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by anm89 1658 days ago
Follow up question: if you were able to meaningfully release that heat, would it be enough to affect the global climate?
2 comments
margalabargala 1658 days ago
Generally no. Heat on earth is radiated out to space quite quickly.

When Mount St Helens exploded, it released about 1.0e11 MJ of energy. The earth receives 21MJ of energy from the sun, per day, per square meter. So MSH in total released as much energy in total as a square of land 70km on a side receives in a single day from the sun. Which isn't tiny, but is a relative drop in the bucket compared to the whole planet.

Considering that this hypothetical heat source would be very concentrated and so would radiate to space efficiently and not spread out as much, I wouldn't expect it to have much of any effect on the climate.

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zardo 1658 days ago
The heat will be getting out one way or another.
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anm89 1658 days ago
As far as I know, nothing has been releaseed from one of these major calderas at scale in recorded history
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ceejayoz 1658 days ago
That's like saying humans don't have to eat because you haven't been hungry in the last minute.
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anm89 1658 days ago
No it's like asking the question: "how would it affect it" because I don't have any data. I'm not arguing that it's never happened.

I'm quite aware of the fact that the earth is older than written records of the earth.

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