Robust multiyear climate impacts of volcanic eruptions in decadal prediction systems

Models are therefore an important tool to understand and predict the impacts of an eruption. This study uses five state-of-the-art decadal prediction systems that have been initialized with the observed state before volcanic aerosols are introduced.

The impact of the volcanic aerosols is found by subtracting the results of a reference experiment where the volcanic aerosols are omitted. We look for the robust impact across models and volcanoes by combining all the experiments, which helps reveal a signal even if it is weak in the models. The models used in this study simulate realistic levels of warming in the stratosphere, but zonal winds are weaker than the observations.