Two volcanoes trigger crises of the late antiquity

Geology Page ^ | April 2016 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Contemporary chroniclers wrote about a "mystery cloud" which dimmed the light of the sun above the Mediterranean in the years 536 and 537 CE. Tree rings testify poor growing conditions over the whole Northern Hemisphere - the years from 536 CE onward seem to have been overshadowed by an unusual natural phenomenon. Social crises including the first European plague pandemic beginning in 541, are associated with this phenomenon. Only recently have researchers found conclusive proof of a volcanic origin of the 536 solar dimming, based on traces of volcanic sulfur from two major eruptions newly dated to 536 CE and 540 CE in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica...

The relationship between the "mystery cloud" of 536 and the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages is an issue of great popular interest. Volcanic eruptions in the more recent past have impacted human societies. For example, in 1815 the Indonesian volcano Tambora hurled so much ash and sulfur into the atmosphere that the year 1816 became known as "the year without summer" in Europe and North America, where unusually low temperatures led to crop failures and famines. For eruptions of the more distance past, connections between eruptions and societal impacts become less clear...

Which volcanoes exactly were responsible for these aerosols clouds is still enigmatic...

[SunkenCiv]

"Which volcanoes exactly were responsible for these aerosols clouds is still enigmatic." What a surprise.

Simulated summertime (June-August) average temperature changes in 536 CE due to the stratospheric aerosol cloud resulting from an unknown volcanic eruption reconstructed here based on contemporary written records and ice core sulfate measurements. The simulated temperature changes, ranging from 1-3 ° C over Europe, show good agreement with estimates from two tree-ring temperature reconstructions based on trees in Northern Scandinavia.

[Talisker]

Twas a comet, struck Camelot on Wales and destroyed it, and sent King Arthur to Kentucky.

No, I'm not kidding.

King Arthur II sailed to America, was killed in Kentucky, buried in Wales

[fieldmarshaldj]

"from 536 CE onward"

I guess 'Christian Era' is easier to understand for folks than Anno Domini.

[Beowulf9]

Another very interesting article. Especially considering the volcanic blasts we’ve had of late.

[Bikkuri]

‘Christian Era’

That sounds even better than Anno Domini; most of us can’t read Latin ;^D

[SunkenCiv]

Arthur’s Comet?

[Fai Mao]

I think it is “Common Era” not “Christian Era”

But I may be wrong

[FroggyTheGremlim]

I think it's "Current era."

And BCE is "Before Current era."

[eartick]

Yes, they even took Christ out of our timelines now.

[MrEdd]

Only for liberal idiots in Ivory Towers.

I make fun of people who use the term because it is fun and because they deserve it.

[fieldmarshaldj]

What the initials stand for and what they should be called are two different things. There's nothing Common about our era. It dates to Christ, not to something called "common."

[fieldmarshaldj]

The “C” is still there. Use what it really means and never apologize for it.

[sphinx]

I think this is the first article I’ve ever seen on the crisis of late antiquity and the transition to the Middle Ages that ignores the barbarian invasions and the collapse of the western Roman Empire, which occurred in the century preceding the volcanic cloud.

[PapaBear3625]

I think it is “Common Era” not “Christian Era” But I may be wrong

The anti-Christians can call it what they want. For the rest of us, we define it as the Christian Era, or AD (Anno Domini, Year of our Lord)

[Sequoyah101]

And so when does CE begin? I didn’t get the memo that we changed the convention of year designation.

[Bikkuri]

It is, but I still use A.D. and B.C.
screw the anti-Christian jerks :p

[SunkenCiv]

The Roman Empire was mostly broken into three (or more) independent states during the 3rd century, each ruled by its own emperor. The chunk of the empire ruled from Rome spent half of that century changing the supreme leader every couple of years on average. The British school about this attributes the political turmoil to "debased" currency, which is ridiculous. Economic activity actually took off during that time, with a rise in what we would call the middle class, prefiguring the late-medieval and post-medieval developments in Europe. Trade by sea (Indian Ocean) with India (which had been continuous throughout Hellenistic times, at least) and (via intermediaries) with China continued into the early 6th c. Trade across the intra-roman borders boomed while tax receipts fell. It's probably most accurate to call the crisis political, as the economic casualties appear to have been the rulers. Ingress from non-Roman barbarian areas was serious, and finally effectively addressed by Aurelian, who also knocked off his rival emperors and reunited the Empire.

[SunkenCiv]

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[blam]

"Arthur’s Comet?"

Probably.

Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters With Comets

[Ozark Tom]

Tierra Blanca Joven layer:

http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/aag-eruption-el-salvadors-ilopango-explains-ad-536-cooling