“WE ARE DISRUPTING EARTH’S CARBON CYCLE”

New Zealand-based volcanologist Cynthia Werner, who was part of the decadelong research talks about how humans are disrupting the carbon cycle

How does Deep Carbon Observatory’s findings change the current understanding of global warming?

Before the industrial revolution, the Earth’s deep carbon cycle was roughly in balance.This means the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by volcanoes was removed by the weathering of rocks and subduction of the Earth’s plates.What humans are now doing is taking that carbon, which took millions of years to form as fossil fuels and would have otherwise been locked inside the Earth,and emitting it to the atmosphere rapidly. This is upsetting the balance of the carbon cycle. The findings suggest that the anthropogenic CO2 emission is 40 to 100 times more than

volcanoes.Why is it a cause for concern?

In Earth’s history,there have been a number of catastrophic events such as meteor impacts or massive volcanic eruptions that lasted tens of thousands of years. These events increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels drastically and are often correlated with mass extinctions.The amount of carbon dioxide emitted in 10 years by human activities is similar to one of these catastrophic events. Without intervention, the Earth will eventually consume this excess carbon dioxide,but studies have shown this may take 100,000 years.