Along with sulfur emitted by coal-burning power plants, volcanic particles spewed high in the atmosphere reduced the amount of global warming otherwise expected during the 2000s, a new study finds.
Relatively small volcanic eruptions last decade sent sulfur high enough in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and help stall a rising global temperature trend. The work, reported online July 21 in Science, suggests it doesn’t take a colossal eruption for volcanoes to have a discernible influence on climate.
“If you don’t include these stratospheric aerosols in the models, you’re going to overestimate how much the temperature should have increased over the past decade,” says team member John Daniel, an atmospheric physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo.