World ‘sadly unprepared’ for a major volcanic eruption Possible repercussions on global supply chains, climate and food, according to experts from the Center for Existential Risk Studies (CSER) at the University of Cambridge and the University of Birmingham.
In an article published in the journal Naturethese scientists warn that there is one “Common misconception” that risks from big explosions are lowand we condemn the “reckless” lack of government investment in monitoring and responding to potential volcanic disasters.
But the researchers argue that steps can be taken to guard against volcanic destruction, from better surveillance to more public education, and even possible manipulation of magma. But they say the resources needed for this are very scarce.
“Data collected from ice cores on the frequency of eruptions in geological epochs, There’s a one-in-six chance of a magnitude seven explosion in the next hundred years. This is rolling the dice,” says CSER researcher Lara Mani, co-author of the paper and an expert on global risk.
“Massive eruptions like these caused abrupt climate change and the collapse of civilizations in the distant past,” he warns.
Mani compares the risk of a giant explosion to that of a kilometer-wide asteroid falling to Earth.. Such events would have similar climatic consequences, but the probability of a volcanic catastrophe is hundreds of times greater than the combined chance of an asteroid or comet collision.
A lot of money for asteroids, none for volcanoes
“Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year to detect asteroid threats, but There is a severe lack of funding and global coordination to prevent major volcanic eruptionssaid Mani. “This urgently needs to change. We completely underestimate the risk that volcanoes pose to our communities.”
The eruption in Tonga in January this year was the largest ever recorded. The researchers argue that global shock waves could have been devastating if they had lasted longer, released more ash and gas, or occurred in an area with critical infrastructures like the Mediterranean.
“The Tonga eruption was the volcanic equivalent of an asteroid that had just hit Earth, and should be treated as a wake-up call,” says Mani.
CSER experts refer to recent research that determined the frequency of big eruptions by analyzing trace sulfur increases in ancient ice cores. An eruption ten to a hundred times larger than the Tonga eruption occurs every 625 years, twice as often as previously thought.
“The last magnitude seven explosion was in Indonesia in 1815”A volcano expert and visiting researcher at CSER, now at the University of Birmingham, co-author Dr. Mike Cassidy said.
An estimated 100,000 people died locally and global temperatures dropped an average of one degree Celsius“It leads to major crop famines leading to famines, violent riots, and epidemics known as the summerless year.”
“We now live in a world with eight times the population and forty times the level of trade. Our complex global networks can make us even more vulnerable to the effects of a big bang,” he explains.
The financial losses from a big bang would be multimillionaires. and on a scale comparable to the last pandemic, according to experts.
Mani and Cassidy outline the steps they say need to be taken to help predict and manage the likelihood of a planet-changing eruption and to help reduce damage from smaller, more frequent eruptions.
not enough instruments
These steps involve more precise identification of risks. We know of only a handful of locations of the 97 eruptions that have been classified as large on the ‘Volcanic Explosiveness Index’ over the past 60,000 years. This means that There may be dozens of dangerous volcanoes scattered around the world with the potential for extreme destruction.humanity has no idea.
“We may not even know about relatively recent eruptions due to a lack of research on sea and lake cores, especially in underserved regions like Southeast Asia,” Cassidy said. Said. “Volcanoes can remain dormant for long periods of time but still have sudden and extraordinary destruction,” he recalls.
CSER experts say monitoring needs to be improved. Only 27% of eruptions since 1950 have a seismometer located near them.and only a third of that data has been re-entered into the global database of volcanic disasters.
“Volcanologists have been calling for a volcano monitoring satellite for more than two decades”Mania points. “Sometimes we have to rely on the generosity of private satellite companies to get quick images.”
Experts also call for more research into the geoengineering of volcanoes. This includes the need to study ways to counteract aerosols released by a large eruption that could lead to a “volcanic winter.”
They say that work needs to be done. investigating the manipulation of magma pockets from active volcanoes. “It may seem counterintuitive to directly influence volcanic behavior, but the deflection of asteroids was so until the formation of the NASA Planetarium,” adds Mani.
Reference Work: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02177-x
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