The following chart shows all the new volcano eruptions that started in each year, from 2000 to 2016.
The eruptive activity in 2016 is well above what we have registered in the last few years and will probably exceed everything we have seen before!
The above figure shows that already 41 new eruptions have taken place around the world as of May 30, 2016. This is almost similar to the annual average of 42,8 (43) calculated from data made available by the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program between 2000 and 2015.
When taking into account the new eruptions from 1945 to 2015, the annual average decreases to around 35 new eruptions per year, but with a lot of variation from about 25 to 50 per year:
Also visible in the last plot is a slight increase on average from about 1997 to 2008, which is balanced by a decline in recent years.
This downward trend has however stopped in the second half of 2015 (chart only shows data to May 15th) with more than 30 new eruptions.
And this increasing trend is continuing in 2016. This year, the world already experienced 41 new eruptions so far, already above the 50 years average and almost reaching the last 15 years average.
Moreover, the Smithsonian‘s data do not include all volcanic activity that occurred on Earth.
So if you add the repetitive explosions of some volcanoes and other eruptions reported in the news, the number of new volcanic eruptions skyrockets to more than 75 in 2016.
Bottom line: The eruptive activity is well above what we have registered in the last few years and will probably exceed everything we have seen before! The data gathered by the Smithsonian Institution support the fact that always more volcanoes are erupting around the world!
