Gabriel, Imogen; Plunkett, Gill; Abbott, Peter M.; Behrens, Melanie; Burke, Andrea; Chellman, Nathan; Cook, Eliza; Fleitmann, Dominik; Hörhold, Maria; Hutchison, William; McConnell, Joseph R.; Óladóttir, Bergrún A.; Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes; Sliwinski, Jakub T.; Sugden, Patrick; Twarloh, Birthe; Sigl, Michael (2024). Decadal-to-centennial increases of volcanic aerosols from Iceland challenge the concept of a Medieval Quiet Period. Communications earth & environment, 5(194) Springer Nature 10.1038/s43247-024-01350-6
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Existing global volcanic radiative aerosol forcing estimates portray the period 700 to 1000 as volcanically quiescent, void of major volcanic eruptions. However, this disagrees with proximal Icelandic geological records and regional Greenland ice-core records of sulfate. Here, we use cryptotephra analyses, high-resolution sulfur isotope analyses, and glaciochemical volcanic tracers on an array of Greenland ice cores to characterise volcanic activity and climatically important sulfuric aerosols across the period 700 to 1000. We identify a prolonged episode of volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions (751–940) dominated by Icelandic volcanism, that we term the Icelandic Active Period. This period commences with the Hrafnkatla episode (751–763), which coincided with strong winter cooling anomalies across Europe. This study reveals an important contribution of prolonged volcanic sulfate emissions to the pre-industrial atmospheric aerosol burden, currently not considered in existing forcing estimates, and highlights the need for further research to disentangle their associated climate feedbacks.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute > Climate and Environmental Physics 10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) 08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute |
Graduate School: |
Graduate School of Climate Sciences |
UniBE Contributor: |
Gabriel, Imogen Anne, Abbott, Peter Michael, Sigl, Michael |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 530 Physics 500 Science > 540 Chemistry 500 Science > 550 Earth sciences & geology 900 History > 940 History of Europe |
ISSN: |
2662-4435 |
Publisher: |
Springer Nature |
Funders: |
[18] European Research Council |
Projects: |
[1314] Timing of Holocene volcanic eruptions and their radiative aerosol forcing |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Michael Sigl |
Date Deposited: |
24 Apr 2024 08:28 |
Last Modified: |
24 Apr 2024 08:28 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1038/s43247-024-01350-6 |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/196174 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/196174 |
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