Mount Toba eruption doesn't seem like it could nearly kill our species
The massive Toba eruption seems to have had little climate impact.
The massive Toba eruption seems to have had little climate impact.
The short version
- Park and his colleagues went looking for the records of that catastrophe in the mud taken from the bottom of a small crater lake on the Kenya-Tanzania border.
- They found instead that the effects of the Mount Toba eruption lasted under two years and amounted to perhaps half a degree of cooling.
- Volcanic eruptions inject sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it becomes a haze of tiny droplets that reflect sunlight back into space.
What happened
Bigger eruptions eject more sulfur dioxide and, in principle, cause more cooling. But this trend stops working when the eruption exceeds a certain magnitude.
Why it matters
“Bigger sulfate aerosols settle quickly, because they are heavier,” Park explains.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.