From late 535 AD to 536, written records from across the world suggest a huge climate catastrophe. Dubbed the year "without a summer", the sun was completely dimmed and shadows were invisible even at noon. The cause of of the "worst year to be alive in history" has been long uncertain. Was it a comet? An asteroid? A volcano? Archaeologist David Keys reveals the latter is to blame for the Dark Ages of famine and plague that shaped the world order of today.
We now know that there was a volcanic one-two punch, in the form of separate eruptions in 535 and again in 540. Krakatoa in Indonesia and Lake Ilopango in South America both experienced massive, caldera forming VEI7 eruptions around that time. Each eruption, by itself, was large enough to alter the global climate.
Comments
0 comment