Abstract
Volcanic eruptions which inject large amounts of sulfur-rich gas into the stratosphere produce dust veils which last several years and cool the earth’s surface. At the same time, these dust veils absorb enough solar radiation to warm the stratosphere. Since these temperature changes at the earth’s surface and in the stratosphere are both in the opposite direction of hypothesized effects from greenhouse gases, they act to delay and mask the detection of greenhouse effects on the climate system. Tantalizing recent research results have also suggested regional effects of volcanic eruptions, including effects on ENSO.
Complete understanding of the above effects of volcanoes is hampered by inadequacies of data sets on volcanic dust veils and on climate change. The effects of volcanoes have not adequately been separated from ENSO events, and climate modeling of the effects of volcanoes is in its infancy. Specific suggestions are made for future work to improve our knowledge of this important component of our climate system.
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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Robock, A. (1989). Volcanoes and Climate. In: Berger, A., Schneider, S., Duplessy, J.C. (eds) Climate and Geo-Sciences. NATO ASI Series, vol 285. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2446-8_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2446-8_16
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