Which produces more CO2, volcanic or human activity?
Don't try this trick at home, but if we took Kilauea and collected the lava that it erupted, just during the
time it took you to read this sentence, there would be enough material to fill the gas tanks of about 1,000
Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs.) And though Kilauea is a medium-to-small-sized volcano, it has been
discharging lava nearly continuously at this rate for the past 24 years.
Demonstrations like this one, or catastrophic eruptions like those of Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo,
understandably cause people to sometimes think that human-caused effects on the biosphere are small
compared to volcanic ones. What is the influence of volcanic gas emissions on the atmosphere and do
these emissions dwarf those from human activity. It's a fact that Kilauea has been releasing more than
twice the amount of noxious sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) as the single dirtiest power plant on the U.S.
mainland.
So it's also understandable that, with the emerging report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IGCC), some people want to understand how volcanoes might factor into the rise in greenhouse
gas concentrations-specifically carbon dioxide (CO2)-that is being reported worldwide. The changes in
global CO2 concentration during the past 600,000 years have mimicked the changes in global temperature.
And, after all, volcanoes are awesome natural forces that release lots of carbon dioxide (CO2) right?
Could volcanoes be a significant global-warming villain?
For numerous reasons, volcanologists have been interested in CO2 release from volcanoes for years and
have been working to improve estimates on the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere and oceans by
volcanic processes.
Carbon dioxide is released when magma rises from the depths of the Earth on its way to the surface.
Studies at Kilauea show that the eruption discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into
the atmosphere each day. Actively erupting volcanoes release much more CO2 than sleeping ones do.
1) Find the average daily CO2 discharge from Kilauea.
2) Find the annual discharge of CO2 from Kilauea.
Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO2 budget in
the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO2 is released by
human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Studies show that combined globally, volcanoes on
land and under the sea release about 30 times what Kilauea releases.
3) Calculate the total annual CO2 emissions from all volcanoes.
This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information
Analysis Center (CDIAC) puts the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. The global fossil fuel CO2
emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes.
4) Calculate the percentage of CO2 added to the atmosphere each year that comes from volcanoes.
A short time ago (geologically speaking) the question "Which produces more CO2, volcanic or human
activity?" would have been answered differently. Volcanoes would have tipped the scale. Now, human
presence, activity, and the resultant production of CO2, through the burning of fossil fuels, have all
climbed at an ever-increasing rate. On the other hand, looking back through the comparatively short
duration of human history, volcanic activity has, with a few notable disturbances, remained relatively
steady.
Volcanoes are still awesome, even though they don't produce CO2 at a rate that swamps the human
signature, contributing to global warming. In fact, spectacular eruptions like that of Mount Pinatubo are
demonstrated to contribute to global cooling through the injection of solar energy reflecting ash and other
small particles.
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The top 15 energy producing States in the U.S. produce more carbon emission than the entire
country of Russia
Three Pacific Northwest States (California, Washington, and Oregon) produce more carbon
emissions than all of Canada.
Midwestern States (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa) produce carbon
emissions comparable to Japan.
New York and New Jersey's carbon emissions are greater than the entire Continent of Australia.
Florida and Georgia produce more carbon emissions than Mexico
A graphic representation of how the generation of carbon dioxide in the United States compares with the
rest of the world is shown here.
5. How do carbon emissions in the U.S. compare to those in the United States?
6. The United States has a population of around 300 million, while China has a population of around 1.3
billion. What does this mean for how individual people in each country produce carbon?