Decadal-to-centennial increases of volcanic aerosols from Iceland challenge the concept of a Medieval Quiet Period

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

Preview

Text Gabriel_2024.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (2MB) | Preview

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.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

0 since deposited on 24 Apr 2024
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item