Impact of the 536/540 CE double volcanic eruption event on the 6th-7th century climate using model and proxy data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelien van Dijk ◽  
Claudia Timmreck ◽  
Johann Jungclaus ◽  
Stephan Lorenz ◽  
Manon Bajard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Detailed Comparison ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Decadal Climate Variability ◽  
Proxy Data ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
Volcanic Forcing ◽  
The Impact

<p>The mid of the 6<sup>th</sup> century is an outstanding period and started with an unusual cold period that lasted several years to decades, due to the 536/540 CE double eruption event, with the strongest decadal volcanic forcing in the last 2000 years. Evidence from multiple tree ring records from the Alps to the Altai Mountains in Russia identified a centennial cooling lasting from 536 up to 660 CE. A previous Earth System Model (ESM) study with reconstructed volcanic forcing covering 535-550 CE like conditions already found that the double eruption led to a global decrease in temperature and an increase in Arctic sea-ice for at least a decade. However, the simulations were too short to fully investigate the multi-decadal cooling event and the atmospheric forcing from this double volcanic eruption alone may not be enough to sustain such a prolonged cooling. To better understand forced versus internal decadal climate variability in the first millennium we have performed mid 6<sup>th</sup> century ensemble simulations with the MPI-ESM1.2 for the 520-680 CE period. The ensemble consists of 10 realizations, which were branched of the MPI-ESM1.2 PMIP4 Past2k run, including the evolv2k volcanic forcing.</p><p>Here, we present results of this new set of the 6<sup>th</sup>-7<sup>th</sup> century MPI-ESM simulations in comparison to paleo-proxies. Summer surface temperatures are analyzed and compared with available tree-ring data, which fits very well for the entire 160 year period. As part of the VIKINGS project, special focus is placed on the impact of the 536/540 CE double volcanic eruption event on the surface climate in the Northern Hemisphere, in particular Scandinavia, Northern Europe and Siberia. The goal is to also compare the model data with new tree-ring and lake sediment proxies from southeastern Norway. Detailed comparison with proxy data will allow us to better understand the regional and seasonal climate variations of the 6<sup>th</sup>-7<sup>th</sup> century. Duration, strength and the possible mechanism for a long lasting volcanic induced cooling will be discussed.</p>

Volcanic impact on the tropical hydrological cycle 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta D'Agostino ◽  
Claudia Timmreck
Keyword(s):  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Internal Variability ◽  
Net Energy ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Monsoon Area ◽  
Volcanic Forcing ◽  
The Impact

<p>The impact of volcanic forcing on tropical precipitation is investigated in a new set of sensitivity experiments within Max Planck Institute Grand Ensemble framework. Five ensembles are created, each containing 100 realizations for an idealized tropical volcanic eruption located at the equator, analogous the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, with emissions covering a range of 2.5 - 40 Tg S. The ensembles provide an excellent database to disentangle the influence of volcanic forcing on regional monsoons and tropical hydroclimate over the wide spectrum of the climate internal variability. Monsoons are generally weaker during the two years after volcanic eruptions and their weakening is a function of emissions: the strongest the volcanic eruption, the weakest are the land monsoons. The extent of rain belt is also affected: the monsoon area is overall narrower than the unperturbed control simulation. While the position of main ascents does not change, the idealised tropical volcanic eruption supports the shrinking of Hadley Cell's ascent and the narrowing of the ITCZ. We investigate this behavior by analysing the changes in Hadley/Walker circulation, net energy input and energy budget to find analogies/differences with global warming.</p>

scholarly journals Statistical framework for evaluation of climate model simulations by use of climate proxy data from the last millennium – Part 3: Practical considerations, relaxed assumptions, and using tree-ring data to address the amplitude of solar forcing

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 2627-2683
Author(s):  
A. Moberg ◽  
R. Sundberg ◽  
H. Grudd ◽  
A. Hind
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Large Amplitude ◽  
Small Amplitude ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Last Millennium ◽  
Solar Forcing ◽  
Proxy Data ◽  
Statistical Framework ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
Climate Model Simulations

Abstract. Practical issues arise when applying a statistical framework for unbiased ranking of alternative forced climate model simulations by comparison with climate observations from instrumental and proxy data (Part 1 in this series). Given a set of model and observational data, several decisions need to be made; e.g. concerning the region that each proxy series represents, the weighting of different regions, and the time resolution to use in the analysis. Objective selection criteria cannot be made here, but we argue to study how sensitive the results are to the choices made. The framework is improved by the relaxation of two assumptions; to allow autocorrelation in the statistical model for simulated climate variability, and to enable direct comparison of alternative simulations to test if any of them fit the observations significantly better. The extended framework is applied to a set of simulations driven with forcings for the pre-industrial period 1000–1849 CE and fifteen tree-ring based temperature proxy series. Simulations run with only one external forcing (land-use, volcanic, small-amplitude solar, or large-amplitude solar), do not significantly capture the variability in the tree-ring data – although the simulation with volcanic forcing does so for some experiment settings. When all forcings are combined (using either the small- or large-amplitude solar forcing) including also orbital, greenhouse-gas and non-volcanic aerosol forcing, and additionally used to produce small simulation ensembles starting from slightly different initial ocean conditions, the resulting simulations are highly capable of capturing some observed variability. Nevertheless, for some choices in the experiment design, they are not significantly closer to the observations than when unforced simulations are used, due to highly variable results between regions. It is also not possible to tell whether the small-amplitude or large-amplitude solar forcing causes the multiple-forcing simulations to be closer to the reconstructed temperature variability. This suggests that proxy data from more regions and proxy types, or representing larger regions and other seasons, are needed for more conclusive results from model-data comparisons in the last millennium.

scholarly journals Assessing the Impact of a Future Volcanic Eruption on Decadal Predictions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Illing ◽  
Christopher Kadow ◽  
Holger Pohlmann ◽  
Claudia Timmreck
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Climate System ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
The North ◽  
Precipitation Decrease ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The likelihood of a large volcanic eruption in the future provides the largest uncertainty concerning the evolution of the climate system on the time scale of a few years; but also an excellent opportunity to learn about the behavior of the climate system, and our models thereof. So the question emerges how predictable is the response of the climate system to future eruptions? By this we mean, to what extent will the volcanic perturbation affect decadal climate predictions and how does the pre-eruption climate state influence the impact of the volcanic signal on the predictions? To address these questions, we performed decadal forecasts with the MiKlip prediction system in the low-resolution configuration for the initialization years 2012 and 2014, which differ in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) phase among other things. Each forecast contains an artificial Pinatubo-like eruption starting in June of the first prediction year. For the construction of the aerosol radiative forcing, we used the global aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM in a version adapted for volcanic eruptions. We investigate the response of different climate variables, including near-surface air temperature, precipitation, frost days, and sea ice area fraction. Our results show that the average global cooling response over four years of about 0.2 K and the precipitation decrease of about 0.025 mm/day, is relatively robust throughout the different experiments and seemingly independent of the initialization state. However, on a regional scale, we find substantial differences between the initializations. The cooling effect in the North Atlantic and Europe lasts longer and the Arctic sea ice increase is stronger than in the simulations initialized in 2014. In contrast, the forecast initialized with a negative PDO shows a prolonged cooling in the North Pacific basin.

scholarly journals Statistical framework for evaluation of climate model simulations by use of climate proxy data from the last millennium – Part 3: Practical considerations, relaxed assumptions, and using tree-ring data to address the amplitude of solar forcing

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Moberg ◽  
R. Sundberg ◽  
H. Grudd ◽  
A. Hind
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Large Amplitude ◽  
Small Amplitude ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Last Millennium ◽  
Solar Forcing ◽  
Proxy Data ◽  
Statistical Framework ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
Climate Model Simulations

Abstract. A statistical framework for evaluation of climate model simulations by comparison with climate observations from instrumental and proxy data (part 1 in this series) is improved by the relaxation of two assumptions. This allows autocorrelation in the statistical model for simulated internal climate variability and enables direct comparison of two alternative forced simulations to test whether one fits the observations significantly better than the other. The extended framework is applied to a set of simulations driven with forcings for the pre-industrial period 1000–1849 CE and 15 tree-ring-based temperature proxy series. Simulations run with only one external forcing (land use, volcanic, small-amplitude solar, or large-amplitude solar) do not significantly capture the variability in the tree-ring data – although the simulation with volcanic forcing does so for some experiment settings. When all forcings are combined (using either the small- or large-amplitude solar forcing), including also orbital, greenhouse-gas and non-volcanic aerosol forcing, and additionally used to produce small simulation ensembles starting from slightly different initial ocean conditions, the resulting simulations are highly capable of capturing some observed variability. Nevertheless, for some choices in the experiment design, they are not significantly closer to the observations than when unforced simulations are used, due to highly variable results between regions. It is also not possible to tell whether the small-amplitude or large-amplitude solar forcing causes the multiple-forcing simulations to be closer to the reconstructed temperature variability. Proxy data from more regions and of more types, or representing larger regions and complementary seasons, are apparently needed for more conclusive results from model–data comparisons in the last millennium.

scholarly journals Recurrent transitions to Little Ice Age-like climatic regimes over the Holocene

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuli Helama ◽  
Markus Stoffel ◽  
Richard J. Hall ◽  
Phil D. Jones ◽  
Laura Arppe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Tree Ring ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Sea Ice Extent ◽  
Cold Temperatures ◽  
Tree Ring Data

AbstractHolocene climate variability is punctuated by episodic climatic events such as the Little Ice Age (LIA) predating the industrial-era warming. Their dating and forcing mechanisms have however remained controversial. Even more crucially, it is uncertain whether earlier events represent climatic regimes similar to the LIA. Here we produce and analyse a new 7500-year long palaeoclimate record tailored to detect LIA-like climatic regimes from northern European tree-ring data. In addition to the actual LIA, we identify LIA-like ca. 100–800 year periods with cold temperatures combined with clear sky conditions from 540 CE, 1670 BCE, 3240 BCE and 5450 BCE onwards, these LIA-like regimes covering 20% of the study period. Consistent with climate modelling, the LIA-like regimes originate from a coupled atmosphere–ocean–sea ice North Atlantic-Arctic system and were amplified by volcanic activity (multiple eruptions closely spaced in time), tree-ring evidence pointing to similarly enhanced LIA-like regimes starting after the eruptions recorded in 1627 BCE, 536/540 CE and 1809/1815 CE. Conversely, the ongoing decline in Arctic sea-ice extent is mirrored in our data which shows reversal of the LIA-like conditions since the late nineteenth century, our record also correlating highly with the instrumentally recorded Northern Hemisphere and global temperatures over the same period. Our results bridge the gaps between low- and high-resolution, precisely dated proxies and demonstrate the efficacy of slow and fast components of the climate system to generate LIA-like climate regimes.

Regional curve standardization: State of the art

The Holocene ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuli Helama ◽  
Thomas M Melvin ◽  
Keith R Briffa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Tree Ring ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Climate Variations ◽  
Proxy Data ◽  
Regional Curve Standardization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
Past Climate Variability ◽  
Original Concept

Tree rings are commonly used proxy data for past climate variability. Probably the simplest practical solution for transforming raw tree-ring data into proxy estimates and retaining information on low-frequency tree-growth forcing is the regional curve standardization (RCS). This paper reviews the RCS concept and the development of this standardization method over the past 25 years. Tree-ring based estimation of low-frequency climate variability is illuminated with a growing diversification of the original concept. The RCS-type methods are seen to remain as essential tools in palaeoclimate research while the RCS chronologies of tree-ring and other incremental proxy data remain the only source for calendar year dated short-to-long timescale climate variations.

Boreal forest carbon exchange and growth recovery after the summer 2018 drought

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maj-Lena Linderson ◽  
Jutta Holst ◽  
Michal Heliasz ◽  
Leif Klemedtsson ◽  
Anne Klosterhalfen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eddy Covariance ◽  
Tree Ring ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Carbon Fluxes ◽  
Forest Growth ◽  
Allocation Pattern ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Growth Recovery ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
The Impact

<p>In summer 2018, Northern Europe experienced an extreme summer drought in combination with unusually high temperatures, which had a substantial impact on agricultural yields as well as on forest growth conditions in various ways. An ongoing study, using ICOS and other forest ecosystem stations in the Nordic region, shows that the drought dramatically decreased NEP in the southern Scandinavian and Baltic region, almost nullifying the carbon sinks in some of the forests. However, some of the forests that not were exposed to the most extreme drought actually increased their NEP because of the high evaporative demand. Such severe conditions during a single year could be expected to influence a forest over several following years. Reduced tree storage of carbohydrates leads to a changed carbon allocation pattern in spring that may affect both the woody growth and the resistance to pests. It is thus important to reveal the impact of such climatic events over a longer period.    </p><p>This study aims at assessing the carry-over effects of the extreme weather conditions on the carbon fluxes and the forest growth to the year after the event, 2019. The base of the analysis will be eddy covariance data combined with tree ring time series from measurement stations that has been shown to be significantly affected by the drought through reduced carbon fluxes: the spruce forests Hyltemossa and Skogaryd and the mixed forests Norunda, Svartberget, Soontaga and Rumperöd. The eddy covariance and tree ring data will be used to assess the forest ecosystem carbon fluxes and growth recovery in 2019 by comparisons to earlier normal years and extreme events.</p>

Detection of high-wind events using tree-ring data

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1121-1129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith S. Hadley ◽  
Paul A. Knapp
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Tree Ring ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Ring Width ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Decadal Climate Variability ◽  
High Wind ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
Wind Events

Windstorms are common events in midlatitude west coast climates yet little is known about their long-term history and influence on regional forests. In this paper, we present a procedure that detects the timing and frequency of these high-wind events (HWEs) along the Pacific Northwest coast of North America using crossdated tree-ring measurements and detrended tree-ring chronologies derived from windsnapped trees. Our results show that abrupt changes in ring width patterns closely match dates of known HWEs and can serve as a nonclimatic basis for crossdating. Experimentation with different growth suppression and release criteria revealed that either a 50% decrease or a 50% increase in radial growth relative to the mean index value provided the best criterion for detecting windstorm-related growth anomalies. Comparing these results with the known occurrence of windstorms during the past century successfully identified all known major wind events during the study period. Low correlations between tree growth and climatic variables further imply that HWEs are the principal cause of interannual growth variations. Accordingly, we discuss the application of our procedure toward the development of a multicentury reconstruction of HWEs, a long-term analysis of decadal climate variability and HWEs, and the ecological role of HWEs in Pacific Northwest and other west coast forests.

scholarly journals Assessing the impact of a future volcanic eruption on decadal predictions

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 701-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Illing ◽  
Christopher Kadow ◽  
Holger Pohlmann ◽  
Claudia Timmreck
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Climate System ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The North ◽  
Precipitation Decrease ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The likelihood of a large volcanic eruption in the future provides the largest uncertainty concerning the evolution of the climate system on the timescale of a few years, but also an excellent opportunity to learn about the behavior of the climate system, and our models thereof. So the following question emerges: how predictable is the response of the climate system to future eruptions? By this we mean to what extent will the volcanic perturbation affect decadal climate predictions and how does the pre-eruption climate state influence the impact of the volcanic signal on the predictions? To address these questions, we performed decadal forecasts with the MiKlip prediction system, which is based on the MPI-ESM, in the low-resolution configuration for the initialization years 2012 and 2014, which differ in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) phase. Each forecast contains an artificial Pinatubo-like eruption starting in June of the first prediction year and consists of 10 ensemble members. For the construction of the aerosol radiative forcing, we used the global aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM in a version adapted for volcanic eruptions. We investigate the response of different climate variables, including near-surface air temperature, precipitation, frost days, and sea ice area fraction. Our results show that the average global cooling response over 4 years of about 0.2 K and the precipitation decrease of about 0.025 mm day−1 is relatively robust throughout the different experiments and seemingly independent of the initialization state. However, on a regional scale, we find substantial differences between the initializations. The cooling effect in the North Atlantic and Europe lasts longer and the Arctic sea ice increase is stronger in the simulations initialized in 2014. In contrast, the forecast initialized in 2012 with a negative PDO shows a prolonged cooling in the North Pacific basin.

scholarly journals Inter-hemispheric asymmetry in the sea-ice response to volcanic forcing simulated by MPI-ESM (COSMOS-Mill)

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Zanchettin ◽  
O. Bothe ◽  
C. Timmreck ◽  
J. Bader ◽  
A. Beitsch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Climate Simulation ◽  
Decadal Climate Variability ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
Antarctic Sea Ice ◽  
Volcanic Forcing

Abstract. The decadal evolution of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice following strong volcanic eruptions is investigated in four climate simulation ensembles performed with the COSMOS-Mill version of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model. The ensembles differ in the magnitude of the imposed volcanic perturbations, with sizes representative of historical tropical eruptions (1991 Pinatubo and 1815 Tambora) and of tropical and extra-tropical "supervolcano" eruptions. A post-eruption Arctic sea-ice expansion is robustly detected in all ensembles, while Antarctic sea ice responds only to supervolcano eruptions, undergoing an initial short-lived expansion and a subsequent prolonged contraction phase. Strong volcanic forcing therefore emerges as a potential source of inter-hemispheric interannual-to-decadal climate variability, although the inter-hemispheric signature is weak in the case of eruptions comparable to historical eruptions. The post-eruption inter-hemispheric decadal asymmetry in sea ice is interpreted as a consequence mainly of the different exposure of Arctic and Antarctic regional climates to induced meridional heat transport changes and of dominating local feedbacks that set in within the Antarctic region. Supervolcano experiments help to clarify differences in simulated hemispheric internal dynamics related to imposed negative net radiative imbalances, including the relative importance of the thermal and dynamical components of the sea-ice response. Supervolcano experiments could therefore serve the assessment of climate models' behavior under strong external forcing conditions and, consequently, favor advancements in our understanding of simulated sea-ice dynamics.

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