This result just sort of jumped out at us. It’s a very curious feature of nature.

We can’t rely on future volcanic eruptions slowing ocean warming and sea level rises.

It appears as though with a very large eruption the effect can last for many decades and possibly as long as a century.

That cooling penetrated into deeper layers of the ocean, where it remained for decades after the event. We found that volcanic effects on sea level can persist for many decades.

Volcanoes have a big impact. The ocean warming and sea level would have risen much more if it weren’t for volcanoes.

Pinatubo’s effect shows up in the models, but doesn’t last as long.

These results are suggesting that an eruption such as Pinatubo temporarily slows down the warming but it is only temporary, and in the future we can’t rely on eruptions as a way of slowing the...