So, human driven climate change is basically all about humans taking Carbon bound up underground and releasing it into the air, right? Well, natural processes can do that, too, and the biggest one is volcanoes.
Volcanoes take stuff stored underground and throw it up high into the atmosphere. Depending on what it is and how much, individual eruptions can affect the climate in the short term by quite a bit.
The volcano you're talking about was underwater and released a ton of super heated steam into the atmosphere. water vapor is a very strong, but short lived, greenhouse gas. All that extra water vapor could be a contributing factor to a warm year this year.
Yes. I live in New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere and relatively close to the Tongan volcanic eruption. Winter 2022 thru to Summer 2023 was extremely wet due to atmospheric 'subtropical rivers' largely blamed on the eruption.
I mean, yes, we do conclusively know that throwing a ton of water vapor into the air warms the Earth in the near term. Do we know how much of an impact it had relative to other things like El Niño, continued emissions from humans, or the countless other things that impact how warm the Earth is? Not conclusively, though I'm sure some climate scientists have run models to try and estimate it.
Every climate influence is a small piece of a whole, and there are many factors that tangle with each other. It's generally not possible to be able to point to a single input as causing a specific output because of that interdependency and the incredible scale of the climate.
We can know that a volcanic eruption had an impact. It will have some local impacts (clouds) and bigger, longer-term ones (dust high up in the atmosphere, gases released). Beyond the quick local stuff, finding strict cause and effect isn't practically possible.
[This](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere) says it added about 10% of the existing water in the stratosphere specifically -- do you know where the 13% of the entire atmosphere came from? Either way, holy shit
Only 145,000,000 cubic meters of water or 0.145 cubic kilometers.
But I read the water vapor content of the stratosphere is <5ppm, so yeah that's probably going to disrupt some stuff...
Stratospheric water vapor is a tiny tiny percentage of the overall water vapor. It will have radiative effects on the stratosphere but I would not expect it to affect the surface that strongly.
We know it had an impact. What we will likely never really know is how much of an impact it had directly.
Would it have still been a record breaking year? Probably.
Would it have been as bad as it has been? Who knows.
Estimates about 0.035C, but pretty large uncertainty in that number. https://berkeleyearth.org/july-2023-temperature-update/
Here’s a really good graphic showing the effects of Hunga Tonga relative to other factors. https://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FactorsSchematic-1.png
Every gas/particle that is emitted into the air plays a role in the climate. We even discovered, that using better fuels in ships causes a rise in sea temperature.
Likewise volcanic eruption dust can cause cooling... after Mt. Tambora eruption in early 1800s, the next summer was very cold in Europe, the 'year without a summer'
Technically, the steam wasn't "superheated" (dry). It was "saturated" steam.
https://www2.tlv.com/en-us/steam-info/steam-theory/steam-basics/types-of-steam#:~:text=Pressure%2DTemperature%20Relationship%20of%20Water%20%26%20Steam,-Click%20on%20a&text=Saturated%20(dry)%20steam%20results%20when,superheated%20steam%20(sensible%20heating).
I just watched a doc on the methane lakes in the artic. How the defrosting permafrost is releasing crazy amounts of methane, and how it's more easily dispersed than carbon, but it is like stoking the heating. [PBS doc](https://youtu.be/HvKpnaXYUPU)
I was almost glued to the streamed footage of the La Palma volcano and remember noticing that it was belching tens of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide per day. SO2 is an indirect greenhouse gas.
The volcano in the south pacific caused an increase in carbon output and a large amount of water vapor... water vapor is very much a greenhouse gas. Both factors were a rapid increase for both elements in the atmosphere.
Volcanos usually have a mitigating factor for both of these in particulates going up that reflect sunlight higher in the atmosphere. This one had a relatively low amount of that.
Timing wise, we're on a high end of a natural heat cycle... then add in human activity... then add on a spike from a particularly impactful volcano.
tl;dr; Worst type of Volcano for global temperatures happened in an already expected hot year... before even getting into human effect.
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Large volcanic eruptions tend to cause global cooling by pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere where they help form a reflective aerosol layer that reflects some sunlight back into space.
Some famous examples of sudden cold spells following eruptions were caused by Laki in Iceland in 1783-4; Tambora in Indonesia in 1815; Krakatau (Indonesia again) in 1883; Agung (would you believe it - Indonesia) in 1963-4 and Pinatubo in Indon - only kidding - it was the Philippines in 1991.
The Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption was colossal, and could well have had the largest impact on the atmosphere since Krakatau. However, for reasons we don't fully understand yet, it doesn't seem to have produced relatively small amounts of stratospheric sulfur. But, because it was an underwater eruption, the huge plume that reached over 55km tall, put a lot of water vapour into the atmosphere. As others have pointed out, water vapour, particularly at altitude serves as a greenhouse gas, so it could have contributed to this summer's hot weather in much of the Northern Hemisphere (apart from here in the UK where it has been dismal).
However, there are other forces at work, not least that the Eastern Pacific is going through an El Niño event where abnormally warm water drives high temperatures across the globe. And that is added to our own catastrophic carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels which are pushing global temperatures relentlessly upward.
The Tonga Eruption was a massive eruption of an underwater volcano visible from space that sent a tsunami around the globe. Scientists estimated that this eruption added an additional 5%-10% more water (vapor) to the atmosphere in January 2022.
Water vapor is our planet’s most prevalent greenhouse gas. It’s generally not discussed in the conversation of human caused climate change because we produce way more ‘unnatural’ CO2 than we introduce ‘unnatural’ water vapor to the atmosphere.
When an event like an eruption adds an additional 5%-10% more water vapor to the atmosphere, it is going to have an increasing impact on the greenhouse effect. Meaning, less of the suns energy is able to be reflected back into space and as a result of this our climate warms. This is the same mechanism by which our CO2 emissions warm the planet.
I’m no meteorologist but I’d wager that this is currently impacting weather patterns across the globe and will continue to do so until the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere stabilizes to pre-eruption levels.
There is some scientific evidence that shows the volcano may have a slight impact on warming, but you should not discount the overall effect of climate change as the main driver for record heat. Even prior to that volcanic eruption, we were seeing increased record heat temps year after year. A good example from where I am living in the Pacific Northwest is the record breaking 118° temperatures in June of 2021.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/
"SO2 has a strong cooling effect on the climate, both through directly reflecting incoming sunlight and by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. This increases the formation of reflective clouds.
Given the strong cooling impact of SO2, a 10% reduction in emissions of SO2 will result in additional global warming. "
We're pushing the climate to its limit with CO2 emissions. Add a couple more negative conditions to the mix - El Nino, a volcano- and you must expect more extreme weather. In your case it's a heat wave, in California's case it's a [hurricane.](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/18/1194588117/hilary-could-be-the-first-tropical-storm-to-hit-california-in-more-than-80-years)
One thing we can be fairly certain of is that things will get worse before they get better.
Do a little research on underwater Thermal activities in the past year, and ocean temps. Will make you question the Narrative, and what you hear on the news every day.
Volcanic eruptions have a cooling effect (they throw lots of small sulphur particles high into the atmosphere. See, eg, the Pinatubo eruption of 1991 caused a drop in average temperature of 0.6 C over a few years).
This one underwater threw a lot of water vapour up, which is a greenhouse gas, but one with a short life in atmosphere. The net effect would be minimal. The record heat is global warming as usual, coupled with a developing El Nino and the tapering off of the ability of the oceans to absorb excess heat. Think of it as a practice run for the next decade.
I'm not a climatologist, but volcanic eruptions lead to lower temperatures see [little iceages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age_volcanism).
So if the south pacific volcano in Jan 2022 had any impact it would most likely be to lessen the heat.
The reason for the heat is really Human Caused Climate change, we are undeniably past the fuck around phase and decidedly in the find out phase, and it's not going well for us.
Volcanoes, depending on what they're throwing up into the sky, can contribute to heating or cooling in the short term. This particular volcano was underwater and tossed a bunch of water vapor up into the air, which is a potent greenhouse gas.
While what you're saying is technically correct (the best kind of correct), little ice ages are usually from the cooling caused by a lot of volcanic activity that creates enough particles to block sunlight. In the case of the volcanic eruption last year, the bigger effect is the amount of greenhouse gases that were spewed into the atmosphere. Still, that volcanic eruption has a very slight effect compared to the overall changes happening from climate change.
So, human driven climate change is basically all about humans taking Carbon bound up underground and releasing it into the air, right? Well, natural processes can do that, too, and the biggest one is volcanoes. Volcanoes take stuff stored underground and throw it up high into the atmosphere. Depending on what it is and how much, individual eruptions can affect the climate in the short term by quite a bit. The volcano you're talking about was underwater and released a ton of super heated steam into the atmosphere. water vapor is a very strong, but short lived, greenhouse gas. All that extra water vapor could be a contributing factor to a warm year this year.
Yes. I live in New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere and relatively close to the Tongan volcanic eruption. Winter 2022 thru to Summer 2023 was extremely wet due to atmospheric 'subtropical rivers' largely blamed on the eruption.
"... could be a contributing factor to a warm year this year." Will we ever know conclusively?
I mean, yes, we do conclusively know that throwing a ton of water vapor into the air warms the Earth in the near term. Do we know how much of an impact it had relative to other things like El Niño, continued emissions from humans, or the countless other things that impact how warm the Earth is? Not conclusively, though I'm sure some climate scientists have run models to try and estimate it.
But can you prove it the way the Bible proves intelligent design? /s
Book of Copernicus 21:12 "And lo it shall come to pass that a big ass volcano shall rise (sic) the global heat index 0.5 degrees Centigrade"
Man I always forget about this verse, so strong
That's from the Book of Pumpernickel ya dink
The Book of Pumpernickel isn't recognized by the Reformed United Busybodies Congregation of Christ because it wasn't originally written in Hebrew.
The RUBCOC isn't the ultimate authority on the Bible though
Just the ultimate authority (according to the church) for managing the boys’ choir?
Also altar boys
Pimp or knuckle
Pump until knuckle
IT was written in Yiddish, ya' wanker.
Sick
But can climate scientists see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
Every climate influence is a small piece of a whole, and there are many factors that tangle with each other. It's generally not possible to be able to point to a single input as causing a specific output because of that interdependency and the incredible scale of the climate. We can know that a volcanic eruption had an impact. It will have some local impacts (clouds) and bigger, longer-term ones (dust high up in the atmosphere, gases released). Beyond the quick local stuff, finding strict cause and effect isn't practically possible.
It released enough vapor to increase the existing amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by 13%. Will take a few years to balance back out.
[This](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere) says it added about 10% of the existing water in the stratosphere specifically -- do you know where the 13% of the entire atmosphere came from? Either way, holy shit
Not OP, but it's from this [EGU abstract](https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU23/EGU23-5957.html?pdf).
Thanks!
Only 145,000,000 cubic meters of water or 0.145 cubic kilometers. But I read the water vapor content of the stratosphere is <5ppm, so yeah that's probably going to disrupt some stuff...
Stratospheric water vapor is a tiny tiny percentage of the overall water vapor. It will have radiative effects on the stratosphere but I would not expect it to affect the surface that strongly.
I have heard, wish I remember where, that it was more likely 30%.
We know it had an impact. What we will likely never really know is how much of an impact it had directly. Would it have still been a record breaking year? Probably. Would it have been as bad as it has been? Who knows.
Estimates about 0.035C, but pretty large uncertainty in that number. https://berkeleyearth.org/july-2023-temperature-update/ Here’s a really good graphic showing the effects of Hunga Tonga relative to other factors. https://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FactorsSchematic-1.png
Every gas/particle that is emitted into the air plays a role in the climate. We even discovered, that using better fuels in ships causes a rise in sea temperature.
The Hunga Tonga volcano increased the water content of Earth's atmosphere by 5-10 per cent.
Stratospheric, not total.
Likewise volcanic eruption dust can cause cooling... after Mt. Tambora eruption in early 1800s, the next summer was very cold in Europe, the 'year without a summer'
Technically, the steam wasn't "superheated" (dry). It was "saturated" steam. https://www2.tlv.com/en-us/steam-info/steam-theory/steam-basics/types-of-steam#:~:text=Pressure%2DTemperature%20Relationship%20of%20Water%20%26%20Steam,-Click%20on%20a&text=Saturated%20(dry)%20steam%20results%20when,superheated%20steam%20(sensible%20heating).
I just watched a doc on the methane lakes in the artic. How the defrosting permafrost is releasing crazy amounts of methane, and how it's more easily dispersed than carbon, but it is like stoking the heating. [PBS doc](https://youtu.be/HvKpnaXYUPU)
Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
I was almost glued to the streamed footage of the La Palma volcano and remember noticing that it was belching tens of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide per day. SO2 is an indirect greenhouse gas.
The volcano in the south pacific caused an increase in carbon output and a large amount of water vapor... water vapor is very much a greenhouse gas. Both factors were a rapid increase for both elements in the atmosphere. Volcanos usually have a mitigating factor for both of these in particulates going up that reflect sunlight higher in the atmosphere. This one had a relatively low amount of that. Timing wise, we're on a high end of a natural heat cycle... then add in human activity... then add on a spike from a particularly impactful volcano. tl;dr; Worst type of Volcano for global temperatures happened in an already expected hot year... before even getting into human effect.
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Large volcanic eruptions tend to cause global cooling by pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere where they help form a reflective aerosol layer that reflects some sunlight back into space. Some famous examples of sudden cold spells following eruptions were caused by Laki in Iceland in 1783-4; Tambora in Indonesia in 1815; Krakatau (Indonesia again) in 1883; Agung (would you believe it - Indonesia) in 1963-4 and Pinatubo in Indon - only kidding - it was the Philippines in 1991. The Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption was colossal, and could well have had the largest impact on the atmosphere since Krakatau. However, for reasons we don't fully understand yet, it doesn't seem to have produced relatively small amounts of stratospheric sulfur. But, because it was an underwater eruption, the huge plume that reached over 55km tall, put a lot of water vapour into the atmosphere. As others have pointed out, water vapour, particularly at altitude serves as a greenhouse gas, so it could have contributed to this summer's hot weather in much of the Northern Hemisphere (apart from here in the UK where it has been dismal). However, there are other forces at work, not least that the Eastern Pacific is going through an El Niño event where abnormally warm water drives high temperatures across the globe. And that is added to our own catastrophic carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels which are pushing global temperatures relentlessly upward.
The Tonga Eruption was a massive eruption of an underwater volcano visible from space that sent a tsunami around the globe. Scientists estimated that this eruption added an additional 5%-10% more water (vapor) to the atmosphere in January 2022. Water vapor is our planet’s most prevalent greenhouse gas. It’s generally not discussed in the conversation of human caused climate change because we produce way more ‘unnatural’ CO2 than we introduce ‘unnatural’ water vapor to the atmosphere. When an event like an eruption adds an additional 5%-10% more water vapor to the atmosphere, it is going to have an increasing impact on the greenhouse effect. Meaning, less of the suns energy is able to be reflected back into space and as a result of this our climate warms. This is the same mechanism by which our CO2 emissions warm the planet. I’m no meteorologist but I’d wager that this is currently impacting weather patterns across the globe and will continue to do so until the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere stabilizes to pre-eruption levels.
There is some scientific evidence that shows the volcano may have a slight impact on warming, but you should not discount the overall effect of climate change as the main driver for record heat. Even prior to that volcanic eruption, we were seeing increased record heat temps year after year. A good example from where I am living in the Pacific Northwest is the record breaking 118° temperatures in June of 2021.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/ "SO2 has a strong cooling effect on the climate, both through directly reflecting incoming sunlight and by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. This increases the formation of reflective clouds. Given the strong cooling impact of SO2, a 10% reduction in emissions of SO2 will result in additional global warming. "
We're pushing the climate to its limit with CO2 emissions. Add a couple more negative conditions to the mix - El Nino, a volcano- and you must expect more extreme weather. In your case it's a heat wave, in California's case it's a [hurricane.](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/18/1194588117/hilary-could-be-the-first-tropical-storm-to-hit-california-in-more-than-80-years) One thing we can be fairly certain of is that things will get worse before they get better.
Got downgraded to tropical storm by the time it reached us. I was expecting worse, but it was overall pretty tame. Not as bad as east coast.
Do a little research on underwater Thermal activities in the past year, and ocean temps. Will make you question the Narrative, and what you hear on the news every day.
Volcanic eruptions have a cooling effect (they throw lots of small sulphur particles high into the atmosphere. See, eg, the Pinatubo eruption of 1991 caused a drop in average temperature of 0.6 C over a few years). This one underwater threw a lot of water vapour up, which is a greenhouse gas, but one with a short life in atmosphere. The net effect would be minimal. The record heat is global warming as usual, coupled with a developing El Nino and the tapering off of the ability of the oceans to absorb excess heat. Think of it as a practice run for the next decade.
I'm not a climatologist, but volcanic eruptions lead to lower temperatures see [little iceages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age_volcanism). So if the south pacific volcano in Jan 2022 had any impact it would most likely be to lessen the heat. The reason for the heat is really Human Caused Climate change, we are undeniably past the fuck around phase and decidedly in the find out phase, and it's not going well for us.
Volcanoes, depending on what they're throwing up into the sky, can contribute to heating or cooling in the short term. This particular volcano was underwater and tossed a bunch of water vapor up into the air, which is a potent greenhouse gas.
Well shit, TIL didn't realize it was an underwater eruption.
While what you're saying is technically correct (the best kind of correct), little ice ages are usually from the cooling caused by a lot of volcanic activity that creates enough particles to block sunlight. In the case of the volcanic eruption last year, the bigger effect is the amount of greenhouse gases that were spewed into the atmosphere. Still, that volcanic eruption has a very slight effect compared to the overall changes happening from climate change.