This ice-covered Icelandic volcano may emit more carbon dioxide than all of the country’s other volcanoes combined
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/ice-covered-icelandic-volcano-may-emit-more-carbon-dioxide-all-country-s-other
Source: By Sid Perkins, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: Despite being mostly smothered by a glacier averaging 200 meters thick, one of Iceland’s largest and most active volcanoes still manages to belch surprisingly large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, new research reveals. To help lift the veil on Katla ... which lies near the southernmost tip of Iceland, researchers flew a sensor-laden aircraft around the peak at low altitude three times in 2016 and 2017. At some points near the volcano, CO2 levels were about 8% higher than normal. ...Katla is emitting somewhere between 12,000 and 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each day ... several times higher than previous estimates of emissions from all of Iceland’s volcanoes combined—which may be vastly underestimated because only two of that nation’s subglacial volcanoes have had their emissions measured in detail. Scientists estimate that volcanoes worldwide emit, on average, about 1.5 metric tons of CO2 per day (only about 2% of the amount that human activity causes). Yet that estimate may be far too low because it’s based on measurements from only 33 of the world’s most volcanically active peaks (only three of which are ice-covered), among the 1500 or so that have erupted in the past 10,000 years....
Source: By Sid Perkins, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: Despite being mostly smothered by a glacier averaging 200 meters thick, one of Iceland’s largest and most active volcanoes still manages to belch surprisingly large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, new research reveals. To help lift the veil on Katla ... which lies near the southernmost tip of Iceland, researchers flew a sensor-laden aircraft around the peak at low altitude three times in 2016 and 2017. At some points near the volcano, CO2 levels were about 8% higher than normal. ...Katla is emitting somewhere between 12,000 and 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each day ... several times higher than previous estimates of emissions from all of Iceland’s volcanoes combined—which may be vastly underestimated because only two of that nation’s subglacial volcanoes have had their emissions measured in detail. Scientists estimate that volcanoes worldwide emit, on average, about 1.5 metric tons of CO2 per day (only about 2% of the amount that human activity causes). Yet that estimate may be far too low because it’s based on measurements from only 33 of the world’s most volcanically active peaks (only three of which are ice-covered), among the 1500 or so that have erupted in the past 10,000 years....