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Volcano eruptions help slow global warming

An uptick in volcanic activity around the world has helped the slowdown of global warming, scientists said in a study published in Nature Geoscience on Sunday.

Over the last decade and a half, global temperatures have not ascended at the blistering pace that climate scientists predicted. Ever since a scaldingly hot 1998, warming trends have slowed.

Since 2000, at least 17 volcanoes have erupted worldwide, such as Nabro in Eritrea, Kasatochi in Alaska and Merapi in Indonesia. These eruptions, scientists said, spew large amounts of sulfur into the lower atmosphere, blocking the warming powers of the sun. Researchers calculated that the increase in sulfur accounted for 15 percent of the warming slowdown.

Scientists say additional investigation is needed to explain the other 85 percent; but climate experts have proffered a number of other factors -- such as a decline in the sun’s output, China’s emission of sun-blocking pollution, and an increased absorption of heat by the world’s oceans -- as potentially responsible for the warming slowdown.

The warming hiatus has puzzled climatologists, leading to the anxiety that the politicians around the world may slash efforts to lessen the emission of greenhouse gas, most likely at the U.N. summit on climate change in Paris next year.

While warming has slowed, temperatures are still on the rise. The new century has seen 13 of the 14 hottest years on record. And with greenhouse gas emissions regularly reaching new heights, scientists expect warming trends to pick up the pace in the near future.

“Volcanoes give us only a temporary respite from the relentless warming pressure of continued increases in carbon dioxide,” Piers Forster, professor of Climate Change at the University of Leeds, told The Guardian. 

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)