Size-resolved process understanding of stratospheric sulfate aerosol following the Pinatubo eruption

Hu, Allen; Ke, Ziming; Liu, Xiaohong; Wagman, Benjamin; Brown, Hunter; Lu, Zheng; Wu, Mingxuan; Wang, Hailong; Tang, Qi; Bull, Diana; Peterson, Kara; Xie, Shaocheng

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12137-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12137-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12137-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 19

Research article

|

07 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 07 Oct 2025

Size-resolved process understanding of stratospheric sulfate aerosol following the Pinatubo eruption

Allen Hu, Ziming Ke, Xiaohong Liu, Benjamin Wagman, Hunter Brown, Zheng Lu, Mingxuan Wu, Hailong Wang, Qi Tang, Diana Bull, Kara Peterson, and Shaocheng Xie

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12137-2025-supplement

Data sets

Multi-Satellite Volcanic Sulfur Dioxide L4 Long-Term Global Database V4, MSVOLSO2L4 Carn, S https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/SO2/DATA405

VolcanEESM: Global volcanic sulphur dioxide (SO$_{2}$) emissions database from 1850 to present -- Version 1.0, CEDA Archive Neely III, R. R., and Schmidt, A. https://doi.org/10.5285/76ebdc0b-0eed-4f70-b89e-55e606bcd568

NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of AVHRR Daily and Monthly Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) over Global Oceans (Monthly subset) (4.0), NOAA Zhao, X. and NOAA CDR Program https://doi.org/10.25921/w3zj-4y48

Model code and software

Source code and run scripts for MAM4SC, MAM4FC, MAM5SC, MAM5FC Allen Hu https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12734296

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Short summary

Volcanic eruptions have major effects on atmospheric temperature and can be studied as a proxy for geo-engineering. The original aerosol module in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model v2 (E3SMv2) has problems simulating volcanic aerosols. We alter the aerosol module to simulate the 1991 Pinatubo eruption and implement a more complex chemistry scheme, producing results that better agree with observations. Process analyses of the volcanic aerosols help explain how they grow in the stratosphere.