It's interesting that this theory is that something naturally occurring, like a volcanic eruption, caused climate change during the time of the roman empire.
I've seen so many studies online that claim that volcanic eruptions can't possibly cause climate change. Are we finally willing to admit that it might not all be man-made?
"What has never been established is a link between volcanic activity and global warming."
Like this article? This article is claiming just that.
"What has never been established is a link between volcanic activity and global warming."
So when man spews massive amounts of CO2, the climate changes. When the same thing happens with a volcano eruption, nothing. heh, that makes sense.
It's puzzling why mentioning volcanic eruptions and climate change is considered a "straw man" to you when the article is about volcanic eruptions and climate change.
"Straw man" is used too often for things that people merely disagree with.
I can't wait for the day when we can have actual open and honest scientific discussion, rather than silencing anything that goes against the popular narrative.
I.e., The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull had a net negative effect in CO2 emission because the effect of grounded European flights alone more than compensated for the natural volcanic emission.
So, yes, when man spews massive amounts of CO2, the climate changes. And pray that the same amount of CO2 is never spewed through a volcanic eruption, unless you long to die in a volcanic apocalypse.
"unless you long to die in a volcanic apocalypse."
If that were the case, we would already be dead from the amounts spewed from the European flights. No?
I think one of my problems with it all is that we have been hearing the exact same thing since the 1970s. The sky will fall and all life on earth will be destroyed because of global warming, global cooling, and climate change. ~40 years have passed and nothing has happened. The predictions were wrong.
> The Mount Pinatubo eruption emitted 42 million tonnes of CO2 (Gerlach et al 1996). Compare this to human emissions in 1991: 23 billion tonnes of CO2 (CDIAC). The strongest eruption over the last half-century amounted to 0.2% of human CO2 emissions in that year. [1]
In other words, for volcanic eruptions to match human CO2 output, we need ~500 Mount Pinatubo's every year (or roughly two of them every day). Like watching volcanoes?
Edit: on second thought, if we have anywhere near that many volcanoes, most of us will be too busy starving to death to contribute anything meaningful to the anthropogenic global warming (which would be no more), so maybe one Mount Pinatubo every week or so would be enough to match human emission.
The article talks about a temporary phenomenon caused by high-altitude particulates and SO2 blocking the sun. However, these have a comparatively short lifetime, which is why they don't make a big difference to long-term averages.
(That these effects lower the global temperature is nothing new. It's one reason the effect of coal burning isn't as bad as it could be -- the particulates/SO2 partially negate the forcing effect of the CO2 emissions. Of course, once you stop burning coal, these effects disappear quickly and you are left with the CO2. If you open up your copy of the 2007 IPCC assessment report, you'll find this mentioned already on page 4.)
It seems you fail to understand what a strawman argument is.
A strawman argument is when you set up an argument ("Scientists claim volcanic eruptions cannot affect the climate") and then knock it down as evidence disproving a different claim ("Scientists claim volcanic eruptions are not responsible for global warming in the modern era."). It's faulty reasoning at best, and a dishonest rhetorical technique at worst.
Now, I suppose it's possible that you don't understand the nuance of the argument, here, and that you weren't in fact setting up a strawman argument as a rhetorical technique in order to sew doubt about the current scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming.
But, unfortunately I've seen this type of faulty reasoning too often to assume simple ignorance.
I'm no expert or anything, but I think studies saying that volcanic eruptions not being a driver of climate change is based off of co2 release, not high altitude particulate.
edit: Meaning normal volcanic activity (in a modern context) has been shown to not be the driver of recent observable climate change. However this does not mean that very large volcanic eruptions won't have an impact on global temperatures when ash is thrown up high enough to block out the sun.
This article is about climate change and volcanic activity during the roman empire. If you can't handle the topic at hand, please remove it and don't allow anyone to comment on it.
It's not my fault that too many people in the HN community refuse to have actual scientific discussions and instantly go for the down vote (not very intelligent, in my honest opinion).
If you look through my history, I've attempted to have discussions about climate change..and I'm shouted down and silenced.
HN used to have intelligent people posting that actually wanted real discussions. It's driving more and more people away from it with this sort of mob-like behavior.
If you wanted to have a real discussion, perhaps you shouldn't have started with the straw man that humans are the only thing influencing climate. No one seriously suggests that and, if you're interested in what the science is saying, you should know that.
The headline says trigger, but the article (and the subheading!) makes a case that a series of eruptions was a knock-out blow. I guess that's in keeping with Betteridge's law, so the answer to the headline's question can remain "no."
Makes even less sense than that. The Western Roman Empire finally fell in 476, these eruptions were in 535/6 and 539 and refer to events in the Eastern Roman Empire, which definitely did not suffer a knock-out blow at the time, or fall for another 900 years!
Added: linked article justifies this being about the Roman Empire with "Historians have variously dated the final collapse to the sack of Rome in AD410 by the Visigoth king Alaric, the deposing of the last Roman emperor by the German chieftain Odoacer in AD476 and the death of Justinian I, the last Roman emperor to try to reconquer the western half of the empire, in AD565."
It seems like we've showed that the blackout in the sky that occurred around that time was almost certainly due to a volcanic eruption in North America. Whether it was a significant factor in the fall of the empire is still up for debate.
As with all speculations about the roman empire, it's complicated and the money really just moved east, while the west just turned into the catholic church and really struggled maintaining order for a few centuries.
Was it the volcanoes? Or maybe the barbarians? Maybe the communist-like christians? Maybe the corporation-like regions?
Talking about the fall of the roman empire is like talking about the rise of the PC: inevitable, and a mind-boggling number of variables were involved with the particulars.
>...The great civilizations of Europe and China were roughly on par, the former having almost caught up over the previous few centuries; yet Chinese oceangoing ships were arguably still better than anything Europe could build... Perhaps China might have reached the Americas before Europeans did, and the shape of the world might have been very different...
>...By the 16th century, the fleets had vanished...to this day there is no consensus on the underlying factors... Some writers have blamed flat terrain, which others have disputed; some have blamed rice agriculture and its need for irrigation systems. Likely there were factors nobody has yet understood; perhaps we never will.
>An entire future that might have been, was snuffed out by some terrible force compared to which war, plague and famine were mere pinpricks - and yet even with the benefit of hindsight, we still don't truly understand what it was.
>Nor is this an isolated case. From the collapse of classical Mediterranean civilization to the divergent fates of the US and Argentina, whose prospects looked so similar as recently as the early 20th century, we find more terrible than any war or ordinary disaster are forces which operate unseen in plain sight and are only dimly understood even after the fact.
>The saving grace has always been the outside: when one nation, one civilization, faltered, another picked up the torch and carried on; but with the march of globalization, there may soon be no more outside.
>...we react instantly to the lesser death that comes in blood and fire, but the greater death that comes in the dust of time, is to our minds invisible.
All empires end. The cycle of all empires from birth to death is explained in this book by Sir John Glubb who commanded the Arab Legion many decades ago.
(a) We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced.
(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years emerges as the average length of national
greatness.
(c) This average has not varied for 3,000 years. Does it represent ten
generations?
(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great nations seem to be:
The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
The Age of Conquests
The Age of Commerce
The Age of Affluence
The Age of Intellect
The Age of Decadence.
(e) Decadence is marked by:
Defensiveness
Pessimism
Materialism
Frivolity
An influx of foreigners
The Welfare State
A weakening of religion.
(f) Decadence is due to:
Too long a period of wealth and power Selfishness
Love of money
The loss of a sense of duty.
(g) The life histories of great states are
amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.
(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external
causes.
(i) History should be taught as the history of the human
race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the
student’s own country.
Those stages are quite interesting. I suppose the United States is somewhere between Intellect and Decadence? Commerce being the turn of the last century (Industrial revolution) and Affluence being post-WWII.
That page says "The outbreak in Constantinople was thought to have been carried to the city by infected rats on grain boats arriving from Egypt.[7] To feed its citizens, the city and outlying communities imported massive amounts of grain—mostly from Egypt. Grain ships may have been the original source of contagion, as the rat (and flea) population in Egypt thrived on feeding from the large granaries maintained by the government."
This isn't a new idea. David Keys wrote a book "Catastrophe" 15 years ago dealing with the same subject, although in his case he picked a different volcano as the probable cause.
He also looked at the effects on a world-wide basis, not just in Europe.
To quote from the book's marketing literature: "In AD 536, a volcanic eruption meant our planet was enveloped by a cloak of lethal dust which changed the climate for decades. The sun's rays grew dim and total darkness reigned for days. It was a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions."
The eruptions happened in 563 AD? That is almost a century ~after~ what it regarded as the "Fall of Rome". Italy was being governed by Germans, at that point. What a clickbaity title. Maybe it made life harder for Constantinople, but the eastern empire was getting hammered on all sides just like the west, but managed to hang on.
30 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 64.2 ms ] threadI've seen so many studies online that claim that volcanic eruptions can't possibly cause climate change. Are we finally willing to admit that it might not all be man-made?
What has never been established is a link between volcanic activity and global warming.
Please take your strawman elsewhere.
Like this article? This article is claiming just that.
"What has never been established is a link between volcanic activity and global warming."
So when man spews massive amounts of CO2, the climate changes. When the same thing happens with a volcano eruption, nothing. heh, that makes sense.
It's puzzling why mentioning volcanic eruptions and climate change is considered a "straw man" to you when the article is about volcanic eruptions and climate change.
"Straw man" is used too often for things that people merely disagree with.
I can't wait for the day when we can have actual open and honest scientific discussion, rather than silencing anything that goes against the popular narrative.
Let's see one recent volcanic eruption that caused quite some trouble:
> The grounding of European flights avoided about 3.44×10^8 kg of CO2 emissions per day, while the volcano emitted about 1.5×10^8 kg of CO2 per day.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%...
I.e., The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull had a net negative effect in CO2 emission because the effect of grounded European flights alone more than compensated for the natural volcanic emission.
So, yes, when man spews massive amounts of CO2, the climate changes. And pray that the same amount of CO2 is never spewed through a volcanic eruption, unless you long to die in a volcanic apocalypse.
If that were the case, we would already be dead from the amounts spewed from the European flights. No?
I think one of my problems with it all is that we have been hearing the exact same thing since the 1970s. The sky will fall and all life on earth will be destroyed because of global warming, global cooling, and climate change. ~40 years have passed and nothing has happened. The predictions were wrong.
> The Mount Pinatubo eruption emitted 42 million tonnes of CO2 (Gerlach et al 1996). Compare this to human emissions in 1991: 23 billion tonnes of CO2 (CDIAC). The strongest eruption over the last half-century amounted to 0.2% of human CO2 emissions in that year. [1]
In other words, for volcanic eruptions to match human CO2 output, we need ~500 Mount Pinatubo's every year (or roughly two of them every day). Like watching volcanoes?
[1] https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=50
Edit: on second thought, if we have anywhere near that many volcanoes, most of us will be too busy starving to death to contribute anything meaningful to the anthropogenic global warming (which would be no more), so maybe one Mount Pinatubo every week or so would be enough to match human emission.
This article claims that the volcanic eruption caused cooling, not warming.
It mentions "a summer without heat" and that "15 of the 16 coldest summers recorded between 500 BC and 1,000 AD followed large volcanic eruptions".
This cooling effect is caused by particulates, not CO2.
(That these effects lower the global temperature is nothing new. It's one reason the effect of coal burning isn't as bad as it could be -- the particulates/SO2 partially negate the forcing effect of the CO2 emissions. Of course, once you stop burning coal, these effects disappear quickly and you are left with the CO2. If you open up your copy of the 2007 IPCC assessment report, you'll find this mentioned already on page 4.)
A strawman argument is when you set up an argument ("Scientists claim volcanic eruptions cannot affect the climate") and then knock it down as evidence disproving a different claim ("Scientists claim volcanic eruptions are not responsible for global warming in the modern era."). It's faulty reasoning at best, and a dishonest rhetorical technique at worst.
Now, I suppose it's possible that you don't understand the nuance of the argument, here, and that you weren't in fact setting up a strawman argument as a rhetorical technique in order to sew doubt about the current scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming.
But, unfortunately I've seen this type of faulty reasoning too often to assume simple ignorance.
edit: Meaning normal volcanic activity (in a modern context) has been shown to not be the driver of recent observable climate change. However this does not mean that very large volcanic eruptions won't have an impact on global temperatures when ash is thrown up high enough to block out the sun.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's not my fault that too many people in the HN community refuse to have actual scientific discussions and instantly go for the down vote (not very intelligent, in my honest opinion).
If you look through my history, I've attempted to have discussions about climate change..and I'm shouted down and silenced.
HN used to have intelligent people posting that actually wanted real discussions. It's driving more and more people away from it with this sort of mob-like behavior.
I believe Mr. Betteridge has retired.
Added: linked article justifies this being about the Roman Empire with "Historians have variously dated the final collapse to the sack of Rome in AD410 by the Visigoth king Alaric, the deposing of the last Roman emperor by the German chieftain Odoacer in AD476 and the death of Justinian I, the last Roman emperor to try to reconquer the western half of the empire, in AD565."
Was it the volcanoes? Or maybe the barbarians? Maybe the communist-like christians? Maybe the corporation-like regions?
Talking about the fall of the roman empire is like talking about the rise of the PC: inevitable, and a mind-boggling number of variables were involved with the particulars.
>...The great civilizations of Europe and China were roughly on par, the former having almost caught up over the previous few centuries; yet Chinese oceangoing ships were arguably still better than anything Europe could build... Perhaps China might have reached the Americas before Europeans did, and the shape of the world might have been very different...
>...By the 16th century, the fleets had vanished...to this day there is no consensus on the underlying factors... Some writers have blamed flat terrain, which others have disputed; some have blamed rice agriculture and its need for irrigation systems. Likely there were factors nobody has yet understood; perhaps we never will.
>An entire future that might have been, was snuffed out by some terrible force compared to which war, plague and famine were mere pinpricks - and yet even with the benefit of hindsight, we still don't truly understand what it was.
>Nor is this an isolated case. From the collapse of classical Mediterranean civilization to the divergent fates of the US and Argentina, whose prospects looked so similar as recently as the early 20th century, we find more terrible than any war or ordinary disaster are forces which operate unseen in plain sight and are only dimly understood even after the fact.
>The saving grace has always been the outside: when one nation, one civilization, faltered, another picked up the torch and carried on; but with the march of globalization, there may soon be no more outside.
>...we react instantly to the lesser death that comes in blood and fire, but the greater death that comes in the dust of time, is to our minds invisible.
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/...
https://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html
that's strange - the plague of Justinan was the same as the bubonic plague, what do volcano erruptions have in common with the black death?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian
He also looked at the effects on a world-wide basis, not just in Europe.
To quote from the book's marketing literature: "In AD 536, a volcanic eruption meant our planet was enveloped by a cloak of lethal dust which changed the climate for decades. The sun's rays grew dim and total darkness reigned for days. It was a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Catastrophe-Investigation-Origins-Mo...
FYI, I've really enjoyed the History of Rome and the History of Byzantium podcasts. http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/ http://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/