The eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull Volcano has wreaked havoc in Europe’s air traffic, but its environmental impacts are positive. As a result of the mass cancellation of flights a lot less carbon-dioxide is being let into the air than on a normal day.

According to calculations of www.informationisbeautiful.net, Eyjafjallajökull is emitting an estimated 15,000 tonnes of CO2 a day, against 344,109 tonnes emitted by aircraft on a normal day.

This is the environmental impact. On the other side, though, there are the loss revenues of the airlines, which the International Air Transport Association (IATA) conservatively estimates to exceed USD 200 million per day.

Background to the emission estimate

Informationisbeautiful could not find a direct CO2 emissions figure for the Icelandic volcano but it did find an emissions figure for Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) - 3,000 tonnes a day. When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it emitted 42 million tonnes of CO2 and 17 million tonnes of SO2. That’s a CO2-to-SO2 ratio of 2.47:1

Applying that ratio to the 3,000 tonnes of SO2 emitted by Eyjafjallajoekull gave the figure of 7,412 tonnes of CO2 per day. That was the initial estimate, only a ballpark figure.

Then the Nordic Volcanological Institute of the University of Iceland sent some new figures to the site. They’ve measured the CO2:SO2 ratio as 5:1. So Eyjafjallajökull is emitting an estimated 15,000 tonnes of CO2 a day - twice the original estimate."

Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal