Volcanoes Behind Earth's Cooling; China and India Exonerated

scienceworldreport ^ | Mar 01, 2013 09:19 PM EST

[BenLurkin]

Volcanoes have more impact on earth’s climate than previously thought, scientists at the University of Colorado have found.

The researchers came across the finding as they looked for reasons our planet has not heated up as much as expected. The mainstream explanation was that the development in Asia (China and India, essentially) – where the industrial sulfur dioxide emissions increased 60 percent from 2000 to 2010, mainly driven by coal burning – was behind the cooling of Earth. According to the study by Ryan Neely which helped cement the mainstream view, small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth's surface rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space - which in turn cool the planet.

Neely said previous observations suggested increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 counterbalanced as much as 25 percent of the warming that scientists ascribe to human greenhouse gas emissions.

However, this new study by scientists at the University of Colorado points out that the new data on the issue, "essentially exonerate Asia, including India and China," from any blame for the latest cooling trend.

While both small and moderate volcanoes mask some of the human-caused warming of the planet, larger volcanoes can have a significantly larger effect, said Brian Toon of CU-Boulder's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. For instance, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it expelled millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere --- and that ended up cooling the Earth slightly for the next several years.

[TruthBeforeAll]

Remember, the big money in the scientific community is in finding questions, not answers.

[canuck_conservative]

Volcanoes have always been the culprit.

95% of all CO2 comes from volcanoes, only 5% from human activities.

It goes without saying, even the harshest CO2-reduction plan would only reduce a fraction of that 5% - in other words, practically no effect on overall levels.

Remember this, the next time Big Media or your gullible relatives start demanding that humans reduce their “carbon footprint”.

Volcanoes aren’t reducing theirs.

[ravenwolf]

I simply can not take what they say seriously, when they are wrong they come up with something else that can not be proven.

First they blame man for warming and then for cooling.

I have to wonder what the weather was like and how many drastic changes there were back before man came to be on this planet.

I doubt very much if man could have even survived here then and there will come a time that man will again not be able to survive.

And if there had never been a man here it would still go the same route.

[winoneforthegipper]

You just got to laugh....thanks for the Ping!

[Chad N. Freud]

In a just world, this article would be the death knell for man-made Global Warming hysteria.