Researchers find ‘biggest volcanic eruption in last 500 years’ devastated Europe’s climate

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/researchers-find-biggest-volcanic-eruption-in-last-500-years-devastated-europes-climate/

Researchers find ‘biggest volcanic eruption in last 500 years’ devastated Europe’s climate
Scott Kaufman
21 Sep 2014

Scientists have long believed that the 1815 Tambora volcanic eruption could not, alone, have been responsible for the drastic climate change in 1816, nicknamed “Year Without a Summer” and “Eighteen-Hundred-and-Frozen-to-Death.” Now, joint research by scientists and historians at the Cabot Institute believe they have pinpointed the date of what is called, in the scientific literature, the “Unknown eruption.”

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Unlike the 1815 Tambora eruption, the effects of which were almost immediately observable world-wide — including a “dry fog” that blanketed the northern United States and which not even rainfall could disperse — the “Unknown eruption” did not have the same atmospheric optical effect. However, the researchers note, just because the particulate matter didn’t create effects visible half a world away does not mean that the stratospheric aerosol haze created by it did not have an impact on the global climate.

Also, as Guervara-Murua noted, “the eruption coincided with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Peninsular War in Spain, and with political developments in Latin America that would soon lead to the independence of almost all of Spain’s American colonies. It’s possible that, in Europe and Latin America at least, the attention of individuals who might otherwise have provided us with a record of unusual meteorological or atmospheric effects simply turned to military and political matters instead.”

However, after months of archival research in Latin America, Caroline Williams “turned to the writings of Colombian scientist Francisco José de Caldas, who served as Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Bogota between 1805 and 1810. Finding his precise description of the effects of an eruption was a ‘Eureka’ moment.”