What is the effect of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in so far as the current climactic conditions in the world, and the ecological balance in the Philippines in particular?

rocky Fe Angela M. Verzosa

Hi Fe Angela,

As far as I know, the Pinatubo eruption resulted in about a 0.5 degree centigrade lowering of the Earth's temperature. There are two things that can happen in the atmosphere regarding temperature, and they depend on the size of the particles. The particles can block incoming solar radiation which will result in a cooler Earth. Or, they can block outgoing heat radiation from the surface of the earth which will result in a warmer Earth (this is the famous "Greenhouse effect"). The thing that decides which will predominate is the size of the particles. If the particles are really small (and I think "really small" is about 2 microns but I'll have to check), then the cooling process predominates. If the particles are bigger then the warming process predominates. For Pinatubo the particles were small enough for a slight world-wide cooling.

I'm afraid I don't know how the ecological balance of the Philippines has been affected. Certainly any ecologies on the volcano itself have been heavily impacted (if not destroyed completely). Whole rivers disappeared under a couple hundred meters of pyroclastic flow material in places, and these are only now starting to be re-exposed by erosion. Perhaps another way in which the ecology was affected is due to the displacement of all the people who lived on or near the volcano. They might have moved somewhere else that previously didn't have a heavy human impact. People are a pretty strong method of ruining the ecology.

I hope these answers will help a little. I'm sorry if they are not exactly what you were hoping to learn.

Sincerely,

Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii 

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