Identification

Title

Volcanic forcing of climate over the past 1500 years: An improved ice core-based index for climate models

Abstract

Understanding natural causes of climate change is vital to evaluate the relative impacts of human pollution and land surface modification on climate. We have investigated one of the most important natural causes of climate change, volcanic eruptions, by using 54 ice core records from both the Arctic and Antarctica. Our recently collected suite of ice core data, more than double the number of cores ever used before, reduces errors inherent in reconstructions based on a single or small number of cores, which enables us to obtain much higher accuracy in both detection of events and quantification of the radiative effects. We extracted volcanic deposition signals from each ice core record by applying a high-pass loess filter to the time series and examining peaks that exceed twice the 31-year running median absolute deviation. We then studied the spatial pattern of volcanic sulfate deposition on Greenland and Antarctica and combined this knowledge with a new understanding of stratospheric transport of volcanic aerosols to produce a forcing data set as a function of month, latitude, and altitude for the past 1500 years. We estimated the uncertainties associated with the choice of volcanic signal extraction criteria, ice core sulfate deposition to stratospheric loading calibration factor, and the season for the eruptions without a recorded month. We forced an energy balance climate model with this new volcanic forcing data set, together with solar and anthropogenic forcing, to simulate the large-scale temperature response. The results agree well with instrumental observations for the past 150 years and with proxy records for the entire period. Through better characterization of the natural causes of climate change, this new data set will lead to improved prediction of anthropogenic impacts on climate. The new data set of stratospheric sulfate injections from volcanic eruptions for the past 1500 years, as a function of latitude, altitude, and month, is available for download in a format suitable for forcing general circulation models of the climate system.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7th8mww

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

2008-12-13T00:00:00Z

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