User talk:Marabruma/sandbox

A few days ago, I added the following information to the article, in Volcanism: ''It is suggested that only eruptions that release around and above 0.1 Mt of SO2 can have a long term impact on the climate.[...] By contrast, eruptions below 0.1 Mt are not likely to cause climate changes on a scale of more than 1 year. However, their impact on the atmosphere is more subtle than direct radiative forcing, or it is the case that they result in temperature alterations comparable to natural variability. Nevertheless, since they are more frequent than the massive eruptions, they also constitute a significant class of phenomena''. The paper that I read can be found here: http://eodg.atm.ox.ac.uk/eodg/papers/2004Miles1.pdf.

In the conclusion (page 14), in the second (first complete one) paragraph it says “''For eruptions in the range of 0.1 Mt – 20 Mt, this model achieves a good representation of the global average properties it seeks to reproduce. Below this range it is probable that eruptions are not powerful enough to significantly perturb the stratosphere, and are less significant for global climate change for timescales of more than one year. Furthermore, the global average temperature perturbation from an eruption emitting less would be undetectable above natural variability. It is likely that eruptions of 0.1 Mt, where figure 4(c) peaks, affect the atmosphere in more subtle ways than direct radiative forcing, or result in temperature changes comparable with natural variability. Such mechanisms cannot be diagnosed with this model, but their sheer frequency suggests their importance.''”

Subsequently, the changes were reverted by prokaryotes (as requested, I’m using the brackets).

Here are my arguments in favour of the change:

Since “large enough” (as stated in the wiki article) is rather vague, I thought that the the paper makes an interesting point by quantifying the climatic impact of eruptions in terms of their dimension. I was trying to say that one single eruption will have a significant impact on the climate if it’s a large eruption, rather than being a small one. While it is true that smaller eruptions are significant through their frequency, the comparison between one small eruption and one large eruption ( = 1Mt) is more suggestive than “large enough”.

Was I missing the point or misinterpreting the paper? Or should I have added more details about the context?

Cheers, Marabruma (talk) 11:35, 14 July 2014 (UTC)