[Martin Taylor 951018 15:40]
Bill Leach 951016.00:28
I had said that Mt St Helens emitted a total of 70,000 tons of CO2. Bill
replied:
Mount St. Helens added 1 * 10^6 tons of CO2 in the 8 months FOLLOWING the
eruption alone (measured rates).
which I queried, citing a Science paper I had read the night before my
first posting. After I went home, I re-read it, and found I had made a
major mistake in reading the data off a graph. Where I had read "tons"
I should have read "Tons per day." This makes the measured emission of
CO2 2x10^6 tons rather than the 70,000 I had claimed. If we assume, very
generously, that the total volcanic emissions around the globe are
equivalent to 1000 Mt St Helens every year (as I did), the volcanic
amounts would total about 1/4 of the amounts introduced to the atmosphere
by human activity (7 x 10^9 tons).
This does not change the relation between CO2 and warming, between CO2
and human activity, nor the fact that the details of the topic are
irrelevant to CSG-L. But I wanted to make my apology to Bill publicly
rather than privately, so that anyone who I had earlier misled could
share in the apology.
Sorry, Bill.
Martin