Publication Abstracts
McGraw and Polvani 2025
, and L.M. Polvani, 2025: Do climate models support claims of volcanic global catastrophes? Geophys. Res. Lett., 52, no. 18, e2025GL117611, doi:10.1029/2025GL117611.
Climate models have been claimed to support the popular belief that large volcanic eruptions greatly imperil human populations worldwide. These models provide estimates of historical post-eruption climates where observations and paleorecords are lacking. However, as we show, simulations of the last millennium's largest eruptions broadly disagree on resulting climates and typically produce more extreme outcomes than the moderate cooling and ordinary precipitation conditions recorded in tree rings. We demonstrate that strong cooling greatly strengthens the post-eruption precipitation anomalies in simulations. Conversely, simulations with paleoproxy-consistent volcanic surface cooling show post-eruption precipitation to be unexceptional at most locations. Climate models hence do not substantiate the claims that intense eruption-induced wet and dry anomalies have caused widespread historical catastrophes. We suggest that future assessments of global volcanic risk focus on impacts of moderate cooling and on equatorial Africa and South America, which evidence the only regional precipitation responses that are robust across simulations.
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BibTeX Citation
@article{mc07300l,
author={McGraw, Z. and Polvani, L. M.},
title={Do climate models support claims of volcanic global catastrophes?},
year={2025},
journal={Geophysical Research Letters},
volume={52},
number={18},
pages={e2025GL117611},
doi={10.1029/2025GL117611},
}
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RIS Citation
TY - JOUR ID - mc07300l AU - McGraw, Z. AU - Polvani, L. M. PY - 2025 TI - Do climate models support claims of volcanic global catastrophes? JA - Geophys. Res. Lett. JO - Geophysical Research Letters VL - 52 IS - 18 SP - e2025GL117611 DO - 10.1029/2025GL117611 ER -
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