Volcanoes and wildfires offset 20% of global heating over eight years

Events that inject smoke and gas into high atmosphere help to cool planet but are no solution to climate crisis, says study

Explosive volcanic eruptions and wildfires have offset global heating by around a fifth over the last eight years, a study shows. In particular the eruption of Calbuco in southern Chile in 2015 and the 2019-20 Australian wildfires injected vast amounts of smoke and gas into the high atmosphere, which helped to cool the planet by absorbing heat leaving the Earth and reflecting sunlight back to space.

Pengfei Yu from Jinan University in China and his colleagues used data gathered by high altitude balloons over the Tibetan plateau and the US to model the cooling impact of stratospheric volcanic eruptions - those that inject ash into the high atmosphere - and wildfires.