03/01/2010
Volcanic Eruptions and East Asia Climate
Summary
Analysis of past data records suggest that droughts extending spatially over large and contiguous areas in eastern China have been associated with explosive low-latitude volcanic eruptions. In a recent study, Peng et al. (2010) have used a 1000-yr global climate model simulation driven by natural and anthropogenic forcing to investigate the response of summer precipitation over eastern China to large volcanic eruptions. The analyses suggest that summer precipitation significantly decreases in the eruption year and the year after. This reduction can be attributed to a weakening of summer monsoon and a decrease of water vapor over tropical oceans caused by decreased solar radiation as a result of large volcanic eruptions. Ms. Peng was a Ph.D. student from Lanzhou University, China under the United States Department of Energy and China Ministry of Sciences and Technology joint agreement “Climate Sciences.”
References
Peng, Y.-B., C.-M. Shen, W.-C. Wang, and Y. Xu, 2010: Response of summer precipitation over eastern China to large volcanic eruptions. J. Climate, 23, 818-824. DOI: 10.1175/2009JCL.I2950.1.