U34A-02
What do we need to know to model the microphysical evolution of volcanic clouds and how can we make these measurements?
Wednesday, 16 December 2015: 16:13
102 (Moscone South)
Jason M English, NOAA Boulder, ESRL Global Systems Division, Boulder, CO, United States; University of Colorado at Boulder, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, Owen B Toon, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States; University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States and Michael J Mills, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States
Abstract:
Large volcanic eruptions can inject millions of tons of ash, sulfate and gaseous precursors into the stratosphere. The magnitude and duration of the volcanic cloud on Earth's temperatures, circulation, clouds, and stratospheric ozone is strongly affected by the microphysical properties of the aerosol size distribution, which can evolve in complex ways. This presentation will cover the impacts and uncertainties associated with microphysical aerosol measurements and modeling of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption, and valuable future measurements after the next large volcanic eruption. These additional measurements can help improve our understanding of stratospheric processes as well as possible consequences of large volcanic eruptions and hypothetical geoengineering scenarios on radiative forcing and chemistry.
