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- Title
Assessing the impact of large volcanic eruptions of the Last Millennium on Australian rainfall regimes.
- Authors
Blake, Stephanie; Lewis, Sophie C.; LeGrande, Allegra N.
- Abstract
Explosive volcanism is an important natural climate forcing, impacting global surface temperatures and regional precipitation. Although previous studies have investigated aspects of the impact of tropical volcanism on various ocean-atmosphere systems and regional climate regimes, volcanic eruptions remain a poorly understood climate forcing and climatic responses are not well constrained. In this study, volcanic eruptions are explored in particular reference to Australian precipitation, and both the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Using nine realisations of the Last Millennium (LM) with different time-evolving forcing combinations, from the NASA GISS ModelE2-R, the impact of the 6 largest tropical volcanic eruptions of this period are investigated. Overall, we find that volcanic aerosol forcing increased the likelihood of El Nino and positive IOD conditions for up to four years following an eruption, and resulted in positive precipitation anomalies over northwest (NW) and southeast (SE) Australia. Larger atmospheric sulfate loading coincides with more persistent positive IOD and El Nino conditions, enhanced positive precipitation anomalies over NW Australia, and dampened precipitation anomalies over SE Australia.
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; VOLCANIC eruptions; RAINFALL; MILLENNIUM (Eschatology); OCEAN-atmosphere interaction; EL Nino
- Publication
Climate of the Past Discussions, 2017, p1
- ISSN
1814-9324
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/cp-2017-109