Volcanic stratospheric sulfur injections and aerosol optical depth during the Holocene (past 11&thinsp;500 years) from a bipolar ice-core array

Sigl, Michael; Toohey, Matthew; McConnell, Joseph R.; Cole-Dai, Jihong; Severi, Mirko

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-3167-2022

Articles | Volume 14, issue 7

Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 3167–3196, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-3167-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 3167–3196, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-3167-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 7

Data description paper

12 Jul 2022

Data description paper | 12 Jul 2022

Volcanic stratospheric sulfur injections and aerosol optical depth during the Holocene (past 11 500 years) from a bipolar ice-core array

Michael Sigl et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-3167-2022-supplement

Data sets

HolVol: Reconstructed volcanic stratospheric sulfur injections and aerosol optical depth for the Holocene (9500 BCE to 1900 CE). PANGAEA, 2021 Michael Sigl, Matthew Toohey, Joseph R. McConnell, Jihong Cole-Dai, and Mirko Severi https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.928646

Short summary

Volcanism is a key driver of climate. Based on ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, we reconstruct its climate impact potential over the Holocene. By aligning records on a well-dated chronology from Antarctica, we resolve long-standing inconsistencies in the dating of past volcanic eruptions. We reconstruct 850 eruptions (which, in total, injected 7410 Tg of sulfur in the stratosphere) and estimate how they changed the opacity of the atmosphere, a prerequisite for climate model simulations.