Extreme Tibetan Plateau cooling caused by tropical volcanism

Abstract

The extreme cooling of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) during the boreal winter typically poses threats to the local environment and people’s safety, and it is usually attributed to internal climate variability. Here we demonstrate that the five recent large tropical volcanic eruptions since 1880 have caused an average extreme cooling of up to −0.80 K on the TP in observations during the first boreal winter following the eruptions. This cooling effect is much larger than the global average terrestrial cooling of −0.30 K after the eruptions. The multi-model ensemble mean (MME) of the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) runs from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), in which realistic sea surface temperatures (SST) were specified, can simulate an extreme TP cooling response of up to −0.79 K, which is much larger than the direct aerosol cooling of −0.36 K simulated by the historical runs. The positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) anomaly during the post-eruption winter after the eruptions plays a key role in amplifying the TP cooling through atmospheric teleconnection, which overwhelms the warming response associated with the frequently occurring El Niños. The results from this study provide a perspective on the potential contribution of volcanic activity or stratospheric sulfur injection scenarios to specific TP cooling.