Volcanic Explosive index.
Fig. 1

Climate Change and Volcanoes

by Lewis Loflin

Summary: Some claim that "global warming" (called climate change today) has "accelerated" since the early 1990s. They won't address the fact the rise has barely moved since around 1997-2000. They still insist the climate has warmed since the 1990s regardless of any 20 year "pause". It should have warmed and has nothing to do with the 0.04% of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Since around 1850 and the end of the Little Ice Age temperatures have risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2018 the UN position is a temperature increase by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Deg. F) will launch climate Armageddon. They now demand we cut meat consumption by 90% to stop methane emissions.

The only problem is the temperature that during the Eemian period 130,000 years ago and life flourished. There was little to no sea ice and polar bear ancestors did just fine.

There's a reason they continue to insist on the 1990s "dramatic warming" and refuse to include the 1980s: satellite data only goes back to 1979, thus they insist recent warming is the "highest on record", but fail to mention satellite data only goes back to 1979. That is a true statement while being a total lie.

Most Americans remember the Mount St. Helens Eruption from 1980 that played all kinds of economic havoc and produced a haze for several years. As far as a historic eruption Mount St. Helens is a minor event.

Two years later a more deadly eruption occurred with El Chichón in 1982 in Mexico - this was 7 times the ash and gases produced by Mt. St. Helens. Most important 7-10 million tons of sulfur oxides played havoc with the climate. This forms sulfuric acid aerosols that reflect sunlight dropping global temperatures by 1-2 degrees F. It takes several years or a decade or more for the system to completely clear the volcanic debris from the atmosphere.

From 1980 to 1991 excluding El Chichón there were 10 other eruptions adding millions of tons more ash and sulfuric aerosols to the mix. None of those were near the level of El Chichón, and as the air clears of ejection debris through rain and snow, temperatures should return to normal - the temperature will go back up in a short time.

In 1991 Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines killing almost 1000 people. This was described as the "largest stratospheric disturbance since Krakatoa eruption in 1883, dropping global temperatures and increasing ozone depletion."

VEI or "Volcanic Explosivity Index" is a measure of the explosive power of an eruption, but this isn't related as such to the amount of gases and ash produced. Mt. St Helens was a 5 and so was El Chichón. 1991 Mount Pinatubo was a 6 and also in 1991 Mount Hudson was a 5+.

The temperatures from the 1980s to 1991-2 would have been below normal and the temperatures should rebounded back a few degrees through the 1990s, this is normal.

This turned out the be the "acceleration" in "warming" since the early 1990s - they forgot to include volcanic eruptions in their climate models. There's been no significant "warming" since 1979 when this is added into the "climate models" that continue to fail to account for the real world, empirical data calls their claims into more politics.

In Fig. 1 is the Volcanic Explosive Index or VEI. A VEI of 6 is ten times more violent than a 5 etc. Looking at really climate altering and deadly eruptions, let's start with Laki in Iceland rated with a VEI of 4.

The system erupted violently over an eight-month period between June 1783 and February 1784 ... pouring out an estimated 42 billion tons 14 km3 (3.4 cu mi) of basalt lava and clouds of poisonous hydrofluoric acid and sulfur dioxide compounds ... The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in North Africa and India.

Just because an eruption or series of eruptions have a small VEI doesn't mean they don't cause havoc. Next came the largest eruption in recent history with Tambora in 1815.

Tambora - Dutch East-Indies - 1815 VEI = 7;
Krakatoa - Dutch East-Indies - 1883 VEI = 6;
Santa Maria - Guatemala - 1902 - VEI = 6;
Novarupta USA, Alaska - 1912 - VIE = 6;
Mt. St. Helens USA, Washington - 1980 - VEI = 5;
El Chichón Mexico - 1982 - VEI = 4–5;
Pinatubo Philippines - 1991 - VEI = 6.

Just because we have a large VEI doesn't mean we have a large climate disruption - Santa Maria in Guatemala is a good example. This also doesn't mean smaller eruptions at the same time won't skew the data.

Ref. Oppenheimer, Clive (2003). "Climatic, environmental and human consequences of the largest known historic eruption: Tambora volcano (Indonesia) 1815". Progress in Physical Geography. 27 (2): 230–259. and "Large Holocene Eruptions". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution. November 2006.

Interglacial cycles over the past 450,000 years.
Fig. 2 Glacial-Interglacial cycles over the past 450,000 years.

Other Factors

Cosmic rays for example, ionizing gas molecules in the upper atmosphere, is thought to reflect sunlight (insolation) contributing to climate variation (cooling) - this varies by the level of solar winds - more solar wind less cosmic rays more heating of the atmosphere. This complex relationship between solar winds, cosmic rays, volcanic eruptions, axial tilt, etc. all drive climate change making all computer models unreliable or at best speculation - the first permanent sea in the Arctic appeared 2.6 million years ago.

Fig. 2 shows the warming-cooling climate cycles over the past 450,000 years. Of particular interest is 130,000 to 118,000 years ago in what we call the Eemian Period where temperatures were 10 degrees Celsius warmer than today, glaciers outside Antarctica melted, and sea level was 60 feet higher than today - CO2 was under 300 PPM. Hippos and water buffalo roamed Germany and the planet was far greener and full of life.

Eemian era corals far above sea level today.
Fig. 3 Eemian era corals far above sea level today.

On many islands in the Caribbean Eemian period coral reefs are over 50 feet above the water line. Sea level has been rising for over 10,000 years and will continue to do so.

When the massive freeze hit the world and sea level fell 400 feet all of the world's corals died. CO2 levels dropped to 180 PPM - cold water dissolves CO2 while warm water liberates CO2, rainforests and forests in general suffered a massive die off due to CO2 starvation. These were replaced by grasslands and due to falling rainfall desert.

Today the little extra CO2 (it's not warmed in 20 years as of 2017) has created a "greening" and massive plant growth. See Earth Going Green Environmentalists in Denial.

To quote,

... the reconstruction of the climate of the Pliocene epoch (5.33–2.58 million years ago), an analogue of a future warmer Earth. Here we show that, in the Eurasian sector of the Arctic Ocean, ice-free conditions prevailed in the early Pliocene until sea ice expanded from the central Arctic Ocean for the first time ca. 4 million years ago ... sea ice expanded progressively in response to positive ice-albedo feedback mechanisms. Sea ice reached its modern winter maximum extension for the first time during the culmination of the Northern Hemisphere glaciation, ca. 2.6 million years ago.

Ref. "The emergence of modern sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean" Nature Communications Nov. 28, 2014.

They note these kinds of studies are "vital" to predict future climate change, in none of the above was CO2 shown to have contributed to either warming or cooling. Their "climate computer models" simply don't fit the past data and continue to fail to predict the future or present - they need to get beyond this obsession with humans and CO2 which is really about world governance and wealth redistribution.

Climate change is normal get over it.

More quotes with references:

Mount St. Helens 1980; death toll: 55-60; Most deadly and economically destructive volcanic eruption in the history of the United States. The eruption reached all the way to Montana but killed a small number of people and the blast of the volcano was heard 700 miles away.

Ref. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1201-05-&volpage=erupt&format=expanded#E1980327.

El Chichón 1982; death toll 3,500; Ejected 7-10 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.

El Chichón, also known as Chichonal, is an active volcano in Francisco León, north-western Chiapas, Mexico... It was a VEI-5 eruption, injecting 7 million metric tonnes of sulfur dioxide and 20 million metric tonnes total of particulate material into the stratosphere, which circulated the Earth in three weeks. The amount of sulfur dioxide is comparable to the 20 million tonnes of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Ref. Wired Science (2012) Looking Back at the 1982 eruption of El Chichon in Mexico. Available at: https://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/looking-back-at-the-1982-eruption-of-el-chichon-in-Mexico/ (Accessed: 08/10/2013). To quote,

However, the effects of this eruption were not limited to Mexico. El Chichón released a remarkable amount of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere - almost 7 to 10 million tons, or roughly seven times that of the equivalently sized St. Helens eruption. The andesite magma from El Chichón has about 2.6 weight percent SO3, many times more than most magmas...

The ash plumes from El Chichón added a large load of sulfur dioxide and particulates to the atmosphere that circled the globe in a few weeks. This material helped warm the stratosphere by 4°C and cool the north hemisphere by 0.4-0.6°C – one of the most significant cases of cooling in the past few centuries. It also lowered atmospheric transmission of sunlight to the surface significantly. The haze from the eruption reduced visibility to a few kilometers as far as 700 km from the volcano and produced vibrant sunsets around the world.

The high levels of sulfur was due to rocks in the region that have a high levels of sulfur bearing minerals. Magma after all is burned rock.

Mount Pinatubo 1991; death toll 847. Largest stratospheric disturbance since Krakatoa eruption in 1883, dropping global temperatures and increasing ozone depletion. Krakatoa played havoc with climate for most likely a decade that caused thousands of deaths at that time.

The effects once again are similar to El Chichón in 1982. Global temperatures dropped around 0.9 degrees F.

Ref. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0703-083&volpage=erupt&format=expanded#E199142

Climate Scientists Account for Volcanoes, Change Models Drastically

Posted on December 3, 2017 by True Pundit Staff

If you listen to climate alarmists, the statistics say the world is warming at an unprecedented rate, and it's all the fault of humans.

However, a new study by University of Alabama-Huntsville climate scientists found that studies used by other scientists made a glaring oversight: Their data didn't take into account volcanoes.

According to The Daily Caller, when scientists John Christy and Richard McNider re-calibrated satellite temperature data to remove the effects of naturally occurring volcanic eruptions, they found something stunning: The rate of global warming has been nearly unchanged in the last 30 years.

"We indicated 23 years ago - in our 1994 Nature article — that climate models had the atmosphere's sensitivity to CO2 much too high," Christy said in a statement. "This recent paper bolsters that conclusion."

Ref. http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/29/study-satellites-show-no-acceleration-in-global-warming-for-23-years/

Ref. https://truepundit.com/climate-scientists-account-for-volcanoes-change-models-drastically/

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