loading page

How Extreme Apparitions of the Volcanic and Anthropogenic South East Asian Aerosol Plume caused the Millennium Drought in South Eastern Australian. First Attribution and Mechanism using data from the Last Millennium Ensemble, Large Ensemble, MERRA-2 Reanalysis, four Satellites and the Global Volcanism Program.
  • Keith Alan Potts
Keith Alan Potts
Kyna Keju Pty Ltd

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile

Abstract

The Last Millennium Ensemble, Large Ensemble, MERRA-2, four satellite data sets and the Global Volcanism Program database all show independently that drought in south eastern Australia (SEAus) is created by apparitions of the natural and anthropogenic aerosol plume over south east Asia which simultaneously create ENSO and IOD events. From 1997 to 2008 SEAus endured an exceptionally severe drought - the Millennium Drought. The River Murray, the major waterway in the region, experienced inflows at record low levels in 2006-07 which were more than 40% below the previous low. As the literature, Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the USA Climate Change Science Program suggest that aerosols can affect the large-scale atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle I examine the relationship between aerosols and Australian droughts. The global aerosol coverage is highly inhomogeneous and variable at daily, monthly, annual and decadal scales. I show that the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and aerosol index (AI) of the South East Asian Plume (SEAP) and the volume of aerosols ejected by volcanoes (tephra) in south east Asia correlate with drought in Australia and conclude that the SEAP causes drought in Australia by Aerosol Regional Dimming (ARD), which, by altering the surface radiation budget under the plume and warming the upper atmosphere, forces the regional Inter Tropical Convergence Zone and Hadley Cells into abnormal seasonal positions. These effects alter the regional atmospheric circulation systems and hydrologic cycle thereby causing drought and, as the SEAP has intensified over time, created climate change.