 The effects of a
massive volcanic eruption in Peru more than 400 years ago might have
significantly impacted societies and agriculture world-wide, according
to a new study of historic records.
Huaynaputina
erupted in southern Peru on Feb. 19, 1600, driving volcanic mudflows
that destroyed villages for many miles around and spewing a huge column
of smoke and ash into the atmosphere.
The eruption of Huaynaputina represents the largest known eruption in South America in the past 500 years, said study leader Ken Verosub of the University of California, Davis.
Global cooling
Like many other volcanic eruptions, Huaynaputina injected a large amount of sulfur into the atmosphere.
Sulfur
reacts with water in the air to form sulfuric acid droplets, which
reflect some of the sunlight hitting Earth, preventing rays from
reaching the surface. The reduction in sunlight cools the surface for a
year or so, until the droplets fall out of the atmosphere.
The most recent case of this
cooling from a volcanic eruption occurred when Mount Pinatubo, in the
Philippines, blew its top in 1991. Global temperatures dropped by about
1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) the following year.
(Scientists have proposed schemes to artificially inject sulfur into the atmosphere to counteract the effects of global warming.)
Studies
of tree rings have shown that 1601 was a cold year (trees grow less in
colder years, so the growth rings corresponding to those years are not
as wide), but no one had looked through records to see how the eruption
impacted societies globally.
"We knew it was a big eruption, we knew it was a cold year, and that's all we knew," Verosub said.
Other historic eruptions, such as Indonesia's Tambora in 1815, had well-documented effects on global agriculture.
Verosub
and undergraduate student Jake Lippmann combed through records from the
turn of the 17th century in Europe, China, Japan and the Spanish and
Portuguese colonies in South America to investigate the eruption's
potential impacts.
Famine, freezes and late harvests
Here
is what the geologists found: In Russia, the period from 1601 to 1603
brought the worst famine in the country's history, contributing to the
overthrow of the czar and the decade-long crisis known as the "Time of
Troubles."
Records from Switzerland, Latvia and
Estonia mention the exceptionally cold winters from 1600 to 1602. The
1601 wine harvest in France was late and wine production collapsed in
Germany and colonial Peru.
In China, peach trees bloomed late, while in Japan, Lake Suwa had one of its earliest freezing dates in 500 years.
"In one sense, we can't prove that the volcano was responsible for all this," Verosub said, "but we hope to show that 1601 was a consistently bad year, connected by this event."
The
findings are detailed in Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American
Geophysical Union. Verosub also plans to examine records kept by the
Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church in Seville, Spain, and by the
Ming Dynasty in China. Source
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