Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Alex Dullius Siqueira on 30/10/2016 17:28:02

Title: Might sub-sea volcanoes be the main cause of climate change?
Post by: Alex Dullius Siqueira on 30/10/2016 17:28:02

What's the chance of the climate change and increasing co2 on the atmosphere being more related with undersea vulcanic activities than with our production of co2?

 What I mean is this week I step on some reports of oysters dying on nurseries. The embryos were not developing their shelters cause the PH of the water was too low. The water, salt water, was to acidic for them...
 If that species do not reproduce, it can cause a chain reaction on the food chain tat could end up being catastrophic for marine life...

 The question remains, as sum of many reports and dates, isn't the acidic water and co2 levels, much more higher than predicted, being possible related with volcanic activity, including the sea levels rising?
 Could be the case, for the ocean being so vast and depth, that we may not have found a possible "second" source for this events, right bellow our oceans?
 What I want to know is. Predicting the hypothetical scenario that at the bottom of an ocean there is occurring strong volcanic activity, is there any chance that the detritus being mixed with the salt water, rising up to the surface and evaporating into the atmosphere? Also why not?

Title: Re: Might sub-sea volcanoes be the main cause of climate change?
Post by: chris on 31/10/2016 08:11:58

Man-made emissions dwarf the output from volcanoes:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/questions/question/2008/

Title: Re: What the chances are? (Climate change/Deep oceans volcano)
Post by: evan_au on 31/10/2016 08:46:55

Quote from: Alex Siqueira

scenario that at the bottom of an ocean there is occurring strong volcanic activity, is there any chance that the detritus being mixed with the salt water, rising up to the surface and evaporating into the atmosphere?

There is fairly continuous volcanic activity along the Atlantic mid-ocean ridge. And these would inject CO₂ and other soluble and not-so-soluble substances into the ocean. Oceanographers have sampled these sources to determine their chemical composition and flow rate.

You can add this to the output of above-ground volcanic action which inject them directly into the atmosphere. Fortunately, these are easier to measure than the eep-ocean injections.
And you can add the human-generated CO₂.

It is estimated that the oceans take up about half of the CO₂ being added into the atmosphere by humans.
Human-generated CO₂ will be absorbed initially by the surface waters (where the oysters live), rather than the deep ocean (where the mid-Atlantic ridge injects).

Title: Re: Might sub-sea volcanoes be the main cause of climate change?
Post by: Alex Dullius Siqueira on 31/10/2016 10:01:43

 So it is possible, you know I was sort of conecting the probability of ocean strong "undetected" vulcanic activity, and relating this probability not with the human factor, but more with nuclear tests on the past. Thinking if all those sings, as temperature rising, co2, earthquakes, tsunamis, polar melt, and perhaps polar shift, if somehow all this wasn't being misplaced by us.
 Not that we do not have guilt on the mater, happens that the oceans are so vast, and most of it unexplored, that I'm not cosnidering a mere volcano underwater, but something massive increasing the ocean temperature and level during the last decades, along with our co2...

 But I'm glad to see that there are more logical explanations...