| Crono said: On volcanoes: I was under the impression that when Mt St. Helens errupted in the 80's that it spewed more greenhouse gasses and pollutants into the atmosphere than the entire human race since the industrial revolution. |
Well, you're wrong. There have been very reliable CO2 level measurements from the 60s and there's no significant spike to be seen in the data when St. Helens erupted, which would be expected if a major CO2 addition occured, because CO2 spreads relatively fast in the atmosphere. In fact, the pace of CO2 level rise has gotten faster in recent times although there have been very few major volcanic eruptions.
It is estimated that over 6 billion metric tons of anthropogenic CO2 is added annually to the atmosphere (2000). Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
To understand how big number billion is, a good way is to think billion in seconds. Whereas million seconds is about 11 days, billion seconds is about 31 years. That's how big number billion is. The 6 billion tons per year means over 16 million tons per day.
