Nearly 200 years ago, the Sun appeared blue, marking the start of two years of abnormally cold weather globally. Scientists have long assumed that this unusual effect was caused by a volcanic eruption, but have been unable to identify the volcano responsible until now.
The “mystery eruption” is known to have generated a brief and intense cooling event that occurred between 1831 and 1833, lowering the global average temperature by about 1°C. The German composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote, during a trip through the Alps in the summer of 1831: “Desert weather, it rained again all night and all morning, it is as cold as winter, there is already deep snow on the nearby hills.”
In August 1831, sightings of the Sun appearing blue, purple and green were reported from around the world, including China, Europe, the US and the Caribbean. This phenomenon was most likely caused by volcanic dust and gases that scattered the sunlight in an unusual way.
There was speculation that the eruption occurred at the Babuyan Claro volcano in the Philippines or during the eruption of Ferdinandea near Sicily, but recent research has identified another culprit.
200 years ago, for a while, the Sun appeared blue
Scientists from the University of St Andrews (Scotland) found solid evidence that the volcanic eruption came from the Zavaritskii caldera, located on the uninhabited island of Simushir, part of the Kuril Islands, in the Russian Far East, near Japan.
They came to this conclusion through geochemical analysis of ice core samples, which revealed a “perfect match” of the chemical signatures of the ash deposits, writes IFL Science.
“We analyzed the ice chemistry with very high temporal resolution. This allowed us to pinpoint the exact time of the eruption, which occurred in the spring-summer of 1831, confirm that it was highly explosive, and extract tiny ash fragments. Finding the match took a long time and required extensive collaboration with colleagues in Japan and Russia, who sent us samples collected from these isolated volcanoes many decades ago.” a declarat dr. Will Hutchisonthe lead author of the study.
“The moment we analyzed the two ash samples in the lab, one from the volcano and one from the ice sample, was an ‘Evrika!’ moment. I couldn’t believe the values were identical. After that, I spent a lot of time looking at the age and size of the eruption in the Kurile records to convince myself that the match was real,” added Hutchison.
The study could help us prepare for future large-scale volcanic eruptions
The researchers say their study highlights the power of volcanic eruptions and their ability to influence life on Earth. Volcanoes can significantly influence climate by releasing gases and particles into the atmosphere, causing short-term cooling and sometimes contributing to long-term warming.
For example, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines released the largest cloud of sulfur dioxide ever measured, causing global temperatures to drop by about 0.5°C over a period of one to three years.
If an eruption similar to the one in 1831 were to occur today, it would generate a significant disruption.
“There are so many similar volcanoes, which underscores how difficult it will be to predict when or where the next large-magnitude eruption will occur,” said Dr. Hutchison.
“As scientists and as a society, we need to think about how to coordinate an international response when the next big eruption like the one in 1831 happens,” he concluded.
The new study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
