Identification

Title

Immediate and long-lasting impacts of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption on ocean oxygen and carbon inventories

Abstract

Large volcanic eruptions drive significant climate perturbations through major anomalies in radiative fluxes and the resulting widespread cooling of the surface and upper ocean. Recent studies suggest that these eruptions also drive important variability in air-sea carbon and oxygen fluxes. By simulating the Earth system using two initial-condition large ensembles, with and without the aerosol forcing associated with the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in June 1991, we isolate the impact of this volcanic event on physical and biogeochemical properties of the ocean. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption forced significant anomalies in surface fluxes and the ocean interior inventories of heat, oxygen, and carbon. Pinatubo-driven changes persist for multiple years in the upper ocean and permanently modify the ocean's heat, oxygen, and carbon inventories. Positive anomalies in oxygen concentrations emerge immediately post-eruption and penetrate into the deep ocean. In contrast, carbon anomalies intensify in the upper ocean over several years post-eruption, and are largely confined to the upper 150 m. In the tropics and northern high latitudes, the change in oxygen is dominated by surface cooling and subsequent ventilation to mid-depths, while the carbon anomaly is associated with solubility changes and eruption-generated El Nino-Southern Oscillation variability. We do not find significant impact of Pinatubo on oxygen or carbon fluxes in the Southern Ocean; but this may be due to Southern Hemisphere aerosol forcing being underestimated in Community Earth System Model 1 simulations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7t43z14

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2023-02-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact