Interestingly though, Chinese researchers recently reported that the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 near Tonga after the eruption jumped by 2 parts per million, which is as much as the global concentration normally increases in a whole year from human sources. So any CO 2 warming effect from an underwater eruption is unlikely to be much larger than the above calculation for energy release. However, the yearly average of CO 2 emissions from all volcanoes, both on land and submarine, is only 1 to 2% of current human emissions that have raised global temperatures by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) at most. In the case of Tonga, while the amount of SO 2 emitted was too small to have any cooling effect, the emitted CO 2 could in theory contribute to global warming. If the underwater plume reaches the ocean surface, both gases are released into the atmosphere. But there’s another potential source of warming from submarine volcanoes, and that is the CO 2 emitted along with the sulfur dioxide (SO 2) that causes cooling through formation of sulfate aerosols.
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