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> Volcanic activity releases an enormous quantity of net carbon over time, but that carbon doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere. Volcanic activity releases nea

> Volcanic activity releases an enormous quantity of net carbon over time, but that carbon doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere. Volcanic activity releases nearly 2 orders of magnitude less carbon than humanity does. That’s a much easier amount to cycle. > The misconception around the lack of fungi resulting in massive sequestration is that carbon would have been sequestered either way. By the process of magic? Because if that’s your hypothesis you need to explain why that magic was overwhelmingly more active during the Carboniferous than at any other epoch.

Retric 3y ago
> By the process of magic. No, by other carbon sinks like dead ocean algae. > Volcanic activity releases nearly 2 orders of magnitude less carbon than humanity does But they have been around far more than just 2 orders of magnitude as long. Between the great oxygen event and the emergence of woody plants volcanic processes releasing ~100,000x as much all of humanity across all of human history yet levels didn’t hit 90% CO2. Further woody plants didn’t increase the rate of carbon release by volcanoes so across such long timescales they had zero net effect on total carbon sequestration. So, across long timescales it was on average 100% of all new carbon before they showed up and it remained 100% of all new carbon afterwards. What changed was where the carbon ended up, the ocean floor sees subduction into the mantle, woody plants stuck around on the surface. Now, yes on human timescales these things seem slow but net zero + 1,000 years really will have a noticeable impact.