Interactive stratospheric aerosol models' response to different amounts and 
altitudes of SO2 injection during the 1991 Pinatubo eruption

Quaglia, Ilaria; Timmreck, Claudia; Niemeier, Ulrike; Visioni, Daniele; Pitari, Giovanni; Brodowsky, Christina; Brühl, Christoph; Dhomse, Sandip S.; Franke, Henning; Laakso, Anton; Mann, Graham W.; Rozanov, Eugene; Sukhodolov, Timofei

doi:10.5194/acp-23-921-2023

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Interactive stratospheric aerosol models' response to different amounts and altitudes of SO₂ injection during the 1991 Pinatubo eruption

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons100872

Brühl, Christoph
Atmospheric Chemistry, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/921/2023/acp-23-921-2023.pdf
(Publisher version)

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Quaglia, I., Timmreck, C., Niemeier, U., Visioni, D., Pitari, G., Brodowsky, C., et al. (2023). Interactive stratospheric aerosol models' response to different amounts and altitudes of SO₂ injection during the 1991 Pinatubo eruption. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 23(2), 921-948. doi:10.5194/acp-23-921-2023.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000C-9917-E

Abstract

PA previous model intercomparison of the Tambora aerosol cloud has highlighted substantial differences among simulated volcanic aerosol properties in the pre-industrial stratosphere and has led to questions about the applicability of global aerosol models for large-magnitude explosive eruptions prior to the observational period. Here, we compare the evolution of the stratospheric aerosol cloud following the well-observed June 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption simulated with six interactive stratospheric aerosol microphysics models to a range of observational data sets.

Our primary focus is on the uncertainties regarding initial SO2 emission following the Pinatubo eruption, as prescribed in the Historical Eruptions SO2 Emission Assessment experiments (HErSEA), in the framework of the Interactive Stratospheric Aerosol Model Intercomparison Project (ISA-MIP). Six global models with interactive aerosol microphysics took part in this study: ECHAM6-SALSA, EMAC, ECHAM5-HAM, SOCOL-AERv2, ULAQ-CCM, and UM-UKCA. Model simulations are performed by varying the SO2 injection amount (ranging between 5 and 10 Tg S) and the altitude of injection (between 18–25 km).

The comparisons show that all models consistently demonstrate faster reduction from the peak in sulfate mass burden in the tropical stratosphere. Most models also show a stronger transport towards the extratropics in the Northern Hemisphere, at the expense of the observed tropical confinement, suggesting a much weaker subtropical barrier in all the models, which results in a shorter e-folding time compared to the observations. Furthermore, simulations in which more than 5 Tg S in the form of SO2 is injected show an initial overestimation of the sulfate burden in the tropics and, in some models, in the Northern Hemisphere and a large surface area density a few months after the eruption compared to the values measured in the tropics and the in situ measurements over Laramie. This draws attention to the importance of including processes such as the ash injection for the removal of the initial SO2 and aerosol lofting through local heating.