global warming and the vocano eruption.

[mrspask]

How significant or otherwise is the Iceland volcano eruption contribution to global warming and how does this compare to what ''Man'' does?

[jake-the-peg]

Volcanoes conntribute about 1% of the CO2 that humans do

[mushroom25]

interesting article here - http://www.geology.sd.../climate_effects.html

[Gromit]

The eruption in Iceland is a very tiny event in the scheme of volcanic activity. The examples of where there has been a noticable change in climate after an eruption have been after much larger eruptions.

The effects are much more tempoaray. Winters immediatey after a major eruption get colder because ash and pulverised rock particles in the atmosphere block sunlight to the ground below. However, rain, wind and gravity bring the material down to the earth's surfaces after a few months or a year or two.

Human greenhouse gas emissions stay in the atmosphere for decades, and trap the heat in rather than cooling.

[R1Geezer]

Not that I doubt your figures jake but that seems a very small amount when we take into account the many continous erruptions, like Hawaii and son of Krakatoa, the latter has built a new Island! Forghive me if I request the source of these figures.

[Booldawg]

I also read somewhere than man only has control of 2% of the worlds C02

[R1Geezer]

That's 4% booldawg, and not disputed generally.

[flobadob]

Statistics can be used to prove anything blahblahblah % of people know that.

[jake-the-peg]

The issue is not the contribution but the difference between the total amount that is released and the total amount absorbed.

About half of what we produce is absorbed so half of Geezers 4% doesn't sound much

But that's 2% this year and last and the year before that and the year before that.

The bathtub drains 2% less than it fills from the tap

You do the math

[Davethedog]

Natural CO2 emmisissons are far greater than man's if you take all of the man made co2 since the industrial revoloution doesn't it add up to less than 2% of all CO2

[jake-the-peg]

You're not getting this are you Dave

If "natural emmissions" adds up to x Billion Tonnes and the Earth than absorb that and an extra 2%

What are you going to do when we add an extra 4% ?

Sit back and blame volcanoes?

Say It's not my fault - I blame the planet?

[New Judge]

I cannot get too bogged down in this dispute, jake, as my previous experience tells me that it goes on ad infinitum.

However, I don't think it is argued that about 96% of emissions are from "natural" activities and the other 4% from human activities (though I would argue that human activity is natural as well, but no matter).

It seems from the arguments that are around that the earth can cope with variations in the 96% because they are somehow "absorbed", but it cannot cope with variations in the 4% because they are somehow not absorbed. If I have this right in my mind the earth's absorption mechanism is extremely cute in that it can discriminate between the two types of emissions.

It is clear that a small variation in the 96% will be far greater in absolute terms than a large variation in the 4%. But then I’m just a simple lad, and cannot understand how the variations in one type of emission (much larger in absolute terms) can be handled, but variations in the other (much smaller in absolute terms) cannot.