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:^[1]

• 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.