A multivariate spatial dynamic model to characterize time-varying impacts from a volcanic eruption

Oregon Convention Center 

The effects of solar climate intervention (SCI) efforts are confounded with climate change and natural variability. The June 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption resulted in a massive increase of aerosols (in the form of sulfur dioxide) in the atmosphere, absorbing radiation and thus serving as a natural analog for SAI which presents a chance to develop tools for climate attribution of regionalized sources. Our goal is to characterize the multivariate and dynamic nature of the climate impacts following the Mt Pinatubo eruption. To achieve this goal, we introduce a space-time multivariate model that captures correlations between climate effects following an event. Specifically, spatial variation is modeled using a flexible set of basis functions for which the basis coefficients are allowed to vary in time thru a vector autoregressive (VAR) structure. We show how this novel model can be casted in the Dynamic Linear Model framework and estimated via a customized MCMC approach. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the model characterizes the observed pathways following the Mt. Pinatubo eruption with reanalysis data from MERRA-2.