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)
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According to a Presentation of Prof. Murry Salby, a CO2 expert in Hamburg, Germany, on 18 April 2013 Anthropogenic CO2 emissions is 4% of the total CO2 budget The Ocean is responsible for 90 Gt/y, Land for 60Gt/y, totals 150 Gt/y, compensated by natural sinks, also 150Gt. The human Even a minor imbalance can overrule the human emissions. (0.36 minutes in the video): A must see for anyone who wants answers to the World’s CO2 budget past, present and a perfect analysis of the proxy record. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ROw_cDKwc0
Sorry, forgot to delete “The human” in the 4th line. Just watch the video.
I’ve been asking questions about volcanic CO2 for 15 years now. As usual, I’ve been laughed at by pompous gits of all kinds.
All I’ve got from AGW believers were furtive answers of “It’s negligible compared to human output” type, without any reliable experimental data. Very few people would honestly say “We don’t know.”
If one silent belch of a”dormant” volcano with a cold lake in it’s crater could kill off, overnight, an African village with an invisible cloud of CO2, if we see video records of volcanic fissure on ocean floors emitting streams of CO2 bubbles (huge ones) incessantly, for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years — and if no phenomena of this sort are taken into account by the pompous gits in the UN and government “scientific” institutions, what are they worth, all their theories?
I might as well repeat after Michelangelo: “If lies and vice triumph everywhere and all the time, what is it worth, God, the light of thy divine truth?”
So much that we are told about atmospheric CO2 is simply misleading or just lies. For example, one of the concerns about man-made global warming alarmism is that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for millennia, as stated in paragraph 31 of the Royal Society’s guide to the science of climate change (dated 30 September 2010) titled ‘Climate Change: A Summary of the Science’.
Many peer-reviewed studies, however, report that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for about 12 years, with the half-life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere being between five and ten years. A half-life of five years means that more than 98% of a substance will disappear in a time span of thirty years.
Consider this. If carbon dioxide really were to stay in the atmosphere for millennia, then why has its level in the atmosphere not doubled in the last fifteen years, or gone up tenfold-plus over the last one hundred years?
Nick Stokes says:
November 16, 2013 at 7:33 pm
R. de Haan says: November 16, 2013 at 7:26 pm
“Only the Central Apenine area = 1200 km2 x 4 -13,4 Mt CO2 per year per km2 = an average of 8,7 Mt per km2 x 1200 = 10.440 Mt of non volcano related Co2 Emissions per year.”
No, the Appenines are not emitting 10 Gtons of CO2/year. It nowhere says that 4-13.4 has units Mt/yr/km2. It says the units are Mt/yr. That’s the total for that site. 12000 is the area.
You really ought to try sanity checks here. Scientists do not announce major gas effluxes in a line in the middle of a table’.
Nick, thanks for correcting me.
I just posted a video from Prof. Murry Salby.
Approx. total annual Co2 emissions from the land area: 60 Gt/y, Total emissions Ocean: 90 Gt/y
Human emissions 5 Gt/y = 4% Total sinks approx 150 Gt/y.
The numbers without any doubt will be subject to further discussions as W has the human Co2 emissions on 33 Gt/y which is a difference of more than a factor 6 from Salby’s 5 Gt/y
The assumption that the volcanic CO2 flux, whatever its true value, is constant with time is unsubstantiated – we don’t have the data. There is no reason to believe it should be constant on decadal or multi-decadal timescales. We know that total global earthquake energy has multi-decadal periodicities and there is suggestion that total volcanic output does too (at least along subduction boundaries).
Alexander Feht says: November 16, 2013 at 8:30 pm
“All I’ve got from AGW believers were furtive answers of “It’s negligible compared to human output” type, without any reliable experimental data.”
Well, there’s plenty of experimental data in Burton’s paper linked here. But OK, suppose volcanoes were emitting 30 Gton/year CO2. Then they would have been doing that for millennia, maybe millions of years. Think through the implications.
After a million years, that’s 30 million Gtons. Huge. Where is it?
Not in the air or biosphere; maybe 7000 Gtons total.
Not in the sea – total 140,000 Gtons combined CO2 (all dissolved carbonates).
And of course, 30 million Gtons CO2 in the sea would be quite an acidification. Doesn’t seem to have happened.
As limestone? There’s 500,000 Gtons Ca in the ocean, not to mention a huge acid-base problem.
As other rock? Where are the cations? Base? But anyway, 30 Gtons CO2 is 60 gm/sq m over the whole Earth surface. Not so much, but after a million years, its 60 tons/sq m. That’s major geology.
Burton does actually look to see where his 600 Mtons/year might be going. And he’s reasonably about to account for it in the long term with rock formation etc, But not 50 times as much.
Tim Ball says:
November 16, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Thanks, Tim. Outgassing of CO2 through various cracks in the crust is definitely an issue for Mauna Loa as you say. However, I’m not sure what you call “manipulative adjustments” made by Keeling.
Keeling dealt with the question of spurious measurements by noting that the diffusive CO2 is emitted from and generally moves along the ground. Measurements are taken at night, when the winds blow downslope.
The CO2 measurements are taken simultaneously from high towers and at ground level. If there is a discrepancy, that indicates that the wind is blowing diffusive CO2 over the station, and the resulting measurements are not used. In general, however, this is not the case. In part this is because because the observatory is located on the NW slope, and the volcanic hotspot and the majority of the outgassing is on the SE slope.
I discussed all of this in my post called “Under the Volcano, Over the Volcano“. I commented on the Beck CO2 measurements, and was pleasantly surprised when Ernst Beck himself commented.
My best to you,
w.
All the oxygen in the atmosphere is former CO2 — just for starters.
Sun Spot says:
November 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm
Emissions are calculated by a variety of organizations, plus individual studies. My numbers are from CDIAC, the numbers from EIA are little different.
The answer to your question is that the 9 and the 33 measure different things. The 9 gigatonnes is the tonnage of carbon, C, emitted per year. The 33 Gtonnes is the tonnage of CO2.
Regards,
w.
Nick Stokes says:
November 16, 2013 at 4:58 pm
Thanks, Nick. The missing link is that I said that IF emissions were twice what the paper says, it would be 4% of human emissions …
w.
Alexander Feht says: November 16, 2013 at 10:14 pm
“All the oxygen in the atmosphere is former CO2 — just for starters.”
Well, that took hundreds of millions years. But 30 million Gt CO2, remember (over a million years). There’s only a million Gt oxygen in the atmosphere.
Nick Stokes,
Your inability to answer your own question proves only one thing: you don’t know the answer.
It doesn’t mean that the question itself is necessarily incorrect.
Considering the small incremental CO2 increase each year in relation to total CO2 flux, really any input is both significant and insignificant at the same time. It all depends on your point of view, doesn’t it ? Each annual increase is on the order of the volcanic contribution, isn’t it ? Murray Salby’s numbers tell us all we need to know.
In any case, since we don’t have any real accurate data for global CO2 sources and sinks, “What difference, at this point, does it make ?” In the long run, every ounce of coal, oil, natural gas, etc, as well as all carbonate rocks will eventually be recycled by plate tectonics even if not consumed by humans (tho, I bet we use it all).
Despite all this, it is important to emphasize that CO2, O2, and NH3 fractions in our atmosphere are controlled by life on earth (moderated by temperature and water), of which humans are only a small part.
Alexander Feht says: “If one silent belch of a ”dormant” volcano with a cold lake in its crater could kill off, overnight, an African village with an invisible cloud of CO2, if we see video records of volcanic fissure on ocean floors emitting streams of CO2 bubbles (huge ones) incessantly, for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years — and if no phenomena of this sort are taken into account by the pompous gits in the UN and government “scientific” institutions, what are they worth, all their theories?”
You’re referring to Lake Nyos, where the “carbon” capture is 100%…until the lake’s quasistable thermal strata are disturbed in any one spot, quickly turning the lake into a foaming, churning sea of deadly fizz-water. Lake Nyos emits approx. 10,000 tonnes per year of CO2, all by itself.
See: http://iceagenow.com/Three_Million_Underwater_Volcanoes.htm
If this is typical for the 3,000,000 undersea volcanoes, the total annual global emissions of volcanic CO2 amount to 30,000 million tonnes, nowhere near the paltry 600 million tonnes cited in the post.
Another link: http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Nyos.html
See also Schmid, Halbwachs, & Wuest (2006)
thingadonta says: “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.”
Or, more likely, because they don’t want anyone looking in that particular direction and seeing how badly we’ve been misled.
Briefly, re some of the comments here:
1. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions are published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) http://www.iea.org/media/freepublications/2012/CO2Highlights2012.xls
2. Atmospheric CO2 is similar at all llatitudes, the main differences being seasonal in the NH, and slightly lower average CO2 in the far S.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~jonas1@westnet.com.au/StationsCO2.jpg
Station Latitude
S Pole -90
Baring Head -41.4
Xmas Island 2
Kumukahi 19.5
La Jolia 32.9
Barrow 71
Data is published by Scripps, eg. Barrow is
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/flask_co2_and_isotopic/monthly_co2/monthly_ptb.csv
3. Ocean-Atmosphere CO2 imbalance has a half-life of about 13 years. That’s not the whole story, because there is a further delay while it goes through chemical changes in the ocean and/or is transported from surface layer to depth. It is unlikely that much would remain in the atmosphere after a few hundred years, ie. about when we finally run out of fossil fuel anyway.
It was always clear from the Big Numbers that Human Emissions were trivial in impact and amount by comparison with all others. This is filling in some of the detail and specifics.
You mention the 150 or so active volcanoes. You omit to mention the thousands of volcanoes on the ocean floors also emitting tons of carbon dioxide(see work of Professor Ian Plimer(Adelaide)
‘William Fox says:
November 16, 2013 at 2:33 pm
Not to mention the + 100.000 undersea volcanoes , as only 10 % of the deep seas are scanned this could be dtamaticly more.’
I guess the question there is what percentage of the gas from undersea volcanoes makes it out of the oceans and into the atmosphere??
Arno Arrak says:
November 16, 2013 at 7:35 pm
…….
Hi Arno
I agree with most of what you wrote, but here are couple of points.
Some of readers of this blog are familiar with my views on climate change, but if not googling my name + wuwt will provide ample evidence.
If CO2 has any effect it is minor and if evident anywhere it would be the Arctic Ocean.
Why ? you may ask.
Since tiny Iceland with 1% of world volcanoes produces 30% of the lava volume, perhaps it could be assumed and that similar proportion may apply to the production of CO2 volumes.
For a large part of the year A.O. is covered by ice sheet, so 6 months of the magmatic CO2 emission will be trapped under the ice. Once ice melts, the CO2 concentration in the Arctic atmosphere will increase to a much greater extent than in the rest of the world oceans.
If the CO2 back radiation has any effect anywhere (and I am not convinced that it does), its magnitude should be greatest in the Arctic in the summer months; if so then the GW is not anthropogenic AGW, but the terragemic or TGW.
So we’ve measured 33 of 150 smokers. I’ve always heard that when analyzing variable data that a sample size of 30 or more delivers a very good approximation of the population. The issue isn’t that we’ve only measured 33 and need to measure more, the issue is the the size of the population. Are there only 150 volcanoes that emit CO2?
here’s a good article on volcanoes and CO2
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
and here’s his account of Gerlach 1991
http://gerlach1991.geologist-1011.mobi/
“These inflating figures, I hasten to add, don’t mean that our planet is suddenly venting more CO2.”
It is known that volcanic activity increases during solar minimums. Increased volcanic activity during the little ice age is accepted historical fact. There is a graph somewhere of volcanic activity versus time and it is clear that volcanic maximums correlate with cold periods such as the Maunder minimum. It is reasonable to assume therefore that co2 out-gassing also increases during those periods, one of which we may be entering, so it is quite conceivable that our planet may be venting more co2.
Famous video of submarine volcanic bubbles of liquid (supercritical) CO2: