Carbon Dioxide So what’s the problem? It can’t be THAT bad! Unless you lived around Lake Nios, Cameroon in August 1986…

Volcanoes release more than 130 to 230 million tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere every year. Humans add CO 2 at the rate of approximately 22 billion tons per year (150 times the rate of volcanic production) Human CO 2 production is equal to that if 17,000 volcanoes like Kilauea were erupting every year. BACKGROUND

Mammoth Mountain is a relatively young volcano that is emitting large volumes of CO 2. Gas concentrations in the soil in some areas near the mountain are high enough to kill trees and small animals.

If the air that we breath has more than 10% CO 2 it becomes deadly because it displaces the Oxygen that we need for respiration. Lake Nios, Cameroon, is a very deep lake within a volcanic crater. The lake is so deep that hydrostatic pressure forces CO 2 to remain at the lake bottom. When the pressure of the CO 2 exceeds a certain limit the gas rapidly bubbles up out of the lake and flows as an invisible gas cloud down the adjacent slopes. On August 61, 1986 such a gas release flowed 19 km suffocating 1,700 people along its route.

The fountain in the background lifts CO 2 up to the surface so that it no longer accumulates. Lake Nios 10 days after the 1986 eruption