Volcanism, the atmosphere and climate through time - Volcanism and Global Environmental Change - page 195

13

Volcanism, the atmosphere and climate through time

anja schmidt and alan robock

13.1 Introduction
Volcanism can affect the environment on timescales of weather (days to weeks)
and climate (months to years). In the past 250 years, the atmospheric and
climatic effects of several volcanic eruptions have been witnessed and docu-
mented by scientist and non-scientist alike. For example, the 1783

1784 Laki
eruption in Iceland, which was followed by hot summer temperatures and
cold winter temperatures in central Europe (Thordarson and Self, 2003 ;Oman
et al ., 2006a ;Schmidt et al ., 2012b ), was described in great detail by an Icelandic
priest (Steingrímsson, 1788 ). The 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia caused
the

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' Year Without a Summer ' in 1816, which inspired Mary Shelley ' s

Frankenstein .
The scientific understanding of the climatic effects caused by short-lived explo-
sive volcanic eruptions has advanced greatly in the past five decades, mainly due

to theoretical work and observations following the eruptions of Agung in 1963,
Mount St Helens in 1980, El Chichón in 1982 and, in particular, Mount Pinatubo
in 1991 (for reviews see Robock, 2000 ; Timmreck, 2012 ).
In the past two decades, the climate relevance of effusive volcanic activity
injecting gases mainly into the troposphere has become more recognized (e.g. Graf
et al ., 1997 ; Schmidt et al ., 2012a ), and also the atmospheric and climatic effects
of small- to moderate-sized explosive eruptions (e.g. Solomon et al ., 2011 ; Neely
et al ., 2013 ). However, we are only beginning to understand how large-volume

flood basalt eruptions such as the Deccan Traps in India at around 65 Ma may
have affected the environment.
This chapter provides an overview of the impact of various eruption types and
styles on Earth ' s atmosphere and climate through time.