Abstract
An undersea volcano at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) near the South Pacific island nation of Tonga, erupted violently on 15 January 2022. Potential climate impact of the HTHH volcanic eruption is of great concern to the public; here, we intend to size up the impact of the HTHH eruption from a historical perspective. The influence of historical volcanic eruptions on the global climate are firstly reviewed, which are thought to have contributed to decreased surface temperature, increased stratospheric temperature, suppressed global water cycle, weakened monsoon circulation and El Niño-like sea surface temperature. Our understanding of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on global-scale climate provides potential implication to evaluate the impact of the HTHH eruption. Based on historical simulations, we estimate that the current HTHH eruption with an intensity of 0.4 Tg SO2 injection will decrease the global mean surface temperature by only 0.004°C in the first year after eruption, which is within the amplitude of internal variability at the interannual time scale and thus not strong enough to have significant impacts on the global climate.
摘 要
2022 年 1 月 15 日, 南太平洋岛国汤加的 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai 海底火山剧烈喷发. 卫星探测显示, 火山灰到达了 30 公里的高度, 向平流层注入的二氧化硫总质量约为四千万吨. 作为自 1991 年皮纳图博火山之后最大规模的火山爆发事件之一, 汤加火山爆发是否会对全球气候造成显著影响, 引起了社会的广泛关注. 火山爆发后注入平流层的二氧化硫和硫化氢等气体会转化为硫酸盐气溶胶, 平均停留时间为 1–2 年, 通过改变辐射过程影响全球气候. 文章首先系统总结了气候学界当前关于历史火山爆发对全球气候影响的认知水平, 包括火山爆发后出现的表面温度下降、 平流层温度升高、 全球水循环和季风环流减弱、 热带太平洋 El Niño 型海温异常以及欧亚大陆冬季增温等现象. 在理解过去的火山爆发对气候影响的基础之上, 使用基于气候系统模式的过去千年气候模拟试验数据, 发现火山爆发后次年地表冷却的幅度与火山的强度之间存在显著的准线性关系, 且模式能够较好地再现观测中火山爆发后的降温幅度和空间分布. 因此进一步将气候模拟中历史上大型南半球火山爆发对地表温度的影响通过比例因子推算到汤加火山爆发的强度, 估算得出汤加火山爆发后次年全球平均地表温度仅下降 0.004°C, 这一幅度处于气候系统内部变率的范畴之内. 其中澳大利亚和南美洲部分地区降温超过 0.01°C, 中国大部分地区的降温在 0.01°C 以内. 我们的估算结果表明, 目前汤加火山的爆发不足以对全球气候产生显著影响, 更不会影响全球变暖的趋势.
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Acknowledgements
This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41988101, and 42105047). We thank the National Satellite Meteorological Center of China for providing valuable images from the FY-4B satellite.
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This paper is a contribution to the special issue on Cloud—Aerosol—Radiation—Precipitation Interaction: Progress and Challenges.
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Zuo, M., Zhou, T., Man, W. et al. Volcanoes and Climate: Sizing up the Impact of the Recent Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcanic Eruption from a Historical Perspective. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 39, 1986–1993 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-022-2034-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-022-2034-1