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Letters
Aerosol forcing of the position of the intertropical convergence zone since ad 1550 -
Harriet E. Ridley, Yemane Asmerom, James U. L. Baldini, Sebastian F. M. Breitenbach, Valorie V. Aquino, Keith M. Prufer, Brendan J. Culleton, Victor Polyak, Franziska A. Lechleitner, Douglas J. Kennett, Minghua Zhang, Norbert Marwan, Colin G. Macpherson, Lisa M. Baldini, Tingyin Xiao, Joanne L. Peterkin, Jaime Awe & Gerald H. Haug
doi:10.1038/ngeo2353
The position of the intertropical convergence zone may be influenced by aerosols. A 450-year-long precipitation record from Belize confirms a southward shift associated with increasing anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Short eruption window revealed by absolute crystal growth rates in a granitic magma -
Mélanie Barboni & Blair Schoene
doi:10.1038/ngeo2185
Giant volcanic eruptions occur when large volumes of magma accumulate in crustal reservoirs and do not cool and crystallize to form a solid pluton of rock within the crust. Geochronological dating of a pluton from Elba, Italy, shows that the magma solidified in the crust within just 10–40 thousand years of being injected into the crust, implying that the time window for an eruption was short.
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Volcanic contribution to decadal changes in tropospheric temperature -
Benjamin D. Santer, Céline Bonfils, Jeffrey F. Painter, Mark D. Zelinka, Carl Mears, Susan Solomon, Gavin A. Schmidt, John C. Fyfe, Jason N. S. Cole, Larissa Nazarenko, Karl E. Taylor & Frank J. Wentz
doi:10.1038/ngeo2098
Global mean surface and tropospheric temperatures have shown slower warming since 1998 than found in climate model simulations. A detailed analysis of observations and climate model simulations suggests that the observed influence of volcanic eruptions on tropospheric temperature has been significant, and that the discrepancy between climate simulations and observations is reduced by up to 15% when twenty-first century volcanic eruptions are accounted for in the models.
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Small influence of solar variability on climate over the past millennium -
Andrew P. Schurer, Simon F. B. Tett & Gabriele C. Hegerl
doi:10.1038/ngeo2040
Climate variations over the past 1,000 years correspond to solar fluctuations, but the magnitude of the solar variability is unclear. An analysis of numerical simulations and climate reconstructions suggests that the amplitude of solar forcing was small over this interval, with the main climate forcing derived from volcanic eruptions and greenhouse gas concentrations.
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Caldera size modulated by the yield stress within a crystal-rich magma reservoir -
Leif Karlstrom, Maxwell L. Rudolph & Michael Manga
doi:10.1038/ngeo1453
The size of the caldera formed when the surface collapses after a large volcanic eruption is thought to reflect the size of the evacuated magma chamber. Numerical modelling shows that magma stored in different parts of the chamber can be mobile or locked, so caldera size may only correspond to the volume of evacuated mobile magma.
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Influence of human and natural forcing on European seasonal temperatures -
Gabriele Hegerl, Juerg Luterbacher, Fidel González-Rouco, Simon F. B. Tett, Thomas Crowley & Elena Xoplaki
doi:10.1038/ngeo1057
The impact of external influences on European temperatures before 1900 has been thought to be negligible. An analysis of reconstructions of seasonal European land temperatures and simulations from three global climate models instead suggests that external forcing is responsible for a best guess of 75% of the observed winter warming since the late seventeenth century.
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The impact of volcanic forcing on tropical temperatures during the past four centuries -
Rosanne D'Arrigo, Rob Wilson & Alexander Tudhope
doi:10.1038/ngeo393
The effect of volcanism on low-latitude climate has been difficult to quantify. A compilation of tropical and subtropical annually resolved climate reconstructions shows a correlation between low sea surface temperatures and low-latitude volcanic activity over the past four centuries.
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Article
Reconciliation of halogen-induced ozone loss with the total-column ozone record -
T. G. Shepherd, D. A. Plummer, J. F. Scinocca, M. I. Hegglin, V. E. Fioletov, M. C. Reader, E. Remsberg, T. von Clarmann & H. J. Wang
doi:10.1038/ngeo2155
The observed depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer from the 1980s onwards is attributed to halogens released through human activities. Model simulations show that stratospheric ozone loss has declined by over 10% since stratospheric halogen loading peaked in the late 1990s, indicating that the recovery of the ozone layer is well under way.
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