Multidecadal climate oscillations during the past millennium driven by volcanic forcing

A volcanic source of variation The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), a 50- to 70-year quasiperiodic variation of climate centered in the North Atlantic region, was long thought to be an internal oscillation of the climate system. Mann et al. now show that this variation is forced externally by episodes of high-amplitude explosive volcanism. They used an ensemble of climate models to evaluate the causes of the AMO, finding that volcanos are the most important influence, and that there is no evidence to show that it has been internally generated during the last millennium. Science, this issue p. 1014 Explosive volcanism drives the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Past research argues for an internal multidecadal (40- to 60-year) oscillation distinct from climate noise. Recent studies have claimed that this so-termed Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is instead a manifestation of competing time-varying effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols. That conclusion is bolstered by the absence of robust multidecadal climate oscillations in control simulations of current-generation models. Paleoclimate data, however, do demonstrate multidecadal oscillatory behavior during the preindustrial era. By comparing control and forced “Last Millennium” simulations, we show that these apparent multidecadal oscillations are an artifact of pulses of volcanic activity during the preindustrial era that project markedly onto the multidecadal (50- to 70-year) frequency band. We conclude that there is no compelling evidence for internal multidecadal oscillations in the climate system.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Science

• Publication date

  2021-03-05

• Fields of study

  Geology, Medicine, Physics, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1126/science.abc5810PMID 33674487
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Absence of internal multidecadal and interdecadal oscillations in climate model simulations

  2020cited by this paper
• Response to Comment on “The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation without a role for ocean circulation”

  2016cited by this paper
• Atlantic and Pacific multidecadal oscillations and Northern Hemisphere temperatures

  2015cited by this paper
• The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation without a role for ocean circulation

  2015cited by this paper
• Evidence for external forcing of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation since termination of the Little Ice Age

  2014cited by this paper
• Aerosols implicated as a prime driver of twentieth-century North Atlantic climate variability

  2012cited by this paper
• Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly

  2009cited by this paper
• Solar influence on climate during the past millennium: Results from transient simulations with the NCAR Climate System Model

  2007cited by this paper
• A North Atlantic Climate Pacemaker for the Centuries

  2000cited by this paper
• Causes of Decadal Climate Variability over the North Pacific and North America

  1994cited by this paper

• Reconstructing the Pacific Decadal Oscillation over the last 1600 years by fusing global terrestrial and marine records

  2026cites this paper
• Satellite-based heat Index estimatioN modEl (SHINE): An integrated machine learning approach for the conterminous United States

  2026cites this paper
• Multidecadal Variation Characteristics and Mechanism Analysis of Indian Summer Monsoon Precipitation During the Little Ice Age

  2026cites this paper
• Reconstruction of last millennium sea surface temperature on 1° grid using a random forest algorithm

  2026cites this paper
• Hydroclimatic factors in the eastern Amazon-Cerrado transition: implications for coastal systems along Brazil's equatorial margin

  2026cites this paper
• Coral Sr/Ca From Venezuela Reconstruct Large‐Scale Variability in Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and Regional Hydroclimate Extremes

  2026cites this paper
• Preferred Time Scales of Pacific Decadal Variability During the Last Millennium Related to Volcanic Activity

  2026cites this paper
• Equatorial upwelling of phosphorus drives Atlantic N2 fixation and Sargassum blooms

  2025cites this paper
• Interplay of anthropogenic and natural drivers of observed coupled sea surface temperature - Arctic sea ice variability

  2025cites this paper
• Atlantic multidecadal variability control on European sea surface temperatures is mainly externally forced

  2025cites this paper
• Subpolar North Atlantic sea surface salinity as an AMOC mean state indicator

  2025cites this paper
• Slope Water Intrusions Onto Canadian Atlantic Continental Shelf During the Past 1800 Years

  2025cites this paper
• Interdecadal seismic periodicity modulated by solar and oceanic variability revealed from Chinese historical documents

  2025cites this paper
• Characterizing projected future droughts for south Florida (2056–2095)

  2025cites this paper
• Multidecadal Temperature Variability in the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble

  2025influential citation
• Deep learning based reconstructions of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation confirm twenty-first century decline

  2025cites this paper
• Runaway Climate Across the Wider Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific in the Anthropocene: Threats to Coral Reef Conservation, Restoration, and Social–Ecological Resilience

  2025cites this paper
• Too‐stable North Atlantic climate system in CMIP6 experiments undermines precipitation projections in Europe

  2025cites this paper
• Interdecadal Pacific oscillation phase dominants near-term global monsoon precipitation changes

  2025cites this paper
• Decadal climate variability during the pre-industrial Common Era: characteristics and mechanisms.

  2025cites this paper
• Changes in the western flank of the North Atlantic subtropical high since 1140 CE: Extremes, drivers, and hydroclimatic patterns

  2025cites this paper
• Lacking oceanic-driven internal multidecadal climate variability is compensated by forced variability in model simulations

  2025cites this paper
• Physics for the environment and sustainable development

  2025cites this paper
• Megapluvials in Southwestern North America

  2025cites this paper
• Volcanic fertilization of Late Triassic lacustrine algal blooms

  2025cites this paper
• Mitigation needed to avoid unprecedented multi-decadal North Atlantic Oscillation magnitude

  2025cites this paper
• The Examination of an Improved Analogue Method for Gridded Temperature Variation Reconstruction

  2025cites this paper
• Relationship Between Responses in Hydrological and Terrestrial Carbon Cycles to the 1815 Tambora Volcanic Eruption in MIROC‐ES2L

  2025cites this paper
• Out-of-phase tropical Atlantic–Pacific response after volcanic eruptions over the Last Millennium in PMIP4/past1000 simulations

  2025cites this paper
• Frequency Response Analysis of State Space Models for Time Series Analysis

  2025cites this paper
• The influence of climate variability on transatlantic flight times

  2025cites this paper
• Origin of the 1458/59 CE volcanic eruption revealed through analysis of glass shards in the firn core from Antarctic Vostok station

  2025cites this paper
• Intensified NAO-South Asian Monsoon teleconnection during the Little Ice Age: Insights from speleothem records

  2025cites this paper
• Comparing near-term information from national climate scenarios and initialised decadal predictions

  2025cites this paper
• Toward an integrated pantropical ocean observing system

  2025cites this paper
• Unveiling extreme growth responses from a marine network of A. islandica shell growth records

  2025cites this paper
• Multidecadal hydroclimate responses to volcanic forcing in the Mid-Holocene

  2025cites this paper
• The influence of multidecadal climate variability and abrupt landscape change on terrestrial ecosystem composition and fire regime in the upper Columbia River basin - A high-resolution Holocene perspective

  2024cites this paper
• Review article: Interdisciplinary perspectives on climate sciences – highlighting past and current scientific achievements

  2024cites this paper
• Changes of Atlantic Multidecadal Variability During the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age and Associated Causes

  2024cites this paper
• European Summer Wet-Bulb Temperature: spatiotemporal variations and potential drivers

  2024cites this paper
• Towards variance-conserving reconstructions of climate indices with Gaussian process regression in an embedding space

  2024cites this paper
• Ocean climate and hydrodynamics drive decadal shifts in Northeast Atlantic dinoflagellates

  2024cites this paper
• Indian summer monsoon drives synchronous interdecadal hydroclimate changes in the Tibetan Plateau and surroundings

  2024cites this paper
• Tropical decadal variability in nutrient supply and phytoplankton community in the Central Equatorial Pacific during the late Holocene

  2024cites this paper
• Changes in Northern Hemisphere extra-tropical cyclone frequency following volcanic eruptions

  2024cites this paper
• Interdecadal tropical Pacific–Atlantic interaction simulated in CMIP6 models

  2024cites this paper
• A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE

  2024cites this paper
• Distinguishing climate change impacts from development impacts on summer low flows in Puget Sound streams

  2024cites this paper
• Strong Oceanic Forcing on Decadal Surface Temperature Variability Over Global Ocean

  2024cites this paper
• Coupled Pacific Rim megadroughts contributed to the fall of the Ming Dynasty's capital in 1644 CE.

  2024cites this paper
• PDO influenced interdecadal summer precipitation change over East China in mid-18th century

  2024cites this paper
• Extreme Tibetan Plateau cooling caused by tropical volcanism

  2024cites this paper
• Thermodynamic effect dictates influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation on Eurasia winter temperature

  2024cites this paper
• On the Unforced or Forced Nature of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation: A Linear and Nonlinear Causality Analysis

  2024cites this paper
• Geoecological problems of agricultural environmental management in conditions of climatic fluctuations within the Voronezh forest-steppe

  2024cites this paper
• Multidecadal variations in North Atlantic SSTs modulate the relationship between ENSO and the South Atlantic Subtropical Dipole since 1900

  2024cites this paper
• Dwindling Effective Radiative Forcing of Large Volcanic Eruption: The Compensation Role of Ocean Latent Heat Flux

  2024cites this paper
• Solar modulation of the western tropical Pacific hydroclimate over the last ∼1200 years

  2024cites this paper
• A Predicted Pause in the Rapid Warming of the Northwest Atlantic Shelf in the Coming Decade

  2024cites this paper
• North Atlantic temperature control on deoxygenation in the northern tropical Pacific

  2024cites this paper
• Probabilistic explanation for episodic ecological events

  2024cites this paper
• Past decadal climate variability of East Asian summer monsoon: Characteristics and mechanisms

  2024cites this paper
• Nonstationarity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation's Fingerprint on Sea Surface Temperature

  2024cites this paper
• Synchronous decadal climate variability in the tropical Central Pacific and tropical South Atlantic

  2024cites this paper
• Emergence of a climate oscillation in the Arctic Ocean due to global warming

  2024cites this paper
• Unparalleled EA-like leading mode of variability in the early 20th century highlights the need for understanding non-stationarity in the North Atlantic climate system

  2024cites this paper
• Early-twentieth-century cold bias in ocean surface temperature observations

  2024cites this paper
• East Asian synoptic climatology linked to Atlantic multidecadal variability.

  2024cites this paper
• MPI‐ESM Grand Ensemble‐Simulated Influence of the Mount Pinatubo Volcanic Eruption on Winter Climate Over the Mid‐to High‐Latitude Northern Hemisphere Continents

  2024cites this paper
• Climate Denialism

  2024cites this paper
• State-dependent impact of major volcanic eruptions observed in ice-core records of the last glacial period

  2024cites this paper
• Impacts of major volcanic eruptions over the past two millennia on both global and Chinese climates: A review

  2023cites this paper
• 过去2000年重大火山喷发对全球和中国气候的影响

  2023cites this paper
• Temporal variations of surface mass balance over the last 5000 years around Dome Fuji, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica

  2023cites this paper
• Decrease of the spatial variability and local dimension of the Euro-Atlantic eddy-driven jet stream with global warming

  2023cites this paper
• Southern Hemisphere Volcanism Triggered Multi-year La Niñas during the Last Millennium

  2023cites this paper
• Synergistic Interdecadal Evolution of Precipitation over Eastern China and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation during 1951–2015

  2023cites this paper
• Contrasting internally and externally generated Atlantic Multidecadal Variability and the role for AMOC in CMIP6 historical simulations

  2023cites this paper
• Towards two decades of Atlantic Ocean mass and heat transports at 26.5° N

  2023cites this paper
• Pantropical Indo-Atlantic temperature gradient modulates multi-decadal AMOC variability in models and observations

  2023cites this paper
• Future change in the solar wind and Central England temperature: implications for climate change attribution

  2023cites this paper
• Thermohaline patterns of intrinsic Atlantic Multidecadal Variability in MPI-ESM-LR

  2023cites this paper
• Land loss in the Mississippi River Delta: Role of subsidence, global sea-level rise, and coupled atmospheric and oceanographic processes

  2023cites this paper
• Origins of Multidecadal SST Variations in the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans Since the 1960s

  2023cites this paper
• Indices of Pacific Walker Circulation Strength

  2023cites this paper
• 深部碳过程动力学模拟: 最新进展与工作流程设计

  2023cites this paper
• Dynamic modeling of tectonic carbon processes: State of the art and conceptual workflow

  2023cites this paper
• North Atlantic Oscillation impact on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation shaped by the mean state

  2023cites this paper
• Holocene deglaciation and glacier readvances on the Fildes Peninsula and King George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo), South Shetland Islands, NW Antarctic Peninsula

  2023cites this paper
• Cyclical browning in a subtropical lake inferred from diatom records

  2023cites this paper
• A multidecadal oscillation in precipitation and temperature series is pronounced in low flow series from Puget Sound streams

  2023cites this paper
• High-resolution history of oxygen depletion in the SW Baltic Sea since the mid-19th century as revealed by bivalve shells.

  2023cites this paper
• Influence of solar forcing on multidecadal variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)

  2023cites this paper
• Unexpected cold season warming during the Little Ice Age on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau

  2023cites this paper
• Ocean Heat Content Responses to Changing Anthropogenic Aerosol Forcing Strength: Regional and Multi‐Decadal Variability

  2023cites this paper
• The Long-Term Course of the Annual Total Sunshine Duration in Europe and Changes in the Phases of the Thermohaline Circulation in the North Atlantic (1901–2018)

  2023cites this paper
• The role of internal feedbacks in sustaining multi-centennial variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation revealed by EC-Earth3-LR simulations

  2023cites this paper
• The impact of Atlantic Multidecadal Variability on Baltic Sea temperatures limited to winter

  2023cites this paper
• Abrupt change in tropical Pacific climate mean state during the Little Ice Age

  2023cites this paper