Global warming occurs when greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, build up in the atmosphere and alter outgoing longwave radiation.
Some scientists have proposed that mitigating global warming could be accomplished by emulating a volcanic eruption because volcanic aerosols scatter incoming sunlight, reducing outgoing radiation. Trenberth and Dai caution against this mitigation proposal. They examine precipitation and streamflow records from 1950 to 2004 to document the effects of volcanic eruptions from Mexico's El Chichуn (1982) and the Philippines’ Pinatubo (1991). They find that, following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, there was a substantial global decrease in precipitation over land, a record decrease in runoff and river discharge into the oceans, and widespread drying over land during the following year. Thus, the authors conclude that major adverse effects, including drought, could arise from geoengineering solutions to global warming.-American Geophysical Union
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