(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: CO2 levels are recorded on top of Mauna Loa ... a volcano! No wonder the levels are so high.
(image courtesty of Global Warming Art)
Answer: Yes, it's true, Mauna Loa is an active volcano. In fact it's the biggest volcano on earth! So, should we suppose that Charles Keeling didn't know that?
Well, no, he did know it. And using subtle scientific indicators like "wind direction," he was even able to ensure that his readings were not contaminated by any out-gassing when it was occurring. OK, to be fair, it is not really always that simple; out-gassed CO2 can be carried far away on a favorable wind, only to return much later on an ill one. But really, these are clever people, these scientists, and while mistakes are made, they are not usually such simple ones.
A quick look at the actual levels recorded makes it pretty hard to believe there is any volcanic influence. We have a nice, slow, steady trend with a regular up and down seasonal variation. No spikes, no dips. Nothing random, as one would expect from an overwhelming volcanic influence. The record is here among other places.
But, OK, let's throw out Mauna Loa. There are dozens of other sampling stations scattered all over the globe, including one in the Antarctic, far from cities, SUVs, cement plants, and active volcanoes. It also shows the same rise [PDF], though the southern hemisphere tends to lag a few years behind the northern hemisphere, where the majority of the CO2 is produced. Here are eight others -- same results.
Sorry, its all of us Joes, not the volcanoes.
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Comments View as Flat
MarchDancer Posted 6:00 pm
28 Oct 2006
Hooray It's Mauna Loa! Not.
Ah, and I was all set to apologize to all of my acquaintances who need to convince me that there is not a global warming occurrence. Maybe I'll just satisfy myself and dress as Bush in a suit of cabbage all wilted with a bright sun over my head and my hand wiping my brow. A carried sign somewhere of, "Too hot for us!" We really are doing this - grandkids want to be strawberries 'cause they like them best of my garden.
Borrow away, improve at will. After all, it's just for fun. Isn't it?
In Peace, Harmony and Unity may we find ways to work together to meet our common goal - the health of our earthly Home.
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k8tea Posted 9:39 am
16 Apr 2007
volcanoes
Just wanted to make a correction (well I guess you could call it an update) that was cited on Gristmill's how to argue with skeptics. Perhaps it was a modest mistake, but research is key when making an argument. It says,
"But, OK, let's throw out Mauna Loa. There are dozens of other sampling stations scattered all over the globe, including one in the Antarctic, far from cities, SUVs, cement plants, and active volcanoes. It also shows the same rise [PDF], though the southern hemisphere tends to lag a few years behind the northern hemisphere, where the majority of the CO2 is produced. Here are eight others -- same results. "
There have been active underwater valcanoes found in the artic ocean, on Greenland, Atlantic Ocean, and on Antartica.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060727180622 ... and
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/05/040527235943 ...
"The international science team from the United States and Canada mapped and sampled the ocean floor and collected video and data that indicate a major volcano exists on the Antarctic continental shelf, they announced on May 5 in a dispatch from the research vessel Laurence M. Gould, which is operated by the National Science Foundation (NSF)... Domack said the volcano lies in an area known as Antarctic Sound, at the northernmost tip of Antarctica. He noted that there has been 'no previous scientific record of active volcanoes in the region' where the new peak was discovered and that it is north of an existing boundary where volcanic activity is known to occur in the region. "
and
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725133.800
"The two vent fields are located at latitude 71 degrees north on Mohns Ridge, between Iceland and the island of Spitsbergen. Lying between 500 and 700 metres beneath the surface, they are shallow for vents, says Rolf Pedersen, a marine geologist from the University of Bergen, Norway, whose team has been exploring the area since 1999.
Using methane sensors and a robotic submarine, Pedersen's team found around 50 chimney vents and recorded temperatures of over 250 °C. Then the sensor melted."
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4861170.stm
"Researchers have found traces of a heat-loving bacterium that may live beneath a frozen lake in Antarctica. ... The bacteria appeared in sediment mixed with a core of ice drilled by Russian and French researchers.
The heat-loving, or thermophilic, bacterium may suggest that hydrothermal vents exist on the lake floor.
Meanwhile, a new ice core drilled this season may reveal whether there is also life in the lake itself. In the sediment, the team found genetic traces of a bacterium that usually lives in temperatures of 50-60C.
'We expected to find life adapted to a cold environment but instead we found exactly the opposite,' said Jean-Robert Petit of the Laboratory of Glaciology and Geophysics of the Environment in Grenoble, France."
and
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/ap_051205_hot_spring ...
"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Scientists exploring the world's sea floor have discovered new super-hot, mineral-rich geysers belching from the southern Atlantic, Arctic and Indian oceans. "
and
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/051123_island_g ...
"Smellie studies Antarctic rock formations to find out how ancient eruptions affected the growth and retreat of ice sheets over the past 30 million years. The research helps climate scientists put modern atmospheric changes into perspective and predict future climate change.
"This opportunity to monitor a live eruption and see how it affects ice cover is priceless," he said.
Researchers thought volcanic activity on Montagu Island, which started in 2001, was winding down. This is the first eruption on the island to be observed as it occurs.
The South Sandwich Island chain is an arc of 11 volcanoes 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers) from the Antarctic continent. This remoteness means they are relatively pristine, unaffected by continental contamination."
I'll stop here to give everyone a rest. hehehe
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Mad Scientist Posted 2:39 pm
30 May 2007
Mauna Loa is the biggest volcano?
Why do you say it is the biggest volcano?
It is certainly not the highest (for example, look at Popocatepetl). Nor has it provided the largest explosive eruptions in written history (Tambora, Krakatoa, and more recently Pinatubo). It may seem off topic, but you can't expect people to believe all the climate stuff when you throw in incorrect statements such as this one on Mauna Loa.
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Tailspin Posted 9:18 pm
30 May 2007
Think it over
Mad Scientist,
The Hawaiin volcano's rise from the sea bed, and are far higher than any land volcano.
They have pumped out enough lava to get from the very deep ocean floor to well above it now, without going boom.
A big boom does not necessarily mean it's the biggest volcano.
Perhaps you should check your facts before writing a piece.
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Coby Beck Posted 4:27 am
31 May 2007
re: Mauna Loa biggest?
Mad Scientist,
As Tailspin noted Mauna Loa starts far far lower than does Popocatepetl and in fact is even larger than Mt Everest (which BTW, though highest is not the largest mountain in the world)
Read this:
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcano-tours/faq/largest ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_McKinley
Does that help restore some trust?
"What if this weren't a hypothetical question?" -- unknown
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ataremove Posted 5:41 am
31 May 2007
volcanic content
I've had some education in Geology. I found it interesting that there are basically two types of magma - Granite and Basalt.
Granite is less dense and melts at a higher temperature than Basalt. The volcanoes with granitic magma tend to go boom, while those with basaltic magma tend to just pump out lava.
Krakatoa went Boom, while Mt. Etna in Sicily just keeps pumping out the lava. There are other factors involved that affect what a volcano does when it erupts - like what all gets dragged down in a subduction zone that feeds a volcano.
Content in context. Run that thru the gristmill between your ears.
at a remove
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Mad Scientist Posted 12:16 pm
02 Jun 2007
[OT] biggest volcano
Fair enough... my mistake. But is certainly isn't clear from the original post why it was claimed that Mauna Loa was the biggest. Normal joes think of the altitude of the summit or, in the case of a volcano, the size of a bang.
I'd prefer the HVO site to 'wikipedia' though:
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/maunaloa/
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ajajac Posted 4:53 pm
18 Nov 2007
local effects
There are two obvious Mauna Loa volcanic events within the period displayed on the graph; the eruptions of 1975 and 1984. The latter was much the bigger of the two (resurfacing something like 50 square kilometers of the island) and was preceded by about two years of earthquakes and summit inflation. Neither of these events produces any action in the graph.
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