1258 A.D: A Year Without Summer

Oct 7, 2013 By Deepa Gopal
Deepa Gopal's picture

When an Alaskan volcano erupted earlier this year, it brought air travel across Europe and North America to a halt. Now imagine a volcano so powerful that it could change the climate of our Earth for nearly two years!

Medieval English records speak of 1258 AD as a year without summer, when crop harvests failed due to unseasonable floods and many died. There are accounts of advancing glaciers and paintings from the time showing people skating on frozen Dutch canals and London's River Thames. Scientists knew that the likely cause was a volcano in some part of the world. But where?

Ice Cores Yield Clues

Did you know that so much of our Earth's weather patterns are found in the most unlikely of places -- the frozen ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland? 

When snow falls, it carries chemicals and particles of dust, ash, and radioactive isotopes that are in the air. In places like Antarctica, the snow never melts – so layers of snowfall over millions of years of history get compressed into ice. Scientists (paleoclimatologists) dig several hundred meters deep into Antarctic ice and bring up cylinders of ice called “ice cores.”

Ice cores also hold gas bubbles containing oxygen and carbon dioxide from back in time. Pollen and dust in the cores can tell researchers the direction of the wind in a year. When all of these details are pieced together the climate and weather patterns in any given year can be recreated back in time!

Piecing Together Clues

Scientists knew of a massive volcanic eruption in the medieval period from analyzing the ice cores.

The fact that a similar "geochemical fingerprint" was found in ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica led them to believe it was a volcano in the equatorial region of our Earth. By comparing the composition of glass found in ice cores to those from different tropical volcanoes, they zoomed into Indonesia's Mount Samalas. 

Further, radiocarbon dating of trees and branches buried in the pyroclastic flows from Mount Samalas confirmed their hunch.

The fact that the eruption changed our Earth's climate suggests that it was at least eight times more powerful than Mount Krakatoa - another Indonesian volcano. Coincidentally, ancient Javanese poems written on palm leaves also speak of a volcanic eruption on Mount Samalas that buried the capital city of Pamatan and brought that civilization to its knees. 

Sounds a lot like the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried the city of Pompeii, doesn't it? Maybe there is a hidden city in the shadow of Mount Samalas, waiting to be discovered!

Comments

aqualove2468's picture
aqualove2468 January 2, 2014 - 6:11pm

Wow

srinidhi12's picture
srinidhi12 October 18, 2013 - 10:17pm

I would never ever go there fr life long

Tryn28's picture
Tryn28 October 11, 2013 - 5:27pm

wow!