Latest Volcanic winter Stories
A modern recurrence of an extraordinary type of volcanic eruption in Iceland could inject large quantities of hazardous gases into North Atlantic and European flight corridors, potentially for months at a time, a new study suggests. Using computer simulations, researchers are investigating the likely atmospheric effects if a “flood lava” eruption took place in Iceland today. Flood lava eruptions, which stand out for the sheer amounts of lava and sulfurous gases they release and the way...
Defying models, some regions drier, others wetterScientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and cool the air. Some suspect that extended "volcanic winters" from gigantic blowups helped kill off dinosaurs and Neanderthals. In the summer following Indonesia's 1815 Tambora eruption, frost wrecked crops as far off as New England, and the 1991 blowout of the Philippines' Mount Pinatubo lowered average...
In the past, volcanic eruptions have had a cooling effect on the Earth's climate, but the recent Icelandic eruption is too small to provide any relief from manmade global warming, scientists said on Friday.The biggest cooling event of the last 30 years was the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which cooled the Earth's surface by nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the following year. This, in turn, was enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases from 1991 to 1993.The Mount St. Helens eruption...
U.S. scientists said they have determined the eruption of Indonesia's Toba volcano about 74,000 years ago triggered a decade-long severe winter. Previous studies suggested the massive eruption produced a 1,000-year episode of ice sheet advance, as well as a volcanic winter, which most likely would have drastically reduced the human population at the time. To investigate additional mechanisms that might have enhanced and extended the effects of the Toba eruption, Rutgers University Professor...
The 1600 eruption of Huaynaputina in Peru had a global impact on human society, according to a new study of contemporary records by geologists at UC Davis.The eruption is known to have put a large amount of sulfur into the atmosphere, and tree ring studies show that 1601 was a cold year, but no one had looked at the agricultural and social impacts, said Ken Verosub, professor of geology at UC Davis."We knew it was a big eruption, we knew it was a cold year, and that's all we knew,"...
Volcanic eruptions in high-latitudes can greatly alter climate and distant river flows, including the Nile, according to a recent study funded in part by NASA.Researchers found that Iceland's Laki volcanic event, a series of about ten eruptions from June 1783 through February 1784, led to unusual temperature and precipitation patterns, including a significant reduction in the amount of rain that fell over much of the area surrounding the Nile River and led to record low river levels. The...
In June 1912, Novarupta -- one of a chain of volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula -- erupted in what turned out to be the largest blast of the twentieth century. It was so powerful that it drained magma from under another volcano, Mount Katmai, six miles east, causing the summit of Katmai to collapse to form a caldera half a mile deep. Novarupta also expelled three cubic miles of magma and ash into the air, which fell to cover an area of 3,000 square miles more than a foot deep.Despite the fact...
