I thought the Mahdi
In preparation for the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, scheduled for October 24-26, the Deep Carbon team summarized several key findings from billions of years to These results are published in a series of articles in Elements.
Deep Carbon Observatory Initiative
Deep Carbon seeks to use new and established technologies to determine the precise global flows of volcanic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by installing CO2 monitoring networks in 20 of the more than 150 active volcanoes in the world.
The Deep Carbon initiative was launched in 2011 after volcanologists met at a conference in Kamchatka, Russia.
The group currently consists of more than 20 researchers from 10 countries, each with extensive experience in volcanic gas emissions studies on volcanoes worldwide, including all countries that operate major national volcanic observatories.
This is the first time that a group of scientists have joined forces to research the deep carbon cycle.
The initiative aims to establish formal cooperation between the National Volcanic Observatories on the seven continents.
The researchers use remote sensing data produced by various orbital satellites, and ground survey instruments (Novak Network) that measure the absorption of ultraviolet radiation by sulfur dioxide particles generated by volcanic discharge.
It also relies on measuring the ratio of carbon dioxide to sulfur dioxide using automatic laser sensors, to measure air samples in areas where volcanic gas columns cross the Earth. The initiative has published more than 1,500 publications on carbon metrics and global warming.
Deep carbon life cycle
To ensure a sustainable future, we must understand the entire terrestrial carbon cycle.In order to achieve this, we must determine the amount of carbon, its location, movement, flow rate, and speed, from deep ground reservoirs to the surface, and the mechanism of returning back to the ground.
The Earth's deep carbon cycle reveals a long-term, balanced, long-term stabilization of atmospheric carbon dioxide, punctuated by major disturbances, including massive and catastrophic releases of magma that have occurred at least five times over the past 500 million years.
Massive amounts of carbon were released during these events, resulting in a warmer atmosphere, acidic oceans and mass extinction phenomena.
Similarly, an enormous amount of carbon dioxide ranging from 425 to 1400 Gt was released as a result of a giant meteorite collision 66 million years ago on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, forming the crater of Chicxulub, coinciding with the extinction of more than 75% of the plant and animal mass. Including dinosaurs.
Human activity at the forefront
The carbon above the Earth's surface in the oceans and the atmosphere is estimated at 20 percent of the total carbon on Earth, an estimated 43,500 gigatonnes, and the rest is below the surface, including the crust, mantle and core pulp, which is estimated to total 1.85 billion. Tons.
The current proportion of carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes in the atmosphere and oceans is estimated at 280 to 360 million tonnes, or 0.28 to 0.36 gigatonnes per year.
Annual human carbon emissions are 40 to 100 times greater than all the volcanic and geological emissions of our planet, as a result of burning fossil fuels, forests, etc.