The 1831 eruption of Babuyan Claro that never happened: has the source of one of the largest volcanic climate forcing events of the nineteenth century been misattributed?

Garrison, Christopher; Kilburn, Christopher R. J.; Edwards, Susan

doi:10.1186/s13617-018-0078-9

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The choice of volcanic events can greatly influence the magnitude of average regional cooling identified (Esper et al, 2013;Wilson et al, 2016). In addition, for many events that occurred before instrumental records, the timing, location, and size of eruptions are uncertain (Timmreck et al, 2021;Garrison et al, 2018). For this analysis, we are interested in those events which would likely have reduced growing-season temperatures over New Zealand and thus be identifiable as ring-width anomalies.…”

Section: Selection Of Volcanic Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Southern Hemisphere tree rings record past volcanic events? A case study from New Zealand

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Much of our knowledge about the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate comes from proxy records. However, little is known about their impact on the low to mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Using superposed epoch analysis, we investigated whether volcanic signals could be identified in annual tree-ring series from eight New Zealand dendrochronological species. We found that most species are reliable recorders of volcanic cooling and that the magnitude and persistence of the post-event response can be broadly linked to plant life history traits. Across species, site-based factors, particularly altitude and exposure to prevailing conditions, are more important determinants of the strength of the volcanic response than species. We then investigated whether chronology selection impacts the magnitude of post-volcanic cooling in tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions by developing two new multispecies reconstructions of New Zealand summer (December–February) temperature with one reconstruction from the pool of all available chronologies, and the other from a selected subset shown to be sensitive to volcanic eruptions. Both reconstructions record temperature anomalies that are remarkably consistent with studies based on instrumental temperature and the ensemble mean response of climate models, demonstrating that New Zealand ring widths are reliable indicators of regional volcanic climate response. However, we also found that volcanic response can be complex, with positive, negative, and neutral responses identified – sometimes within the same species group. Species-wide composites thus tend to underestimate the volcanic response. This has important implications for the development of future tree-ring and multiproxy temperature reconstructions from the Southern Hemisphere.

show abstract

Section: Selection Of Volcanic Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Southern Hemisphere tree rings record past volcanic events? A case study from New Zealand

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The choice of volcanic events can greatly influence the magnitude of average regional cooling identified (Esper et al, 2013;Wilson et al, 2016). In addition, for many events which occurred before instrumental records, the timing, location, and size of eruptions are uncertain (Garrison et al, 2018;Timmreck et al, 2021). For this analysis, we are interested in those events which would likely have reduced growing season temperatures over New Zealand and thus be identifiable as ring-width anomalies.…”

Section: Selection Of Volcanic Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Southern Hemisphere tree rings record past volcanic events?

Higgins

Palmer

Turney

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Much of our knowledge about the impacts of volcanic events on climate comes from proxy records. However, little is known about the impact of volcanoes on trees from the Southern Hemisphere. We investigated whether volcanic signals could be identified in ring widths from eight New Zealand dendrochronological species, using superposed epoch analysis. We found that most species are good recorders of volcanic dimming and that the magnitude and persistence of the post-event response can be broadly linked to plant life history traits. Across species, site-based factors, particularly altitude and exposure to prevailing conditions, are more important determinants of the strength of the volcanic response than the species. We then investigated whether proxy selection impacts the magnitude of post-volcanic cooling in tree-ring based temperature reconstructions by developing two new multispecies reconstructions of New Zealand summer (December–February) temperature. Both reconstructions showed temperature anomalies remarkably consistent with studies based on instrumental temperature, and with the ensemble mean response of climate models, demonstrating that New Zealand ring widths are reliable indicators of regional volcanic climate response. However, we also found that volcanic response is complex, with positive, negative, and neutral responses identified – sometimes within the same species group. Species-wide composites thus tend to underestimate the volcanic response. The has important implications for the development of future tree ring and multiproxy temperature reconstructions from the Southern Hemisphere.

show abstract

“…Until recently, the 1831 eruption had commonly been assumed to be an eruption of Babuyan Claro, in the Philippines, which had notionally been assigned a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 4 (Zielinski, 1995;Global Volcanism Program, 2013;Arfeuille et al, 2014;Toohey and Sigl, 2017). However, Garrison et al (2018) found no reliable evidence of such an eruption in 1831, suggesting that the climate forcing eruption must have taken place elsewhere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The blue suns of 1831: was the eruption of Ferdinandea, near Sicily, one of the largest volcanic climate forcing events of the nineteenth century?

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. One of the largest climate forcing eruptions of the nineteenth century was, until recently, believed to have taken place at the Babuyan Claro volcano, in the Philippines, in 1831. However, a recent investigation found no reliable evidence of such an eruption, suggesting that the 1831 eruption must have taken place elsewhere. We here present our newly compiled dataset of reported observations of a blue, purple and green sun in August 1831, which we use to reconstruct the transport of a stratospheric aerosol plume from that eruption. The source of the aerosol plume is identified as the eruption of Ferdinandea, which took place about 50 km off the south-west coast of Sicily (37.1∘ N, 12.7∘ E), in July and August 1831. The modest magnitude of this eruption, assigned a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 3, has commonly caused it to be discounted or overlooked when identifying the likely source of the stratospheric sulfate aerosol in 1831. It is proposed, however, that convective instability in the troposphere contributed to aerosol reaching the stratosphere and that the aerosol load was enhanced by addition of a sedimentary sulfur component to the volcanic plume. Thus, one of the largest climate forcing volcanic eruptions of the nineteenth century would effectively have been hiding in plain sight, arguably “lowering the bar” for the types of eruptions capable of having a substantial climate forcing impact. Prior estimates of the mass of stratospheric sulfate aerosol responsible for the 1831 Greenland ice core sulfate deposition peaks which have assumed a source eruption at a low-latitude site will, therefore, have been overstated. The example presented in this paper serves as a useful reminder that VEI values were not intended to be reliably correlated with eruption sulfur yields unless supplemented with compositional analyses. It also underlines that eye-witness accounts of historical geophysical events should not be neglected as a source of valuable scientific data.

show abstract

The 1831 eruption of Babuyan Claro that never happened: has the source of one of the largest volcanic climate forcing events of the nineteenth century been misattributed?

Cited by 13 publications

References 27 publications

Do Southern Hemisphere tree rings record past volcanic events? A case study from New Zealand

Do Southern Hemisphere tree rings record past volcanic events? A case study from New Zealand

Do Southern Hemisphere tree rings record past volcanic events?

The blue suns of 1831: was the eruption of Ferdinandea, near Sicily, one of the largest volcanic climate forcing events of the nineteenth century?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About