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This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536); its effect on the climate may have been exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines. The significant amount of volcanic ash and gases released into the atmosphere blocked sunlight, leading to global cooling.
Some eruptions cooled the global climate—inducing a volcanic winter—depending on the amount of sulfur dioxide emitted and the magnitude of the eruption. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Before the present Holocene epoch, the criteria are less strict because of scarce data availability, partly since later eruptions have destroyed the evidence.
The lingering effect of the volcanic winter of 536 was augmented in 539–540, when another volcanic eruption caused summer temperatures to decline as much as 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) below normal in Europe. [2] There is evidence of still another volcanic eruption in 547 which would have extended the cool period.
The conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid, which condenses rapidly in the stratosphere to form fine sulfate aerosols. A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, sulfur-rich, particularly explosive volcanic eruption.
A volcanic eruption is essentially the only natural way for short-lived – less than a few years – gases like sulfur dioxide and water vapor to make it into the stratosphere.
By providing a long-missing piece of information about the 19th century volcanoes that cooled Earth’s climate, “the study perhaps strengthens our confidence on the role of volcanic eruptions ...
From ancient times, people suspected that the climate of a region could change over the course of centuries. For example, Theophrastus, a pupil of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in the 4th century BC, told how the draining of marshes had made a particular locality more susceptible to freezing, and speculated that lands became warmer when the clearing of forests exposed them to sunlight.
A.D. 79: Mount Vesuvius, Italy. Mount Vesuvius has erupted eight times in the last 17,000 years, most recently in 1944, but the big one was in A.D. 17. One of the most violent eruptions in history ...