re: Undersea volcanic eruption in Tonga - tsunami hits - US West Coast warned

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This probably released more green house gases than all humans in one year

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I was curious about this. The main greenhouse gases by volume that volcanoes emit when erupting are SO2 and CO2 normally in similar percentages but they can vary depending on the particular type of eruption.

The SO2 release estimate for the Tongan volcano is 400,000 metric tons. So one expects a similar amount of CO2, round that up and so 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses expelled from the eruption.

The amount of CO2 released by passenger cars in a year is roughly 3 billion metric tons. So even if the estimate is off by more than 3 orders of magnitude the eruption is nowhere near passenger cars in greenhouse gas emissions over a year.

Interesting fact: each gallon of gas burned releases 8.887 kg of CO2.