Mt St Helens New Biggest Polluter

Environmentalists hooted when Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) claimed — wrongly — that trees produce more pollution than cars.



But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn't a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.

It's a volcano.

Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.

Those emissions are so high that if the volcano was a new factory, it probably couldn't get a permit to operate, said Clint Bowman, an atmospheric physicist for the Washington Department of Ecology.

Worldwide, sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanoes add up to about 15 million tons a year, compared to the 200 million tons produced by power plants and other human activities.

Compared to man-made sources, though, volcanoes' contribution to climate change is minuscule, Gerlach said.
Mount St. Helens produces between 500 and 1,000 tons a day of carbon dioxide, he estimates.
Nothstein, of the state energy office, says the Centralia coal plant puts out about 28,000 tons a day. Statewide, automobiles, industries, and residential and business heating systems emit nearly 10 times that amount.

On a global scale, the difference is even more dramatic, said Gerlach, who often gets calls from power-plant operators and oil-company executives who believe nature is just as responsible for global warming as man. His answer always disappoints them.
"I tell them the amounts don't even come close and I usually never hear from them again."

Worldwide, people and their activities pump 26 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, he said. The total from volcanoes is about 200 million tons a year — or less than 1 percent of the man-made emissions.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Globally, no one will even notice really. But locally, you can see it, and weve had an increase in respirtory ailments not related to the flu here recently.

Did you know that 85% of the CO2 in our atmosphere comes from natural sources? To quote Vin Suprynowicz, editor of the Las Vegas Review Journal, “Volcanoes have been spewing heat-trapping greenhouse gasses since the Earth’s mantle was formed. All the smokestacks and tailpipes in the world couldn’t compete with Mount St. Helens’ or Mount Pinatubo’s carbon belches.”

scholar.google.com...
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.

www.cicero.uio.no...
CICERO (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo), founded by the Norwegian government in 1990, is an independent research center associated with the University of Oslo. CICERO's mandate is twofold: to both conduct research and provide information about issues of climate change.

Research: With expertise in both the natural and the social sciences, CICERO conducts interdisciplinary research on a wide range of climate issues. CICERO’s four main areas of research are (1) Atmospheric and climatic effects of emissions and emissions reductions (2) Impacts of climate change: Vulnerability, adaptation and costs, (3) Climate agreements: Design, implementation and costs, and (4) Climate policy: Instruments for national implementation.

Information: CICERO works actively to keep other research communities, decision-makers, and the general public informed about recent developments in both the political and scientific arenas. CICERO publishes the Norwegian bi-monthly newsletter Cicerone (free), and selected articles are made available in English through our web site. CICERO also hosts the Climate Forum, where researchers and representatives from government and business can exchange information and viewpoints away from the media limelight.