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Comment by csours | Hacker News Reader

Semi-serious question: should a country have to account for volcanos in its territory as well?

Volcanoes are part of the natural CO2 cycle, which is in balance. So adding volcanoes would be like adding the CO2 animals, including humans, exhale. The problem is that we are adding more CO2 to the cycle, disturbing the balance.

Since it only was a semi-serious question I'll assume you knew this, but I still think the balance is a good argument to have when you run into deniers.

Do volcanos emit CO2?

Yes but they also emit ash which has cooling effects.

More critically, they emit huge amounts of sulphuric compounds, which are what really sick around and tend to cooling. Unfortunately when those same compounds don’t reach high altitudes, you get a lot of acid rain. All told however, their net effect is strongly cooling over the first few years, and then milde cooling over longer time frames.

Fantastic, thanks for the explanation. Can you please point me to a source? Need to send it to my dad who taught me everything I know but has now turned into a climate change denialist who says it's all a globalist / marxist / leftist plot to make money off solar panels.

Absolutely, and I wish you the best of luck in representing your views to your father. I know how painful such a disconnect can be.

This is a good intro to the broad issue of volcanoes and climate: http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vclimate.html

A more in-depth treatment of sulfur aerosols in the upper atmosphere: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfur_aerosol...

Here’s a breakdown of all the gasses typically releases during eruptions and their various effects: http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/gas.htm

If there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you so much! I will send them all three. Just because you offered and you seem so knowledgeable, he has also claimed the CFC damage to the ozone layer was a hoax created to promote alternative refrigerants... If you have anything on that I could use a link as well!

My pleasure, and I have a great link that goes into the exact mechanism of how CFC photochemistry destroys the ozone layer.

https://scied.ucar.edu/ozone-layer

Here’s one with more technical analysis along with the exact chemistry:

http://www.theozonehole.com/ozonedestruction.htm

Here’s a broad overview with historical perspectives from the American Chemical Society: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry...

I hope this helps.

Why cooling though? It makes sense that it cools the ground, but the sunlight is still captured by the particles (as opposed to reflected by snow/water, on average), so the total Earth+atmosphere should be warmer?

Reminds me of global dimming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

Right now they don't even account for the factories in its territory...

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