when a big volcano shoots ash that high doesn’t it cause cooling for us down here?
Volcanoes emit a variety of gasses, which have a variety of climatic effects.
A really big eruption tbat can get Sulfur Dioxide into the stratoshpere - aerosols that reflect sunlight - can cool the climate over most of the world for the next year or so - Pinatubo caused about 1 degree Fahrenheit of cooling.
This effect is more pronounced for volcanoes near the Equator rather than those near the poles.
Volcanoes also, of course, emit carbon dioxide. However, the total carbon dioxide emissions of all volcanoes worldwide in an average year is less than 1/100th of the carbon dioxide emissions of human activity (So people can abandon the tired old jokes about volcanoes having to buy carbon credits from Al Gore, etc. Their CO2 contribution is essentially irrelevant compared to human burning of fossil fuels.)
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
Mayon just doesn’t have huge eruptions so I doubt it would ever have any climate effect - the problem with it is that so many people live near it.
I anticipate reading a headline attributing “short term global cooling” to this eruption.
Exactly. Mt St Helens was a case in point. Rained like a mother, too.
Exactly. Mt St Helens was a case in point. Rained like a mother, too.