Volcanic Forcing and Climate Dynamics

Volcanic forcing represents a powerful natural driver of Earth’s climate system through the injection of sulphate aerosols and ash into the stratosphere. These aerosols increase planetary albedo, triggering surface cooling that can persist for several years. The magnitude and duration of the climate response depend on eruption latitude, magnitude, and aerosol properties, while internal modes of variability such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) modulate regional impacts. In the tropics, large explosive eruptions often induce an initial sea surface cooling, which can disrupt monsoon circulations and occasionally favour El Niño–like conditions through complex air–sea feedbacks. At higher latitudes, eruptions may intensify stratospheric polar vortices, leading to downstream shifts in extratropical jet streams and altered precipitation patterns. Volcanic forcing also influences ocean circulation by perturbing heat and salinity transport, with potential long-term effects on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The interplay between volcanic aerosols and internal variability poses challenges for seasonal to decadal climate prediction and contributes substantially to uncertainty in warming projections. Understanding these processes is essential for interpreting past climate events, improving future climate projections and assessing the efficacy of proposed geoengineering approaches that mimic volcanic aerosol injection.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have highlighted the importance of accounting for stochastic volcanic eruptions when projecting future climate. New work demonstrates that adopting a random eruption approach rather than a fixed historical average nearly halves the probability of exceeding critical warming thresholds under strong mitigation scenarios and can markedly increase the likelihood of negative decadal temperature trends. This stochastic framework emphasises that volcanic uncertainty contributes almost as much as internal variability to temperature projection spread through mid-century. Earlier foundational analysis has shown that large tropical eruptions can initiate El Niño events by cooling tropical African land surfaces, weakening the West African monsoon and triggering atmospheric Kelvin waves that ultimately favour equatorial Pacific warming through air–sea feedback. In the North Atlantic, synchronisation between eruption timing and ocean circulation anomalies has been linked to bidecadal variability in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, with major eruptions such as Agung yielding peak circulation enhancements 15 years later and influencing long-term salinity patterns.

Research from all publishers

Independent investigations continue to refine our understanding of volcanic impacts on climate dynamics. Analysis of decadal hindcasts reveals that inclusion of volcanic aerosol forcing can degrade skill in predicting tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, owing to a discrepancy between modelled eruption-driven cooling and observed warming tied to internal variability. Regional studies have uncovered that successive tropical eruptions since the late 19th century have driven extreme winter cooling of up to 0.8 K on the Tibetan Plateau, a signal amplified by a post-eruption positive NAO phase that enhances atmospheric teleconnections. A comprehensive review of extratropical circulation responses emphasises that eruption latitude is crucial in determining regional climate anomalies: high-latitude eruptions preferentially alter polar vortex strength and jet stream position, while tropical eruptions induce broader hemispheric pressure changes. Persistent uncertainties remain in model simulations of these responses, underlining the need for coordinated experiments to disentangle aerosol microphysics, stratospheric dynamics and internal variability effects.

Volcanic Forcing and Climate Dynamics publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in volcanic forcing and climate dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Stratospheric aerosol: Fine particles of sulphate formed from volcanic sulphur dioxide that reside in the stratosphere and scatter incoming solar radiation.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO): A coupled ocean–atmosphere phenomenon in the tropical Pacific characterised by anomalous warming (El Niño) and cooling (La Niña) of sea surface temperatures.

North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO): A mode of atmospheric variability reflecting pressure differences between the Azores high and the Icelandic low, influencing weather and climate over the North Atlantic region.

Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC): A system of surface and deep currents in the Atlantic Ocean that transports warm water northward and returns cold water southward, regulating climate.

References

1. Volcanic forcing degrades multiyear-to-decadal prediction skill in the tropical Pacific. Science Advances (2023).
2. Neglecting future sporadic volcanic eruptions underestimates climate uncertainty. Communications Earth & Environment (2025).
3. Extreme Tibetan Plateau cooling caused by tropical volcanism. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2024).
4. Impact of volcanic eruptions on extratropical atmospheric circulations: review, revisit and future directions. Environmental Research Letters (2023).
5. Tropical explosive volcanic eruptions can trigger El Niño by cooling tropical Africa. Nature Communications (2017).
6. Bidecadal North Atlantic ocean circulation variability controlled by timing of volcanic eruptions. Nature Communications (2015).