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Surface Albedo Increase following Massive Pleistocene Explosive Eruptions in Western North America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

J. R. Bray
J. R. Bray*
Affiliation:
P.O. Box 494, Nelson, New Zealand
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Abstract

The eight massive Pleistocene explosive volcanic eruptions which occurred in western North America produced rhyolitic ash layers estimated to have covered from 0.38 to 2.76 × 106 km2 of the western and central portions of the continent. The surface albedo increases in the Northern Hemisphere resulting from these light-colored ash covers varied from around 0.06 to 0.41% assuming ash albedos based on color of around 53 to 65%. These albedo increases resulted in hemispheric temperature decreases of from around 0.07° to 0.41°C with greater cooling in and adjacent to the ash-covered regions. Such albedo-induced temperature declines lasted for at least several decades and reenforced the substantial posteruption cooling caused by volcanic aerosols and by a feedback decrease in atmospheric precipitable water. The magnitude and critical location of these temperature declines may have contributed to summer snow survival in the sub-Arctic plateaus and to a consequent triggering of major Pleistocene glaciations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , September 1979 , pp. 204 - 211
Copyright
University of Washington

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