The eruption of a volcano in Tonga may exacerbate global temperature fluctuations affecting summer precipitation in our country

According to CCTV news, on January 15, a volcano in the South Pacific island nation of Tongahun Aha Apai erupted violently, which may be the largest eruption in 30 years. What impacts could the volcanic eruption of the island of Tonga have on the climate of the world and the continent?

Historically, there have been global temperature drops after volcanic eruptions

According to meteorological data, the eruption of Mount Naki in Iceland in 1783 caused an unusually cold winter climate in Europe from 1783 to 1784; the average global temperature dropped by about 0.4 °C to 0.7 °C in the following year after the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, and many parts of the northern hemisphere suffered a "summerless year". In 1991, the Philippines Pinatubo Volcano erupted, injecting a large amount of aerosol into the stratosphere, and a few months later the average global temperature dropped by about 0.5 °C... These events have shown that volcanic eruptions are indeed associated with falling global temperatures.

Zhu Congwen, deputy director of the Institute of Climate and Climate Change of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, said that the main reason why volcanic eruptions lead to cooling is because it injects sulfur-containing aerosols into the atmosphere, which enter the stratosphere and produce a cooling effect in the atmosphere by weakening the intensity of solar radiation. How much of the cooling effect depends on the "order of magnitude" of sulfur dioxide released by the volcanic eruption. The Tonga island volcanoes are located in low latitudes, and in the past 100 years, there have been three large-scale low-latitude volcanic eruptions, and in the winter of the year after their eruptions, most of the mainland except the northeast and Xinjiang have low temperatures.

Volcanic eruptions in Tonga or exacerbate temperature fluctuations affect summer precipitation on the continent

Zhu Congwen said that a series of studies have shown that the Tonga volcanic eruption is likely to have a sustained impact on the global and East Asian climate in the next 1 to 2 years, and there will be a cooling effect of about 0.3 °C. For the mainland, historical statistical analysis has found that volcanic activity is likely to increase the amplitude of temperature fluctuations in most parts of the continent, weakening the intensity of summer winds in East Asia, which in turn leads to the southward summer rain band of the continent. Therefore, it is recommended that the continuing effects of volcanic eruptions be taken into account in flood precipitation forecasters.