New Scientist reports:
Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that closed Europe’s airspace and stumped English-speaking newscasters trying to pronounce its name, is estimated to have emitted between 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a day. That’s less than the grounded flights would have emitted, making it the first carbon-negative volcano.
How do you pronounce that?
As readers of this blog, and viewers of the vids know, the often heard “Volcanoes release more CO2 than Humans ever could” is pure nonsense – as the US Geological Survey has made clear.
Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for some 36,300 million metric tons of CO2emissions in 2008 [Le Quéré et al., 2009], release at least a hundred times more CO2 annually than all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2010).
…..and deniers say that they emit many times more than humans. laughable.
A “fun fact” that is a bit depressing.
We are long overdue to find a renewable liquid fuel for aircraft (and other vehicles for which battery-electric technology is too bulky). I should write my congressman and ask for less money appropriated towards DARPA and more money towards ARPA-E, NREL, DOE grants, etc.