The Etna eruption – some background notes

Oscar Wilde wrote: 'There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

We have seen a smattering of coverage about last week’s eruption of Mount Etna on the island of Sicily – and even less coverage of the simultaneous eruption of Stromboli some miles away,

Here’s some Australian network coverage:

Mt Etna and Stromboli volcanoes erupt over Italy - ABC News

“In short:

The Mt Etna and Stromboli volcanoes erupted on Friday, sending hot ash and lava into the skies of Sicily. The eruptions forced a temporary shutdown at Catania Airport and prompted Italy's civil protection agency to issue a red alert for Stromboli.”

Here’s a few background notes, mostly extracted using Brave browser as results from Bing seem to be inferior in getting any relevant detail.

Italy’s Civil Protection Department has now warned that this is not a one-off event.

" According to the search results, Mount Etna emits a significant amount of CO2. Here are the estimates:

·        10% of the present global volcanic CO2 emission, which is approximately 9000 tons/day (Source: “Mount Etna’s exceptional CO2 emissions are triggered by deep carbon dioxide reservoirs”)

·        5.8 million tons per year (Source: “How Much CO2 Does A Single Volcano Emit?”)

·        16,000 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each day, or 5.8 million tons per year (Source: “How Much CO2 Does A Single Volcano Emit?”)

·        13±3 Tg yr−1 (13,000,000,000 ± 3,000,000,000 tons per year) from summit crater degassing (Source: “Eruptive and diffuse emissions of CO2 from Mount Etna”)

13 billion tons per year!!! Here’s a link to that last bullet point:

(PDF) Eruptive and diffuse emissions of CO2 from Mount Etna (researchgate.net)

Here’s a link to another paper:

A carbon-rich lithospheric mantle as a source for the large CO2 emissions of Etna volcano (Italy) | Geology | GeoScienceWorld

From the abstract: “Etna volcano in Italy releases an exceptional amount of CO2 (9083 t/day) and contributes to 10% of global volcanic emission. The reasons for its extreme CO2 degassing are not yet understood.”

Here are a few more factoids:

·        The contribution of subaerial volcanism releases around 300 Mt/yr CO2

·        Volcanoes emit about 130–230 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

“To put Etna’s emissions into perspective, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels reached a record high in 2023, with a total of 40.9 billion metric tons.”

Okay, lots of references to millions and billions that has left me somewhat bewildered!

Statista reckons that “Italy produced 317.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂) emissions in 2022.”

Makes you wonder if volcanoes are sink holes for CO2 which they burp up when they are full!

One can only guesstimate CO2 emissions (and sulphur dioxide emissions) until the scientists come up with some more accurate numbers.

Maybe the CO2 emissions exceed the 13 billion tons plus or minus 3 billion on average per year – maybe Etna just spewed out 20 billion tons in a single eruption lasting a week! This would represent half the 40 billion tons of CO2 a year from fossil fuel emissions.

Perhaps the UN IPCC can shine a light on how the eruption has impacted its climate models – or perhaps some actual expert volcanologists can!

I have not looked at emissions from Stromboli or any Sulphur Dioxide emissions.

Onwards!!!

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