![]() These records don't indicate such a drastic, worldwide cooling following mega-eruptions. But tracers of past climate, such as tree rings and polar ice thousands of years old, tell a different story. In a climate model simulation of the past thousand years, these mega-eruptions are, unsurprisingly, followed by mega-cold spells that reduce global temperatures by 2☏ (more than 1☌elsius). Pinatubo was the largest eruption of the last century, but some eruptions of the last millennium are estimated to have been 10 times larger, such as the eruption of the Indonesian volcano Samalas in 1257. Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled Earth enough to completely offset the effects of greenhouse-gas-induced warming for about two years. A big eruption in the tropics cools much of the planet by throwing volcanic gases high into the atmosphere, where they change into microscopic particles known as aerosols and spread around the globe, reflecting incoming sunlight. A new NASA study has shown, however, that to correctly model the climate effects of an eruption - especially mega-eruptions many times larger than anything in recent history - scientists need to include the atmospheric effects of erupted water vapor.įor a thousand years before the Industrial Revolution, volcanoes were the greatest climate-changing force on Earth. ![]() Volcanic eruptions bring images of burning lava and ash, not water.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |