GSA Today
Volume 32, Issue 8
Eruption of Raikoke Volcano in the Kuril Islands, 22 June
2019. The eruption cloud crossed the tropopause at ~11 km altitude
and spread out in the lowermost stratosphere at 13–17 km. The flat top
of the cloud reflects the impediment to convective cloud ascent into
the stratosphere, which forms a global inversion layer. In nuclear-
winter scenarios solar heating of soot would gradually loft the soot to
higher altitudes in the stratosphere, a process observed with smoke
from large wildfires. (NASA Earth Observatory digital photograph
ISS059-E-119250 taken from the International Space Station.).
© The Geological Society of America, Inc.