Modelled surface climate response to effusive Icelandic volcanic eruptions: sensitivity to season and size

Zoëga, Tómas; Storelvmo, Trude; Krüger, Kirstin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2989-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2989-2025

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2989-2025

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

Articles | Volume 25, issue 5

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

12 Mar 2025

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 12 Mar 2025

Modelled surface climate response to effusive Icelandic volcanic eruptions: sensitivity to season and size

Tómas Zoëga, Trude Storelvmo, and Kirstin Krüger

Data sets

Modelled surface climate response to Icelandic effusive volcanic eruptions: Sensitivity to season and size Tómas Zoëga https://doi.org/10.11582/2025.00002

ERA5 monthly averaged data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.f17050d7

Observations and weather statistics Norwegian Centre for Climate Services https://seklima.met.no/observations/

Open Data Danish Meteorological Institute https://confluence.govcloud.dk/display/FDAPI

Tímaraðir fyrir valdar veðurstöðvar Icelandic Met Office https://www.vedur.is/vedur/vedurfar/medaltalstoflur/

Executive editor

Effusive, long-lasting volcanic eruptions impact climate through emission of gases and subsequent production of aerosols. Although previous studies have shown that the sulphate aerosol produced by these eruptions cools Earth's climate, this Earth system modelling study shows that high-latitude effusive eruptions can cause Arctic warming during the fall and wintertime. This warming effect is caused by the enhancement of downward longwave radiation from very optically thin clouds. The results have implications for our understanding of future Arctic climate change as well as any efforts to deliberately modify the climate through solar radiation management.

Short summary

We use an Earth system model to systematically investigate the climate response to high-latitude effusive volcanic eruptions as a function of eruption season and size, with a focus on the Arctic. We find that different seasons strongly modulate the climate response, with Arctic surface warming observed in winter and cooling in summer. Additionally, as eruptions increase in terms of sulfur dioxide emissions, the climate response becomes increasingly insensitive to variations in emission strength.