Reply to comment by A. Robock on “Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo”

Abstract

[1] In our Pinatubo paper [Douglass and Knox, 2005a, hereinafter referred to as DK] we concluded that there was negative climate feedback and a short climate response time. Robock [2005, hereinafter referred to as R] claims that the outgoing long-wave radiation (LW) was incorrectly described as the forcing and that interchange of energy with the thermocline was unjustifiably neglected in determining our results. Although we made certain incorrect statements about the LW radiation, these were not part of our determination of the parameters. As to energy flow to the thermocline, as we argue elsewhere [Douglass and Knox, 2005b, hereinafter referred to as DK2], this flow is estimated be small and to affect our lifetime and sensitivities by less than 15%, not by a factor of three, as claimed.