English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Clarifying the relative role of forcing uncertainties and initial-condition unknowns in spreading the climate response to volcanic eruptions

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons37356

Timmreck,  Claudia
Stratospheric Forcing and Climate, The Atmosphere in the Earth System, MPI for Meteorology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons37193

Jungclaus,  Johann H.       
Director’s Research Group OES, The Ocean in the Earth System, MPI for Meteorology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons37249

Lorenz,  Stephan
Numerical Model Development and Data Assimilation, The Ocean in the Earth System, MPI for Meteorology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Zanchettin, D., Timmreck, C., Toohey, M., Jungclaus, J. H., Bittner, M., Lorenz, S., et al. (2019). Clarifying the relative role of forcing uncertainties and initial-condition unknowns in spreading the climate response to volcanic eruptions. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 1602-1611. doi:10.1029/2018GL081018.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-E827-D
Abstract
Abstract Radiative forcing from volcanic aerosol impacts surface temperatures; however, the background climate state also affects the response. A key question thus concerns whether constraining forcing estimates is more important than constraining initial conditions for accurate simulation and attribution of posteruption climate anomalies. Here we test whether different realistic volcanic forcing magnitudes for the 1815 Tambora eruption yield distinguishable ensemble surface temperature responses. We perform a cluster analysis on a superensemble of climate simulations including three 30-member ensembles using the same set of initial conditions but different volcanic forcings based on uncertainty estimates. Results clarify how forcing uncertainties can overwhelm initial-condition spread in boreal summer due to strong direct radiative impact, while the effect of initial conditions predominate in winter, when dynamics contribute to large ensemble spread. In our setup, current uncertainties affecting reconstruction-simulation comparisons prevent conclusions about the magnitude of the Tambora eruption and its relation to the “year without summer.”