EGU2020-458
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-458
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Impact of November 2010 volcanic activity on the UTLS temperatures

Elżbieta Lasota1,2, Riccardo Biondi2, Florian Ladstädter3,4, and Andrea K. Steiner3,4
Elżbieta Lasota et al.
  • 1Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław, Poland (elzbieta.lasota@upwr.edu.pl)
  • 2Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy
  • 3Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change (WEGC), University of Graz, Graz, Austria
  • 4Institute for Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology/Institute of Physics, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

Recent studies have shown an increase of stratospheric aerosol optical depth in the last 20 years despite the absence of large volcanic eruptions in the same period, contributing to supporting the hypothesis that several minor eruptions could impact the atmospheric variability as a large one. November 2010 was a relatively active volcanic period in the tropical belt, three eruptions with Volcanic Explosivity Index higher than 3 occurred in a time span of about 3 weeks: Merapi, Tengger Caldera and Tungurahua. Merapi was the largest eruption of the three, directly overshooting the stratosphere and injecting a large amount of sulfur dioxide. In this study, we analyse the impact of this series of eruptions on the temperature derived from radio occultation observations in upper troposphere lower stratosphere at the local, regional and global scale. The impact of the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, and linear trend on temperature is estimated and removed from temperature time series using multiple linear regression. Signatures of volcanic eruptions in temperature are analysed using post fit residuals. The results show significant warming in the lower stratosphere between 10°S and 0° for a period of 7 months after the eruptions with a maximum anomaly amplitude of about 1.4 K at 18 km altitude. Whilst the maximum warming in Merapi’s vicinity occurred 4 months after the eruption and reached the magnitude of almost 4 K.

How to cite: Lasota, E., Biondi, R., Ladstädter, F., and Steiner, A. K.: Impact of November 2010 volcanic activity on the UTLS temperatures , EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-458, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-458, 2020.

Corresponding displays formerly uploaded have been withdrawn.