-
Asked by iwant2bapilot to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 25 Jun 2012.
-
James Verdon answered on 25 Jun 2012:
Hi iwant2bapilot,
Obviously we don’t have any volcanoes in this country. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t want to know about volcanoes. Knowing about volcanoes could help you get a job – a lot of mineral resources are found in and around extinct volcanoes, so knowing about them could be really useful if you work for a mining company.I’m guessing from your name that you want to be a pilot? Well, knowing about volcanoes is pretty important for the aviation industry. Do you remember the Icelandic volcano a couple of years ago, where all flights across the Atlantic were cancelled due to the ash clouds?
But there’s more to learning about volcanoes that the fact that it could helpful in certain careers. Volcanoes are a fundamental process on the planet, so you can’t properly understand how the planet works without understanding volcanoes. Also, they are a supremely powerful force of nature. When you watch videos of volcanic eruptions, you realise how tiny we are compared to what the planet can do. That’s a pretty important perspective to be able to get.
-
-
James Pope answered on 25 Jun 2012:
Hi iwant2bapilot,
I think volcanoes are important to learn about as they play an important role in the Earth’s climate, an eruption in 1993 at Mt Pinatubo in the Phillippines cooled the global average temperature by 0.2°C for one year, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but makes a difference to the weather in that year. Other eruptions through recent history have caused major changes to global weather, in 1815 the eruption of Tambora in Indonesia caused a ‘year without the summer’. So even though we may be thousands of miles from the eruption, they can touch us! I think it’s important that everyone learns about things which are so important to us.
Comments