Volcanic eruptions are a major natural driver of climate variability at interannual to multidecadal time scales. Assessment of volcanically-forced climate variability is complicated by many limiting factors, including, for instance, the paucity of observed eruptions, uncertainties associated with volcanological forcing datasets for the current and pre-instrumental period, limitations of proxy-based climate evidence, uncertainties of global aerosol model simulations and the apparent large inconsistencies in the responses to volcanic forcing simulated by current climate models.
This session aims to highlight new integrative research on aerosol radiative forcing and the climatic response to volcanic eruptions of Pinatubo-magnitude and larger, including studies conducted under the umbrella of the CMIP6-VolMIP, SPARC-SSiRC, CMIP6-PMIP4, and PAGES-VICS activities. Focus is on the quantification of uncertainties in volcanic forcing generated by current global aerosol models and their evaluation against stratospheric aerosol observations, on the reconstruction of volcanic forcing and the characterization of past volcanically-forced climate variability, particularly during the Common Era, and on the identification of dominant mechanisms of interannual-to-interdecadal volcanically-forced variability by means of observations, climate reconstruction studies as well as modeling approaches. We further invite contributions on the potential role of volcanic eruptions on future climate variability and predictability and on volcanic impacts on historical and modern societies.

We are pleased to have Francis Micheal Ludlow (Trinity College Dublin) and Ingo Bethke (Uni Research, Bergen) as invited speakers.