Seasonality of volcanic eruptions

An analysis of volcanic activity during the last three hundred years reveals that volcanic eruptions exhibit seasonality to a statistically significant degree. This remarkable pattern is observed primarily along the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and locally at some individual volcanoes. Globally, seasonal fluctuations amount to 18% of the historical average monthly eruption rate. In some regions, seasonal fluctuations amount to as much as 50% of the average eruption rate. Seasonality principally reflects the temporal distribution of the smaller, dated eruptions (volcanic explosivity index of 0-2) that dominate the eruption catalog. We suggest that the pattern of seasonality correlates with the annual Earth surface deformation that accompanies the movement of surface water mass during the annual hydrological cycle and illustrate this with respect to global models of surface deformation and regional measurements of annual sea level change. For example, seasonal peaks in the eruption rate of volcanoes in Central America, the Alaskan Peninsula, and Kamchatka coincide with periods of falling regional sea level. In Melanesia, in contrast, peak numbers of volcanic eruptions occur during months of maximal regional sea level and falling regional atmospheric pressure. We suggest that the well-documented slow deformation of Earth's surface that accompanies the annual movements of water mass from oceans to continents acts to impose a fluctuating boundary condition on volcanoes, such that volcanic eruptions tend to be concentrated during periods of local or regional surface change rather than simply being distributed randomly throughout the year. Our findings have important ramifications for volcanic risk assessment and volcanoclimate feedback mechanisms. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union