CO2 from Grindavik volcano is tiny compared to amount produced by humans | Fact check

Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY
Updated ·3 min read
59

The claim: Grindavik Iceland volcano eruption released more CO2 than humans ever have

A Dec. 19 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) makes a sweeping claim about the environmental impact of a volcanic eruption in Iceland.

"And more co2 released by Mother Nature in one event than mankind has ever done since our existence," reads the post in a caption that accompanies legitimate media coverage of the event.

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Our rating: False

When this claim was made, CO2 data for the eruption was not available. However, human CO2 emissions dwarf even the combined volcanic emissions from all of Earth's volcanos. The eruption in Iceland was too small and brief to have released a large amount of CO2, according to researchers and Icelandic government officials.

CO2 emissions from human activity much larger than Grindavik volcano emissions

The volcanic eruption occurred on Dec. 18 on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula near the town of Grindavik. Thousands of area residents had evacuated after seismic activity began in November.

Þorsteinn Jóhannsson, an air quality researcher at the Environment Agency of Iceland, told USA TODAY in an email that, while some CO2 measurements from the eruption were collected, they have not yet been published. However, he said the eruption only lasted for two and a half days, was fairly small and could not have dwarfed human CO2 emissions.

This is because humans produce roughly 100 times as much CO2 as all volcanos combined in a normal year, according to NASA. The agency also reports that even the largest volcanic events – "super volcano" eruptions that happen every 100,000 to 200,000 years – produce around the same amount of CO2 that humans produce in a year.

The Deep Carbon Observatory program reports that humans produce 40-100 times more CO2 annually than volcanos, according to a press release.

"There are 40-50 eruptions happening across the planet all the time," Ed Venzke, the senior data researcher at the Global Volcanism Program, told USA TODAY in an email. "Any claim that one small fissure eruption (like the Reykjanes Peninsula eruption) is in any way comparable to overall anthropogenic (human-emitted) CO2 production is without scientific support."

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Jake Lowenstern, Chief of the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program at the US Geological Survey, agreed with this sentiment.

“Given the initial estimate of sulfur release during the opening phase of the (Reykjanes Peninsula) eruption, it’s very hard to imagine that the eruption could have released more than the equivalent of one hour of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions," he said in an email to USA TODAY.

USA TODAY has previously debunked similar false volcano emissions claims. For instance, some social media users wrongly claimed that a recent volcanic eruption in Greece had "put more CO2 in the atmosphere in 24 hours than humans have In (sic) our entire existence." In reality, there had been no recent eruption in Greece. Other users wrongly claimed that Italy's Mt. Etna had produced 10,000 times as much CO2 as humans.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Volcano in Iceland update, CO2 emitted less than humans | Fact check