Eric Worrall writes:
The volcano Mount Sangeang Api in the Lesser Sunda Islands has just erupted, sending a huge ash cloud 12 miles into the air.
Wikipedia describes Sangeang Api as a volcano complex with 2 active cones, Doro Api 1,949 metres (6,394 ft) and Doro Mantoi. 1,795 m (5,889 ft). Indonesia has a number of very active volcanoes, including volcanoes which threaten major cities, such as the infamous Mount Merapi.
Merapi, which has erupted several times in the last decade, is located just 17 miles from the city of Yogyakarta, home of 2.5 million people.
Near equatorial volcanoes like Sangeang Api are useful to global warming modellers, as the ash cloud can usually be detected in both hemispheres. They provide a convenient excuse for the short term cooling of the entire Earth.
Some spectacular pictures in the following link:-
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Wrote an essay on this a few months ago for the next book (in fact the book is titled after this essay), so an reasonably current. Whether this eruption affects climate for more than a few months (3-4, to be precise) depends on how much of the volcanic aerosol punches through the tropopause and reaches the stratosphere, which near the equator is about 18 km high. If little does, the rest will wash out fairly quickly. Sarychev, VEI 4 on the Kamtchka peninsula, reached 20km and the tropopause there is 15 km. Yet 95% of the total volcanic aerosol still washed out in 3 months. See Jegou et. al. in ATM. Chem. Phys. 13: 6533-6552 (2013).
Most VEI 4 do not much affect the stratosphere. Of the last 9, only Sarychev did at all. Piñatubo was VEI 6.
This eruption is not over, and could have more strong pulses. Something to keep an eye on.
:cirby says:
May 30, 2014 at 4:16 pm
The pause was definitely caused by this eruption.
It turns out that the magma under this volcano is rich in thiotimoline, so it makes perfect sense.”
I appreciated your reference to Isaac Asimov’s joke paper
http://io9.com/5887014/meet-thiotimoline-the-chemical-compound-isaac-asimov-invented-to-spoof-boring-science-writing
a few good resources for those non-geologists in the room:
http://geology.com/stories/13/volcanic-explosivity-index/
http://www.wired.com/category/eruptions/
Not looking like that big an event unless things change dramatically going forward.
One interesting note from the wired site 186 Taupo New Zealand eruption is suggested to be ultraplinian. is there a noted corresponding cooling period in the record?
Unless someone can provide a detailed weather prediction for 2014/2015 an eruption this size would not be distinguishable from background with error bars. Maybe, just maybe I could be convinced of this eruptions impact if Mann provided me a detailed graphic. 🙂
This is Oppenheimer’s offering of climate modeling forced by tropical and high latitude volcanic events. Among his model runs, he models the 1257-58 event before the volcano was located and data more clearly estimated. He discusses that tropical events can influence Arctic climate for decades after the eruption and its post burping belching phase.
The GCM model he uses does not include ENSO model components. Which is a great limitation that he does not address. My thought: He should run an ENSO model (the ones used to predict short-term cycles) that are forced with aerosol decreased insolation estimates worked out with a volcanology meteorologist and see what happens to SST’s at and below the surface. With ENSO model-derived SST adjustments plus his direct radiative temperature adjustments as input, you might be able to get a coupled GCM to kick out a scenario that may suggest the decades long affects Oppenheimer alludes to.
So back to my speculation, when and where a volcano erupts is at least as important, if not more so, than where it is on the power scale. I speculate the “when and where” volcano’s potential ability to affect recharge events could be significant and able to then affect global climate for quite a while, even after the aerosols are gone. And may be the source of Oppenheimer’s suggested decades long influence.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CF0QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnldr.library.ucar.edu%2Frepository%2Fassets%2Fosgc%2FOSGC-000-000-002-413.pdf&ei=nfiJU-yUAcW2yASpmoHoDg&usg=AFQjCNGKHaQMmo1biBxTruLeR_wu5K2CiA
Bill Inis: “Lower stratosphere temperatures appear to slowly recover over up to 25 years after a major stratospheric eruption. The idea is that Ozone is depleted by a the large eruptions and then it takes a long time for the Ozone to rebuild.”
Just fitted linear model to TLS from 1993.8 2013.8 : slope 1.6K/century
At that rate it will take over 300 years to recover the 0.5K it dropped after Pinatubo.
Like I said, I think you’re hand draw lines are rather misleading and reflect what you expect/understand (mistakenly) to be the case.
One of the official explanations is ozone but I suspect there’s more to it. Maybe other industrial pollution gets flushed out with volcanic aerosols.
That is not to say at this point that I think this current eruption will be able to spread across important equatorial ENSO areas thus reducing recharge. I only bring it up again because of this volcanic event being tropical, not because of the magnitude of this event. I think Oppenheimer would say that it has less than blip ability at this point, though we are still early in this event.
By the way, it is interesting that Oppenheimer reported that the models produced winter warming only in the extratropical model, not the tropical model. hmmmmm.
Amended to say that the larger tropical events are not followed by high latitude winter warming. Though not clear in the Oppenheimer simulation, larger (as in much larger) high latitude events also do not produce winter warming. In either case, large or small, the winter warming is short-lived, followed by winter cooling in the simulations. So I think this winter warming is a small event that has short-lived drivers compared to the longer acting cooling drivers that follow.
Bob Tisdale says onMay 31, 2014 at 1:20 am:
“Arno Arrak says: “You are quite mistaken about the lack of La Nina events between 1991 and 1994, There was a La Nina as big as life in 1993/94.”
Then he continues:
“A La Niña is characterized by a cooling of the sea surface temperatures of the eastern and central equatorial Pacific. Here’s a link to NOAA’s Oceanic NINO index. In 1993 and in 1994, the ONI NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies did not even reach into negative values..”
I hate to say it, but this is just more ignorant and arrogant talk from Bob. First, you determine whether an El Nino or a La Nina exists from global temperature measures, not from sea surface temperature. The sea surface temperature can be used as an index but it is only a diagnostic tool and not a cause of anything. He is misusing SST by measuring it at Nino3.4 to determine whether a La Nina exists.That is smack in the middle of the equatorial counter-current, a good place to watch the El Nino wave go by on the way in, but no place to detect the La Nina whose reverse flow is broad and not concentrated in the counter-current that flows in the opposite direction.. An exception is forecasting El Nino from SST at Nino3.4 because it passes through that point on the way to South America. Problem with understanding ENSO is that there are too many confusing arguments out by numerous people who don’t understand the basic physics involved and are trying to set up all manner of indices based on side effects only marginally related to what ENSO is about. As an example, Bob has written a book about it but he still does not understand the basic fact that the El Nino wave emerging from the equatorial counter-current washes ashore in South America, nor does he understand that El Nino has nothing to do with global warming.
Is it erupted superwulkan? How many tons of of dust gets into the atmosphere?
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And will it delay the return of “Global Warming” as the term du jour?
Let’s see where he is currently blocked access solar energy. Please see clouds off the coast of Mexico.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/atmosphere/radbud/gs19_prd.gif
Whether this year will once again fell snow in the desert Atacama? I think that yes.
I link to a more current article on volcanic drivers of sudden and long term cooling trends tied to eruptions. Again I find it interesting that modeled long term cooling trends are attributed to melting icebergs further south in the North Atlantic, thus cooling the incoming current into the Arctic sea, thus further inhibiting ice melt, extending its boundary, and prolonging an interglacial cold event such as the LIA in a looping feedback. However, we know that ENSO processes teleconnect with that incoming current (lagged of course). So it is plausible in my speculation that equatorial dimly recharged waters make their way to the Arctic sea already cool. Backed by the earlier work of Oppenheimer, my speculation appears to be building plausibility when tropical volcanic activity is large enough to spread an ash and sulfur veil across ENSO-important equatorial oceanic territory, diming the ability to recharge the ocean with shortwave infrared energy.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD0QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnldr.library.ucar.edu%2Frepository%2Fassets%2Fosgc%2FOSGC-000-000-002-060.pdf&ei=rxKKU4XLO8W2yASpmoHoDg&usg=AFQjCNHn5oCicGZycFv18cQxrTPKgzcIqg
Arno, you argue with a vast army of scientists who have laid the groundwork and have provided the information that Bob shares with us in ways not so easily accessed in the scientific journals by the general public. This isn’t Bob’s theory. It is the generally accepted theory. One that very well matches observations.
Arno Arrak (May 31, 2014 at 10:25 am) “He [Tisdale] is misusing SST by measuring it at Nino3.4 to determine whether a La Nina exists.That is smack in the middle of the equatorial counter-current, a good place to watch the El Nino wave go by on the way in, but no place to detect the La Nina whose reverse flow is broad and not concentrated in the counter-current that flows in the opposite direction..”
All the indexes (Nino 1-4 and the 850’s) pointed to weak El Nino during 1990-1995. See Fig 1: http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2004/27/c027p051.pdf
Than low pressure enters the Gulf of Mexico.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/06/05/1200Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-92.73,19.65,553
@ur momisugly Rudolph.A.Furtado says: May 31, 2014 at 8:34 am
I hope you have a great trip – but I’d hardly say that trekking volcanic mountains is the last unpredictable adventure on Earth. Check out the massive mudslide in Colorado: http://www.brushnewstribune.com/ci_25862990/colorado-mudslide-before-after-images-show-scale-destruction and: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/05/26/massive-mudslide-in-western-colorado-3-missing/ It’s some 2 miles wide, 4 miles long, and 250 feet deep…. When it first began with a small slide apparently, 3 men went up to see what had cut off their irrigation water supply, and they got caught in the massive mudslide that then occurred. Or try avalanches, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami’s (just being on a beach can be a risky adventure), earthquakes, and so on. Mother nature is a terrifying and awesome thing, in many different ways, none of which tend to be terribly predictable.
@ur momisugly Greg Goodman : May 31, 2014 at 1:18 am
The plot was made using a generic one metric tonne impulse to the stratosphere and then applying the e-fold rates to the SO2 conversion and the sulfate sedimentation rate. How or how much Carbolyl Sulfide (COS) is included in a volcanoes gas emission is beyond me. Tropospheric SO2 doesn’t last long, but I’ve seen some statements that COS can last as long as nine years due to it’s stability and unwillingness to react. Once COS makes it to the tropopause and migrates above it (for what ever reason or method) it can be exposed to higher energy UV light which causes it to dissociate. Once that happens it can become part of the sulfate when it reacts with H2O. How fast that happens I am clueless on. My personal opinion, is that this is the way that flood basalt events can have an effect on stratospheric aerosol formation even though they don’t have highly energetic plumes that launch the sulfur up there directly. Tolbachik is the most recent flood basalt like eruption in recent history, and it’s been going on for a bit, possibly loading the aerosol layer.
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~raman/papers/BluthJG.pdf
Its gonna be interesting how these guys tally up the eruption’s effect on the aerosol concentration.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/
However, these guys seem to think it’s a pretty low effect. (based on models though…)
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1005976511096?LI=true#page-1
I can give Ren this hyperlink about snow in the Atacama desert:
http://strangesounds.org/2014/05/the-driest-place-in-the-world-the-atacama-desert-in-chile-was-covered-with-snow-on-may-24-2014.html
So the Atacama snow was already there on May, 24, 2014, a week before this Indonesian volcano erupted. The distance between Sangeang Api (lesser Sunda Islands) and Tambora (Sumbawa) is only 116 km. Sometimes volcanic activity stops after a few days, sometimes it increases. It is almost impossible to predict what will happen, but a repetition of the 1815 events is not [imaginary].
Arno,
Please tell us more about your definition of El Nino / La Nina. Where did you find it, or did you develop it yourself?
Anno Arrak: “…nor does he understand that El Nino has nothing to do with global warming.”
Simply to say someone else does not “understand”, is a rather arrogant “I know all so there” attitude which does not establish or even attempt to explain WHY or how they are wrong and what the right explanation is.
You have come out with some fairly silly unsupported, self proclamations of “fact” earlier so I guess I’ll have to add to my skip-comments-by list.
GeoLurking , thanks for the papers.
I’m wondering whether there will be enough of an effect and enough data to test my conclusion that volcanic aerosol forcing is AOD * 33 W/m2. This is considerably more than current modeller’s values but close to what Lacis , Hansen and Sato published in 1992 ( when they were still doing science instead of rigging climate models).
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=884
De Paus says:
May 31, 2014 at 2:02 pm
I can give Ren this hyperlink about snow in the Atacama desert:
http://strangesounds.org/2014/05/the-driest-place-in-the-world-the-atacama-desert-in-chile-was-covered-with-snow-on-may-24-2014.html
So the Atacama snow was already there on May, 24, 2014, a week before this Indonesian volcano erupted.
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That’s not a problem. Anything that happens up to a year before an eruption can safely be attributed as being a consequence of it.
/sarc.