Centuries-Old Archive Reveals Far-Flung Impacts of Major Eruptions

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https://eos.org/articles/centuries-old-archive-reveals-far-flung-impacts-of-major-eruptions

By Shannon Banks, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: In 1815, an Earth-shattering explosion sent roughly 130 cubic kilometers of gaseous fumes, ash, and rocks high into the atmosphere above the Indonesian island of Sumbawa. Mount Tambora had blown its top. Temperatures tanked worldwide as sooty debris circulated in the skies of the Northern Hemisphere, blocking the Sun’s rays. The chilling effects lasted through 1816—later dubbed the “Year Without a Summer.” ...Alice Bradley and her team of undergraduate researchers at Williams College are studying how Tambora and other major volcanic eruptions affected the climate in New England. Their source material is a weather data set that dates back more than 2 centuries to the Tambora eruption. It has been updated daily by Williams staff and students ever since. ...According to the team’s analysis, daily low temperatures after the Tambora and Pinatubo eruptions were often more than 5°C below baseline.... 

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