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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.
Modern scholarship has determined that in early AD 536 (or possibly late 535), an eruption ejected massive amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, which reduced the solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface and cooled the atmosphere for several years. In March 536, Constantinople began experiencing darkened skies and lower temperatures.
[124] [118] [125] Yet, around the same time, research had shown that sulfate aerosols were affecting both the visible light received by the Earth and its surface temperature, [126] and as the so-called global dimming) began to reverse in the 1990s in line with the reduced anthropogenic sulfate pollution, [127] [128] [129] climate change ...
Before the site of the eruption was known, an examination of ice cores around the world had detected a large spike in sulfate deposition from around 1257 providing strong evidence of a large volcanic eruption occurring at that time. In 2013, scientists linked the historical records about Mount Samalas to these spikes.
The global dimming through volcanism (ash aerosol and sulfur dioxide) is quite independent of the eruption VEI. [ 104 ] [ 105 ] [ 106 ] When sulfur dioxide (boiling point at standard state : -10 °C) reacts with water vapor, it creates sulfate ions (the precursors to sulfuric acid ), which are very reflective; ash aerosol on the other hand ...
However, four sulfate events in the ice strata are proposed to represent the deposition of aerosols from the Toba eruption. [50] [32] [51] One sulfate event at 73.75–74.16 kyr, which has all the characteristics of the Toba eruption, is among the largest sulfate loadings that have ever been identified. [51]
There are two large sulfate spikes caused by mystery volcanic eruptions in the mid-1400s: the 1452/1453 mystery eruption and 1458 mystery eruption. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Before 2012, the date of 1458 sulfate spike was incorrectly assigned to be 1452 because previous ice core work had poor time resolution. [ 2 ]
The 1815 eruption released SO 2 into the stratosphere, causing a global climate anomaly. Different methods have estimated the ejected sulfur mass during the eruption: the petrological method; an optical depth measurement based on anatomical observations; and the polar ice core sulfate concentration method, using cores from Greenland and Antarctica.