A supervolcano is an unusually large volcano with the potential to produce an eruption with major effects on the global climate system.
Recommendations
In The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, Toby Ord offers several policy and research recommendations for handling risks from supervolcanic eruptions:
- Find all the places where supervolcanic eruptions have occurred in the past.
- Improve the very rough estimates on how frequent these eruptions are, especially for the largest eruptions.
- Improve our modeling of volcanic winter scenarios to see what sizes of eruption could pose a plausible threat to humanity.
- Liaise with leading figures in the asteroid community to learn lessons from them in their modeling and management.