“Consider the Lake Nyos effect,” suggests reader Richard Cooper.
According to Wikipedia, Lake Nyos is a crater lake in Cameroon about 315 km (196 mi) northwest of Yaoundé, the capital. Nyos is a deep lake high on the flank of an inactive volcano. A volcanic dam impounds the lake waters.
A pocket of magma lies beneath the lake and leaks carbon dioxide (CO2) into the water, changing it into carbonic acid. Nyos is one of only three lakes known to be saturated with carbon dioxide in this way, and therefore prone to limnic eruptions (the others being Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda).
In 1986, possibly as the result of a landslide, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of CO2, which suffocated 1,746 people[3] and 3,500 livestock in nearby towns and villages.[4][5]
“If there are vast pools of CO2-saturated seawater under the oceans they must “vent” from time to time and produce a vast release of CO2 into the atmosphere,” says Richard. “Indeed there have been reports of huge areas of sea effervescing – bad luck to any ship nearby. Perhaps this explains some marine disappearances.”
Makes sense to me. And considering that there are more than three million underwater volcanoes, their CO2 discharge must be immense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
Thanks to Richard Cooper for this link
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October 6, 2020 at 12:46PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 