Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
The effect of major volcanic eruptions on sulfate aerosol concentrations and chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Major volcanic eruptions have an overwhelming effect on sulfate aerosol concentrations in the years when they occur: eruptions ranking 4 or greater on the Volcanic Explosivity Index inject SO 2 and water vapor directly into the stratosphere, where they react to create sulfate ...
Early evidence of a large eruption in 1450–1460 came from a massive sulfate spike recorded in ice cores in Antarctica with dating uncertainty up to a few years. Early studies in the 1990s and 2000s [5] [6] incorrectly placed the date of this original sulfate spike in 1452/53 on the basis of high dating uncertainty while the Kuwae caldera in Vanuatu was assigned to be the source of this ...
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.
The sulfate deposition of this event is the largest recorded in ice cores in the last 700 years. [7] The deposition however is asymmetric with much larger sulfate flux in the Antarctic ice cores compared to that of Greenland ice cores, indicating that the eruption probably occurred in the low latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. [8]
This cooling effect on the ocean surface usually lasts for several years as the lifetime of sulfate aerosols is about 2–3 years. [1] However, in the subsurface ocean the cooling signal may persist for a longer time and may have impacts on some decadal variabilities, such as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).
Sulfate deposition from the Samalas eruption has been noted at Svalbard, [104] and the fallout of sulfuric acid from the volcano may have directly affected peatlands in northern Sweden. [105] In addition, the sulfate aerosols may have extracted large amounts of the beryllium isotope 10
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.