Beschreibung: aerosol microphysics are used to assess the influence of season of eruption on the aerosol evolution and radiative impacts at the Earth's surface (Toohey et al., 2011). This analysis is presented for eruptions with SO2 injection magnitudes of 17 and 700 Tg, the former consistent with estimates of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, the later with estimates of the Los Chocoyos eruption of 84 ka BP from modern-day Guatemala. For each eruption magnitude, simulations are performed with eruptions at the location of the Los Chocoyos eruption site (15° N, 91° W) at four equally spaced times of year. Sensitivity to eruption season of aerosol optical depth (AOD), clear-sky and all-sky shortwave (SW) radiative flux is quantified based on the difference between the maximum and minimum response from the four eruption seasons. Eruption season has a significant influence on AOD and clear-sky SW radiative flux anomalies for both eruption magnitudes, reaching maximum values of ~75 %. All-sky SW anomalies are found to be sensitive to season of eruption for the Los Chocoyos eruption magnitude, but insensitive to season of eruption for the Pinatubo-magnitude eruption experiment. Our estimates of sensitivity to eruption season are larger than previously reported estimates: implications regarding volcanic AOD timeseries reconstructions and their use in climate models are discussed.