The Climatic Effects of the Stratospheric Volcanic Ash

The climatic effects of the stratospheric volcanic ash are simulated. The model we used is a primitive equation model with the P-σ incorporated coordinate system. The model has 5 layers in the atmosphere and 2 layers in the soil. The volcanic ash is introduced to the first (highest) model layer with a fixed optical thickness of 0.1275. Two comparative numerical experiments with and without the volcanic ash are made. Results show that the effects of the stratospheric volcanic ash on the formations of the mean climatic fields are much smaller than those of the land-sea distribution and the large scale topography. However, it does have contributions to the anomalies of the basic climatic states. The direct effect of the volcanic ash is to increase the temperature in the stratosphere. It can also influence the temperature and the height fields of isobaric surfaces, horizontal and vertical motions, precipitation and the surface climate through dynamic and thermodynamic processes in the atmosphere.