For some reason this statement is commonly given as fact... as far as I can research the statement appears to be grossly inaccurate???

The CO2 output of volcanoes doesn't seem to come close to artificial output ... let alone exceed in a single year the entire CO2 output in all history by any "scale of magnitude".



"Volcanoes and Greenhouse Gases: Do Volcanoes Put Out as Much Carbon Dioxide as We Do?
Terry Gerlach, US Geological Survey, Cascades Volcano Observatory

The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most abundant gas (after water) emitted by volcanoes. Volcanologists estimate an annual global output of 200 million tons of volcanic CO2 per year. This natural source is balanced by natural processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere-specifically by the weathering of rock into soil by atmospheric CO2 dissolved in rain and surface waters.

By comparison, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation produce 130 times more CO2 than all the world's volcanoes put together (adding 26,000 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of 8,000 Kilaueas (Hawaii's most active volcano). This comparison suggests humans are producing CO2 at a rate unprecedented in a geological history stretching back many millions of years. Clearly, there is need to think seriously about the implications of human CO2 emissions and to consider how current energy policy and land use practices may impact our collective future."

http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/press/2001/pr284.htm "

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At Mount St Helens the maximum measured emission rate was 2.2X10^7 kg per day. The total amount of gas released during non-eruptive periods from the beginning of July to the end of October was 9.1X10^8 kg . I do not have an estimate for the volume of CO2 released during the Plinian eruptions. As a long-term average, volcanism produces about 5X10^11 kg of CO2 per year; that production, along with oceanic and terrestrial biomass cycling maintained a carbon dioxide reservoir in the atmosphere of about 2.2X10^15 kg. Current fossil fuel and land use practices now introduce about a (net) 17.6X10^12 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere and has resulted in a progressively increasing atmospheric reservoir of 2.69X10^15 kg of CO2. Hence, volcanism produces about 3% of the total CO2 with the other 97% coming from man-made sources. For more detail, see Morse and Mackenzie, 1990, Geochemistry of Sedimentary Carbonates.

Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii Steve Mattox, University of North Dakota "

Ok, so if it's the highest now that it's been in 800k years, what made it so high 800k years ago? Who got the blame when the last ice age ended? Who's gonna get blamed when the sun's becoming a red giant boils away our oceans and the moon's orbit, which grows a few inches per year, ruins our tides and floods the Earth? Whose political football will that one become?

Rick, are you making a point here?

Repeatedly statements are made in this forum without any or very little knowledge of the subject at hand. An example is questions on the veracity of the age of man or of the earth, universe, etc., which are good to have. BUT!

How much study and research have you applied before making a judgment as to the validity of any scientific answer? How much understanding of current physics, chemistry, geology, anthropology, etc. do you possess? Why do you think you can rationally question what you do not have any knowledge of or only limited knowledge of? Opinions are mostly emotional judgments made without collaborating evidence. Science does not work that way. Opinions or guesses must pass peer review and have empirical evidence to stand up to scrutiny.

The current accepted figures or theory will change if new evidence is discovered. This is often used as a criticism of science; this is a specious argument at best. Only science learns, other thought systems are static and dogmatic, with no ability for change.

If you are basing your knowledge on TV news or newspapers, and most common magazines, then you are reading entertainment not science. The answers are out there for any with the drive to learn.

Well, don't you kinda wonder what made things so bad 800k yrs. ago, if that's the last time the air was as bad as it is now? Doesn't it sound kinda silly and arbitrary when someone throws a number out like that? And don't the other tidbits about our solar system render all our whining about global warming moot?

RPKSQ, I don't pretend to know a lot abot this stuff, but I do read Carl Sagan's stuff and have more than a passing interest in the history of the universe. The entire time humans have ruled the Earth is but a blink of an eye in the entire history of the Earth, let alone the universe. So I don't get too excited when people scream the sky is falling. Someday a comet or astroid will hit us and render all this bickering totally moot and that's a 100% guarantee.

Rick, the article does not say that 800,000 years ago the CO2 level was as high as it is now.

As for your parade of cosmic horribles - yes, someday an asteroid or orbital decay or the dying sun will threaten and possibly extinguish humankind.

And I would expect us to be fighting extinction with every bit of brain and will and ingenuity we have, right up to the last minute.

If humankind is sitting around saying, hey, we had our blink of an eye, so let's not get excited, everyone hold hands and buy another SUV - that will truly be shameful.

And if we are indeed being stupid and selfish enough to hasten our own end, well, that's truly pathetic.

Jyl, exploring space is the only workable solution to our long-term doom and most folks can't even think about the next election coming up in two mos., much less bring themselves to support a NASA mission to Mars, which will take many years of planning and many billions of $$.

Just because we don't currently have a solution to the medium-term and long-term dooms (asteroid collision in 2,000 years, dying sun in many millions of years, etc) doesn't mean we should ignore, accept, or even hasten along the short-term doom (possible disruptive climate change within the next 50, 100, or 200 years).

After all, in 40 to 60 years, you will personally die of old age. Doesn't mean you don't care about what happens 10 years from now.

Of course, I care what happens 10 yrs. from now, since there's a good chance I'll live to see it. I just try to never lose sight of the fact that all of humankind is but a brief moment in the big picture and my own life, no matter how significant to family and friends, is really nothing more than a speck of space dust, smaller than a grain of sand in all the Earth's deserts. Humans, Americans especially, are incredibly arrogant in thinking we're the only ones out there and control everything. We are far less significant than we deem ourselves.

Certainly possible. Some scientist wants attention, some environment group wants donations.

But the motives for denying climate change are not ulterior at all, they are perfectly obvious.

Industry profits from CO2 generating activities and are intensely motivated to deny, confuse, mislead, and block discussion of climate change. Much like the tobacco industry spent decades denying the link between smoking and death. And industry currently has a federal government stuffed full of its loyal representatives, bougth and paid for.

I think billions of dollars in industry profits are a much more suspect "motive" than academic recognition or some grassroots fundraising.

If some of the things I have been reading are correct, climate change could be disrupting our lives in a significant way within a relatively short time.

Not 1 year or 10 years, but perhaps 20 years and probably 40 years.

20 years out is important. My kids will be young adults. 40 years is important. My grandkids will be adults.

I don't think one has to be arrogant to care about what happens over the coming 20, 40 or 100 years.

I agree there are plenty of people for whom the universe might as well be crumpled up and tossed away end after they die, since they personally are the end all and be all of everything.

Those people seem like the arrogant ones to me.