South American hydroclimatic response to large volcanic events over the last 600 years. A data-model intercomparison.

ERNESTO TEJEDOR; NATHAN J. STEIGER; JASON E. SMERDON; MARIANO MORALES; LAIA ANDREU-HAYLES; RICARDO VILLALBA; M. EUGENIA FERRERO; MATHIAS VUILLE

New Orleans, LA & Online

Conferencia; American Geophysical Union -AGU- Fall Meeting; 2021

American Geophysical Union

Volcanic eruptions constitute one of the main radiative perturbations to Earth?s climate system over the last centuries. Such events can induce large and persistent hydroclimatic changes at global and regional scale and yet, the magnitude and spatial extent of the hydroclimatic impacts over South America remain poorly understood. Here, we use the novel tree-ring based South American Drought Atlas (SADA) to analyze the hydroclimatic response of large volcanic events over the last 600 years during the summer season (December-February). Through a superposed epoch analysis, we investigate the hydroclimate response following tropical eruptions, larger than Mt Pinatubo, and events with hemispherically greater aerosol loading in either the Northern or Southern Hemisphere. We find a significant (p