, such as the end Permian, and these periods also seem to exhibit ‘coral reef gaps’ in the extinction record, meaning that coal reefs seem to be sensitive to episodes of higher volcanic activity, which also implies that the ocean’s chemistry is partly influenced by undersea volcanic activity. It is not clear however if these ‘coral reef gaps’ are due to higher temperatures, or higher levels of volcanism, or both.
And this too-
“If these additional ‘carbon-active’ volcanoes are included, the number of degassing peaks skyrockets to more than 500. Of which we’ve measured a grand total of nine percent. You can probably fill it in by now — we need to climb more mountains.”
90% of the degassing hasn’t even been MEASURED. I’ve wondered about this for a very long time, and read a lot, and what is going on UNDER our oceans is even more interesting. Deep smokers going 24/7, super heated water pouring into the oceans 24/7, magma “baking” the sediments and releasing the same things we release when we burn fossil/carbon/fuel into the water instead of the air, even pools of super critical CO2 in liquid form.
The research and actual data on volcanic out-gassing is SOOOOOOO pathetically ignored and sparse. Oceanic vulcanologist were STUNNED when they saw a deep floor volcano ERUPT into the water with as much force as one would on land! They thought the pressure would contain the blast. It did NOT.
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=83436&tid=3622&cid=44586&c=2
But people keep telling me that it amounts to practically nothing as far as the climate is concerned. I’m not believing that.
Jquip says:
November 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm
True, but it would be nice to know how representative the few measurements actually are. I presume there have been more since 2004, but that might be presuming too much.
Kevin Kilty says:
I’m surprised at how poorly the budgets for most volatiles, such as CO2, sulfur, and chlorine balance. One could probably conclude that there are widely distributed, low density, exhalations from the mantle that we fail to see when there are dramatic sources such as volcanoes, ocean ridges, and so forth to distract us.
For instance, where’d the commercial gas deposits containing mainly CO2 and helium come from?
= = = = = = =
Good question. Compare these two maps for a clue to the answer.
1) Oil fields, gas fields, and hydrocarbon seeps in California:
http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/seeps/images/image6.jpg
2) San Andreas fault:
http://geology.com/articles/images/san-andreas-fault-map.jpg
thingadonta says:
November 16, 2013 at 4:34 pm
Oceanographers Hillier & Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes, from which survey they concluded an astounding total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes must reasonably exist worldwide. They based this finding on the earlier, well-respected observations of Batiza (1982), who found that at least four per cent of seamounts are active volcanoes.
http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~tony/watts/downloads/HillierWatts2007GL029874.pdf
And what of the other greenhouse gasses that volcanoes belch? … and icehouse gasses like sulfur dioxide? Science estimators are a good source of random numbers.
Actually it’s more like 440 to 160 than 300/300 land/sea in the authors’ Table 6. Summary of measured volcanic CO2 fluxes and estimated global emissions (Mt/yr).
From the paper:
In recent years, measurements of CO2 flux from volcanoes and volcanic areas have
greatly increased, particularly on persistently degassing volcanoes, of which ~22% have had
their CO2 flux quantified. Notwithstanding this progress, it is clear that the CO2 emissions
from the majority of volcanic sources are still unknown. Using the available data from plume
measurements from 33 degassing volcanoes we determine a total CO2 flux of 59.7 Mt/yr.
Extrapolating this to ~150 active volcanoes produces a total of 271 Mt/yr CO2. Extrapolation
of the measured 6.4 Mt/yr of CO2 emitted from the flanks of 30 historically active volcanoes
to all 550 historically active volcanoes produces a global emission rate of 117 Mt/yr. Perez et
al. (2011) calculated the global emission from volcanic lakes to be 94 Mt/yr CO2. The sum of
these fluxes produces an updated estimate of the global subaerial volcanic CO2 flux of 474 Mt/
yr. Emissions from tectonic, hydrothermal and inactive volcanic areas contribute a further 66
Mt/yr to this total (Table 6), producing a total subaerial volcanic emission of 540 Mt/yr. An
extrapolation to a global estimate is not straightforward for tectonic-related degassing, as the
number of areas which produce such emissions is not known. Given the fact that ~10 Mt/yr is
produced by Italy alone it is possible that the global total is significant, and this merits further
investigation. We highlight also that the magnitude of CO2 emissions from both cold and hot
non-MOR submarine volcanic sources are currently effectively unknown.
One must wonder then how much CO2 is outgassed in places other than volcanos? For example there’s a fair bit of outgassing in Rotorua NZ does this count as a volcano?
Sun Spot says: November 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm
“Willis where do you get the number “on the order of 33 gigatonnes of CO2 ” for human emission’s ?
Now I have heard numbers for man made CO2 anywhere fro 9 to 33 gigatonnes , who is the central authority for this elusive number and how did they derive this number ?”
I think you’re mixing up numbers quoted in tons C and tons CO2. People often do, including, I think, this OP. Here is an estimate of 34 Gtonnes CO2 for 2011. These are basically economic statistics – mining and burning carbon is big business.
I think Willis’ 4% is high – 637/34000=1.9%
milodonharlani:
yes, that a lot of volcanos thanks.
Volcanos never seem to get much of a mention from the climate alarmists, despite the fact that they have much influence on earth history. Probably because they can’t control them.
Whatever else the Keeling curve shows, the (approximate) 1-ppm increase each year, from peak to peak, is less significant than the annual, natural, seasonal fluctuation of around 5 ppm. That fluctuation can only be a result of natural processes, and our knowledge of what those processes are is in its infancy. I’d say the jury is out on whether there are sufficient human contributions to cause what we humans are calling a “long-term increase”, which is pretty small relative to other eras.
bobl says:
November 16, 2013 at 4:58 pm
Good point about geothermal hot springs in volcanic mountain ranges, but not necessarily associated directly with a neighboring volcano.