Estimates of volcanic-induced cooling in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1,500 years

Markus Stoffel; Myriam Khodri; Christophe Corona; Sébastien Guillet; Virginie Poulain; Slimane Bekki; Joel Guiot; Brian H. Luckman; Clive Oppenheimer; Nicolas Lebas; Martin Beniston; Valérie Masson-Delmotte

Estimates of volcanic-induced cooling in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1,500 years

Markus Stoffel ^{1, 2} Myriam Khodri ³ Christophe Corona ⁴ Sébastien Guillet ¹ Virginie Poulain ³ Slimane Bekki ⁵ Joel Guiot ^{6, 7} Brian H. Luckman ⁸ Clive Oppenheimer ⁹ Nicolas Lebas ³ Martin Beniston ² Valérie Masson-Delmotte ¹⁰

1 Dendrolab.ch [Bern]

2 ISE - Institute for Environmental Sciences [Geneva]

3 PARVATI - Processus de la variabilité climatique tropicale et impacts

LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques

4 GEOLAB - Laboratoire de Géographie Physique et Environnementale

5 STRATO - LATMOS

LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales

6 ECCOREV - Ecosystèmes continentaux et risques environnementaux

7 CEREGE - Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement de géosciences de l'environnement

8 Department of Geography [London, Ontario]

9 Department of Geography [Cambridge, UK]

10 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]

Abstract : Explosive volcanism can alter global climate, and hence trigger economic, political and demographic change1, 2. The climatic impact of the largest volcanic events has been assessed in numerous modelling studies and tree-ring-based hemispheric temperature reconstructions3, 4, 5, 6. However, volcanic surface cooling derived from climate model simulations is systematically much stronger than the cooling seen in tree-ring-based proxies, suggesting that the proxies underestimate cooling7, 8; and/or the modelled forcing is unrealistically high9. Here, we present summer temperature reconstructions for the Northern Hemisphere from tree-ring width and maximum latewood density over the past 1,500 years. We also simulate the climate effects of two large eruptions, in AD 1257 and 1815, using a climate model that accounts explicitly for self-limiting aerosol microphysical processes3, 10. Our tree-ring reconstructions show greater cooling than reconstructions with lower spatial coverage and based on tree-ring width alone, whereas our simulations show less cooling than previous simulations relying on poorly constrained eruption seasons and excluding nonlinear aerosol microphysics. Our tree-ring reconstructions and climate simulations are in agreement, with a mean Northern Hemisphere extra-tropical summer cooling over land of 0.8 to 1.3 °C for these eruptions. This reconciliation of proxy and model evidence paves the way to improved assessment of the role of both past and future volcanism in climate forcing.

Document type :

Journal articles

Domain :

Physics [physics] / Physics [physics] / Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics [physics.ao-ph]

Sciences of the Universe [physics] / Ocean, Atmosphere

Complete list of metadatas

https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01214206
Contributor : Catherine Cardon <>
Submitted on : Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 5:04:48 PM
Last modification on : Monday, June 17, 2019 - 12:16:03 PM

Estimates of volcanic-induced cooling in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1,500 years

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Estimates of volcanic-induced cooling in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1,500 years

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