It’s talking about how those small-scale emissions indicate higher risk of super-volcanic eruption, which is the part of the topic of the third section of the article and is the implicit concern throughout the article.
There are two distinct categories of impacts: carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes (occurring presently) and supervolcano eruptions (rare even on geologic timescales but possible).
The comment chain I was responding to started with a quip about conservatives claiming that CO2 emissions are volcanic in nature. The follow-up discussion was about the relative magnitude of volcanic CO2 emissions occurring presently, including USGS figures on the magnitude of those emissions relative to anthropogenic sources. All of this discussion pertained to what is happening now.
You are making a separate point that a catastrophic supervolcano eruption would have much broader impacts. No one is disputing that. You could have a long-lasting volcanic winter, decrease in insolation and surface temperatures, widespread crop failures, etc. That’s all true. It’s also not relevant to the discussion of present impacts that was underway. Again, if a supervolcano eruption actually occurs in our lifetimes, global warming will be the least of our problems.
I understand what you’re saying. I’m just saying it’s relevant because the article and underlying research article are ultimately about increased volcanic activity at the site of a supervolcano. The purpose of their research was to establish what was underlying volcanic activity that might indicate an eruption from other cause of emissions.
Also, noting how destructive supervolcanoes would hypothetically be is relevant just because it’s crazy.
It’s talking about how those small-scale emissions indicate higher risk of super-volcanic eruption, which is the part of the topic of the third section of the article and is the implicit concern throughout the article.
In fact, the entire point of the article is to discuss how analyzing these emissions can be used to determine if it’s simply the “dissolution of calcite in the surrounding rocks” or if it is “traced back to underground magma,” allowing geologists to determine if volcanic activity and eruption risk is increasing. This data was used to raise the “warning level” of the area from green to yellow.
We’re talking past each other.
There are two distinct categories of impacts: carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes (occurring presently) and supervolcano eruptions (rare even on geologic timescales but possible).
The comment chain I was responding to started with a quip about conservatives claiming that CO2 emissions are volcanic in nature. The follow-up discussion was about the relative magnitude of volcanic CO2 emissions occurring presently, including USGS figures on the magnitude of those emissions relative to anthropogenic sources. All of this discussion pertained to what is happening now.
You are making a separate point that a catastrophic supervolcano eruption would have much broader impacts. No one is disputing that. You could have a long-lasting volcanic winter, decrease in insolation and surface temperatures, widespread crop failures, etc. That’s all true. It’s also not relevant to the discussion of present impacts that was underway. Again, if a supervolcano eruption actually occurs in our lifetimes, global warming will be the least of our problems.
I understand what you’re saying. I’m just saying it’s relevant because the article and underlying research article are ultimately about increased volcanic activity at the site of a supervolcano. The purpose of their research was to establish what was underlying volcanic activity that might indicate an eruption from other cause of emissions.
Also, noting how destructive supervolcanoes would hypothetically be is relevant just because it’s crazy.