Planes’ vs. volcano’s CO2 emissions: Planes win

The sweeping shutdown of European air travel caused by the airborne ash from the  Icelandic volcano eruption raises an interesting question: How does the amount of natural volcanic CO₂ emissions compare to the emissions from the European aviation industry?

The website, InformationisBeautiful.net put together this infographic:

Here is the source for the information: http://bit.ly/planevolcano

And here is the reasoning used to establish the percentage of CO2 in the total volcanic emissions:

“…When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it emitted 42 million tons of CO2 (source) and 17 million tons of SO2 (source). That’s a CO2-to-SO2 ratio of 2.47:1

Applying that ratio to the 3,000 tons of SO2 emitted by Eyjafjallajoekull gives us the figure of 7,412 tons of CO2 per day.

Clearly, this is a ballpark figure and it’s likely to be more complex. If any vulcanologists are passing by and would like to enhance or correct our numbers, please help yourselves to the data!

UPDATE 2: We’ve been sent some new figures from the Nordic Volcanological Institute of the University of Iceland (thanks Nicole!). They’ve measured the CO2:SO2 ratio as 5:1 (source). So Eyjafjallajoekull is emitting an estimated 15,000 tons of CO2 a day – twice our original estimate. We’ve updated the diagram accordingly.”

[Via the most excellent James Fallows]

…and Rick Nelson comments on repercussions of flight disruptions that reach beyond individual missed flights.