Volcanoes and climate: Krakatoa's signature persists in the ocean

We have analysed a suite of 12 state-of-the-art climate models and show that ocean warming and sea-level rise in the twentieth century were substantially reduced by the colossal eruption in 1883 of the volcano Krakatoa in the Sunda strait, Indonesia. Volcanically induced cooling of the ocean surface penetrated into deeper layers, where it persisted for decades after the event. This remarkable effect on oceanic thermal structure is longer lasting than has previously been suspected1 and is sufficient to offset a large fraction of ocean warming and sea-level rise caused by anthropogenic influences.