Assessing the impact of large volcanic eruptions of the last millennium (850–1850&thinsp;CE) on Australian rainfall regimes

Blake, Stephanie A. P.; Lewis, Sophie C.; LeGrande, Allegra N.; Miller, Ron L.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-811-2018

Articles | Volume 14, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-811-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-811-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 6

Research article

|

18 Jun 2018

Research article |

| 18 Jun 2018

Assessing the impact of large volcanic eruptions of the last millennium (850–1850 CE) on Australian rainfall regimes

Stephanie A. P. Blake, Sophie C. Lewis, Allegra N. LeGrande, and Ron L. Miller

Data sets

CMIP5 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project PCMDI https://cmip.llnl.gov/cmip5/data_portal.html

Short summary

We studied the impact of the six largest tropical eruptions in reference to Australian precipitation, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Volcanic forcing increased the likelihood of El Niños and positive IODs (pIOD) and caused positive rainfall anomalies over north-west (NW) and south-east (SE) Australia. Larger sulfate loading caused more persistent pIOD and El Niños, enhanced precipitation over NW Australia, and dampened precipitation over SE Australia.