Aubry, Thomas J., Jellinek, A. Mark, Degruyter, Wim ![]() Item availability restricted. |
![]() |
PDF
- Accepted Post-Print Version
Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB) |
Abstract
Volcanic eruptions have a significant impact on climate when they inject sulfur gases into the stratosphere. The dynamics of eruption plumes is also affected by climate itself, as atmospheric stratification impacts plumes height. We use an integral plume model to assess changes in volcanic plume maximum rise heights as a consequence of global warming, with atmospheric conditions from an ensemble of global climate models (GCM), using three representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios. Predicted changes in atmospheric temperature profiles decrease the heights of tropospheric and lowermost stratospheric volcanic plumes and increase the tropopause height, for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios in the coming three centuries. Consequently, the critical mass eruption rate required to cross the tropopause increases by up to a factor 3 for tropical regions, and up to 2 for high-latitude regions. A number of recent lower stratospheric plumes, mostly in the tropics (e.g., Merapi, 2010), would be expected to not cross the tropopause starting from the late 21st century, under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenario. This effect could result in a ' 5 − 25% decrease in the average SO2 flux into the stratosphere carried by small plumes, which frequency is larger than the rate of decay of volcanic stratospheric aerosol, and a ' 2 − 12% decrease of the total flux. Our results suggest the existence of a positive feedback between climate and volcanic aerosol forcing. Such feedback may have minor implications for global warming rate but can prove to be important to understand the long-term evolution of volcanic atmospheric inputs.
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Date Type: | Publication |
Status: | Published |
Schools: | Earth and Environmental Sciences |
Subjects: | Q Science > Q Science (General) |
Publisher: | American Geophysical Union |
ISSN: | 2169-897X |
Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 17 November 2016 |
Date of Acceptance: | 21 October 2016 |
Last Modified: | 21 Nov 2024 03:00 |
URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/96243 |
Citation Data
Cited 14 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data
Actions (repository staff only)
![]() |
Edit Item |