Title: Climate Modification and Volcanoes Word Count: 450 Summary: Climate modification is a multi-faceted and complex subject.

In this article, we take a look at the relationship between climate modification and volcanoes. Keywords: volcanoes, volcanoe, ash, volcanic ash, mount st helens, el chichon, climate cha nge, indonesia Article Body: Climate modification is a multi-faceted and complex subject. In this article, we take a look at the relationship between climate modification and volcanoes. Climate Modification and Volcanoes The climate modification debate is a nasty one. Parties pick their positions, di g in and refuse to listen to the rants of the other side. Lost in the yelling is the simple fact that climate modification is a natural phenomenon to some exten t. For proof, we need merely look at the materials kicked out by volcanoes. It is an undeniable fact of the earth record that volcanoes have changed the cli mate during certain periods. Small explosions don t have much impact, but large ex plosions send massive amounts of material and gases into the atmosphere. The gas es include carbon dioxide, the ultimate bugaboo greenhouse gas. Beyond these gas es, however, volcanoes can kick out so much debris and ash that the material in the atmosphere can actually block out the sun or reduce the warming effect. Mount St. Helens is the most studied and well known recent eruption. Unless you have been meditating in a cave for the last 20 years, you know that the volcano exploded on May 18, 1980. The eruption was powerful enough to flatten everything for 17 miles, immediately turning 10 million trees into so much firewood. The h uge volcanic ash cloud stretched halfway across the United States, but barely ha d an impact on global temperatures. In contrast, the eruption of the El Chichon volcano in 1982 had a measurable cli mate impact. El Chichon is located in Mexico and was a much smaller eruption tha n Mount St. Helens. Still, the average temperature around the globe cooled by on e degree. What scientist learned is the climate modification impact of volcanoes is highly dependent on the type of explosion. The materials from Mount St. Hele ns fell out of the atmosphere quickly, while El Chichon belched enormous amounts of sulfur that remained in the atmosphere for much longer. One of the problems with climate modification is it occurs over a relatively lon g period of time. Since we started paying attention to the situation, we have no t had a chance to see the impact of a major eruption. The stuff we see on televi sion is really small potatoes compared to historically eruptions of note. For ex ample, Mount St. Helens threw roughly a half a cubic mile of material into the a ir. In 1815, a volcano in Indonesia belched 24 cubic miles of material into the atmosphere. Obviously, one has to imagine it impacted the climate of the earth. Is there a relationship between climate modification and volcanoes? Undoubtedly. From what we see, however, the relationship is generally of a short duration an d not an explanation for the rising temperatures we are seeing currently.