Climate Change - Global Warming..

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average carbon dioxide emission rate from coal-fired power generation in the United States is 1.02 metric tons per megawatt-hour. So, 1.02 metric tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, times 1,000 megawatts, times 24 hours per day, times 365 days per year, equals 8,935,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Thus, one of these submarine hot springs allegedly generates “far more” than 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — or far more than three times the annual baseline output of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii! Just 12 of these hot springs would exceed carbon dioxide emission rate estimates for the entire 65,000-kilometer-long mid-ocean ridge system.

To scale up volcanic carbon dioxide output to the current anthropogenic level would require adding thousands of volcanoes to the 50 to 60 normally active volcanoes of the subaerial landscape and more than a hundred additional mid-ocean ridge systems to the seafloor.

Global volcanic carbon dioxide emission estimates contain uncertainties and are variable, but there is virtually no doubt that volcanism adds far less carbon dioxide to the oceans and atmosphere than humans.