Bali’s active volcano, Mount Agung has been giving signs that it will erupt for months, with constant earthquakes and ash plumes that it spurts every hour. Tremors are being detected every day, and over than 75.000 people have evacuated after local authorities announced a state of emergency. Indonesia’s Head of Disaster Mitigation of Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, I Gede Suantika stated to media on Tuesday (11/28) that a great eruption might be imminent just in a few hours because the scale of the tremors that occur constantly.
If the eruption does happen, it won’t be the first time that Mount Agung erupts. A great eruption happened back in 1963, with the total amount of casualties of estimated to 1.600 people over the course of a few months, which was mostly caused by the eruption’s pyroclastic flows which include the hot gas, ash and debris that rushed down the mountainside and created a volcanic avalanche. With the current condition of the mountain, Erik Klemetti, a volcanologist from Denison University tweeted that;
“The eruption at Agung in Indonesia has been relatively small so far, but with lava at the summit crater, it is anyone’s guess how it proceeds from here.”
So is it possible for a volcanic eruption to have consequences on our climate? The answer is yes. A scientific publication from University Corporation for Atmospheric Research stated that the gases and dust particles thrown into the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions have impacts on the climate. Most of the particles spewed from volcanoes cool the planet by shading incoming solar radiation. The cooling effect can last for months to years depending on the characteristics of the eruption. Volcanoes have also caused global warming over millions of years during times in Earth’s history when extreme amounts of volcanism occurred, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Guardian stated that, as a rule, the cooling influence of an individual volcano dominates for the period immediately after the eruption but the warming impact will last much longer. So the significance of each depends on the timeframe being considered. A very large volcano in 2011 may significantly reduce temperatures in 2012 but slightly warm them in 2100.
In fact, back in 1963 after the eruption of Mount Agung, global temperatures cooled down between 0.1C and 0.4C. Although the temperature change might seem not much, but it will have a significant impact on the climate. Teresa Ubide a lecturer in volcanology from the University of Queensland stated: “Obviously you will not feel a massive change personally but it’s going to affect everything on Earth because everything responds to climate,”. Another great volcanic explosion was the explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines on 1991, which caused a significant dip in global temperatures in the following year or two and became the second-largest volcanic eruption in the 20th Century.
There is nothing we can do when it comes to nature, but we could help prevent and reduce climate change’s impact by starting to be more aware of the impact of climate change, by taking action and getting more involved. Take a few minutes to contact your political representatives and tell them you want immediate action on climate change and stay up to date on the latest news about it are the least we can do to prevent this.
Photo: By Klaus Schrodt (Pixabay: Gunung Agung, Bali, Indonesia) [CC BY CC0 (https://pixabay.com/en/gunung-agung-bali-indonesia-211559/)
Comments are closed.