Scientists have managed to pinpoint the dates of the volcanic eruptions that caused the medieval Little Ice Age. Reported by TASS.
In the XIV-XIX centuries, the climate was slightly colder (half a degree) than today. His attack launched a series of crises in medieval Europe, including the Great Famine of 1315-1317. This cooling is often referred to as the Little Ice Age and is thought to be caused by five powerful volcanic eruptions.
Cleve Oppenheimer and colleagues figured out the history of these eruptions by analyzing ash preserved in the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps and comparing these data with records from European and Asian medieval historians. It has been noted that the darkest lunar eclipses occur during years of volcanic eruptions that spew large amounts of ash, and so the reports can be considered an indirect sign of volcanic activity.
As a result, the authors analyzed samples of ice deposited between 1100 and 1300 and were able to determine the dates when ash particles froze in them. At the same time, it should be understood that the ash can settle long after the eruption occurs, since the volcano can eject material directly into the stratosphere, where it remains for a long time. The researchers compared these time periods with a total of 64 lunar eclipses that occurred in European and East Asian countries over these two centuries.
It turns out that during this time, medieval priests and chroniclers witnessed six “bloody lunar eclipses” caused by massive volcanic eruptions. One of them – the eruption of the Indonesian island of Samalas in 1257 – was already known to historians and geologists. Five other disasters that occurred in 1108, 1171, 1182, 1229, 1276 and 1286 were not previously known and are not mentioned in Western or Eastern chronicles.
Knowing the exact dates, researchers can now look for other traces of these eruptions, both natural and man-made. The authors hope that thanks to their discovery, it will be possible to understand in detail the relationship between volcanoes and climate.
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