Recent Fuego Eruption: VEI and SO2 Mass Ejected

[fizzy]

This quote from Smithsonian seems to have messed up and is senseless.
"SO2 mass ejected was about~2 orders of magnitude than the 1974 eruption"
https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=342090

Does anyone know whether it was bigger or smaller. Kinda important when you're talking about two orders of magnitude !

Also I have not been able to find any authoritative statement of the energy of the blast on the VEI scale. Any ideas?

 

[davenn]

current
https://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/pix/daily/0618/centam_so2pca_trm_ts_plot.html

I can't find anything for 1974. I don't think there were any really accurate ways to measure emission amounts back in 1974.
Unlike these days with the very sophisticated Earth atmosphere monitoring satellites in orbit.

The problem is …. Simon Carn was either miss-quoted or he can't write a coherent sentence …… the words greater or lesser were
omitted from the sentence. The way it is written seems to infer "greater" ??

I loved to comments, by a guy called Trevor, on this site ……

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06...re-may-induce-some-short-term-global-cooling/

“According to Simon Carn, satellite data analysis ………………”
.
“He went on to note that the SO2 mass was about ~2 orders of magnitude than the 1974 eruption, which had a significant stratospheric impact. ”
.
IF……. SIMON CARN…….is………..their………….”SPOKESPERSON”
AND he can’t manage to CLEARLY ARTICULATE A SINGLE SENTENCE
without causing SO MUCH CONFUSION , then it speaks volumes about
the garbled THOUGHT PROCESSES engaged ( or not ! ) and
the poor CHOICE and QUALITY of SCIENTISTS that are involved in
informing the PUBLIC on such matters.
NO WONDER that “everyone said it took them by surprise” !
HE may well have been engaged to keep them informed ,and even
have done so , BUT in an unintelligible form.?
ANYWAY , what is 2 magnitudes either way ?
WHO CAN TELL ? OBVIOUSLY NOT Simon Carn !
Possibly Nick Stokes’ reasoning is correct ! ( or ?? nah ! )
Possibly John M ( Beware ! ) Ware has nailed it !?
Anyway……..it’s a good thing that Guatemala is a LONG WAY AWAY
from me !

Dave

 

[davenn]

OK found something that looks reasonable

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02596975

Volcán Fuego in the Central American Republic of Guatemala erupted violently in October, 1974. A remote sensing correlation spectrometer. COSPEC IV, which utilizes the characteristic molecular absorption of SO2 in the ultraviolet was used to monitor the SO2 content of the volcanic plume. Over a 60-day period measurements were made on 37 days between and following major eruptive phases. SO2 emission rates corrected for atmospheric scattering of the spectral signal average 423 metric tons/day with a standard deviation of 252 metric tons/days. Late stage peaks in SO2 emission at Fuego are consistent with the presence of anomalously high contents of soluble materials on the stratigraphically highest ashes from other Central American eruptions. Indications are that the SO2 concentration within the volcanic plume increased as activity waned. These features imply that remote spectroscopic sensing of SO2 and perhaps other gases in a volcanic plume may provide a relatively easy and inexpensive means of determining the cessation of violent eruptive activity.

Where as for the 2018 eruption it peaked at ~ 5 kilotons for the 3rd June

D

 

[fizzy]

Ah, thanks for the WUWT link. Nick Stokes provides a link to what was presumably the original, misquoted by Smithsonian.
https://twitter.com/simoncarn/status/1003645271715311617

Apparently simply quoting what he actually wrote was too simple for Smithsonian. They had to try to paraphrase it for us ... and turned it into nonsense. Probably an arts major doing media studies who wrote the press release.

... so it's 2 order LESS. Not a major event. Still no news on VEI, though it does not seem to be on the same scale and El Chichon or Mt Pinatubo.

 

[davenn]

... so it's 2 order LESS. Not a major event.

the only significance is that it was mainly a 1 or 2 day blast with a really high SO₂ emission
whereas the 1974 eruption went on for a couple of months. Must smaller daily releases but an overall much
larger total output

Still no news on VEI, though it does not seem to be on the same scale and El Chichon or Mt Pinatubo.

yeah, somewhere around a VEI of 4Dave

 

[fizzy]

Thanks Dave. With all due deference to the safety of those who live near these monsters, it's a shame. We need another major stratospheric event with the current levels of observation to better understand their long term effects. I thought this might have been it. Mt. Agung was making serious rumblings for a while and scared everyone away but then failed to deliver. We'll just have to wait a bit longer.