(ORDO NEWS) — This discovery will force scientists to rethink all climate models.
When erupting, volcanoes throw huge clouds of ash and gases into the air, polluting it and contributing to climate change. But what about the period when the volcano is quiet?
In fact, scientists may have underestimated the yield of sulfur compounds from dormant volcanoes by a factor of three.
This could mean recalibrating climate and air quality models, as sulfur is an important element in the Earth‘s climate change process.
What is the danger of dormant volcanoes
A new study shows that dormant volcanoes may be producing far more sulfur than we thought. The scientists obtained these results by analyzing particles trapped in layers of an ice core recovered from central Greenland.
They show the composition of the atmosphere over the Arctic between 1200 and 1850. Sulfur emissions from dormant volcanoes at the time were much higher than expected.
The original goal of the study was to study the amount of sulfur released into the atmosphere by marine phytoplankton due to the compounds it synthesizes as it grows.
Before the advent of humans, phytoplankton was considered the main source of sulfur emissions.
But the contribution of volcanoes, revealed through isotope measurements, revealed another important source of this element.
The researchers suggest that volcanoes may be twice as important in sulfur production as marine phytoplankton, even if they are dormant.
Gas flows from dormant volcanoes are not recorded on satellite images, which may be the reason for the underestimation of the contribution of volcanoes.
At the same time, if there are more natural sources of sulfur, then we may have overestimated the cooling effect that industrial sulfur emissions have had on temperatures.
If this is so, then the calculations of scientists differ from reality by at least two times.
This may explain why the Arctic is warming faster than expected – it’s just that the initial level of particles in the atmosphere above it was higher than previously thought.
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