# Tracing the impacts of Mount Pinatubo eruption on regional climate using spatially-varying changepoint detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.08908 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08908/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Sep 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Random Forest Regression Feature Importance for Climate Impact Pathway Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16609/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Significant events, such as volcanic eruptions, can have global and long-lasting impacts on climate. These global impacts, however, are not uniform across space and time. Understanding how the Mt. Pinatubo eruption affects global and regional climate is of great interest for predicting the impact on climate due to similar events as well as understanding the possible effect of the stratospheric aerosol injections proposed to combat climate change. While many studies illustrated the impact of the Pinatubo eruption on a global scale, studies at a fine regional scale are scarce. We propose a Bayesian spatially-varying changepoint detection and estimation method to trace the impact of Mt. Pinatubo eruption on regional climate. Our approach takes into account the diffusing nature and spatial correlation of the climate changes attributed to the volcanic eruption. We illustrate our method and demonstrate its advantages over an existing changepoint detection method through simulations. Finally, we apply our method to monthly stratospheric aerosol optical depth and surface temperature data from 1985 to 1995 to detect and estimate changepoints following the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. Our results quantitatively characterize the spatial pattern of the eruption's impact on regional climate, complementing the previous studies on the global impact of the Pinatubo eruption.