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The "new study" does a number of things. It follows eruptions from the 19th century, and also looks at 536 and nearby years. That is why it reads ...until recent years, and shows... The comma separates the two thoughts. Without the comma it would mean what doesn't make sense to you. Below is the link to a related article, referencing similar material, but focusing more on ice cores than tree rings. Also identified in one of the two articles is the idea that in 536 there was a major northern hemisphere eruption, and 4 years later a strong more southern eruption that continued the damage. Another source for the problems of 536 was written by the Roman Cassiodorus and others (third quote). The second link is a detailed, comprehensive analysis of the ups and downs of sciences attempt to interpret the events of 36 and subsequent decade. It includes tree rings, ice cores, historical records, possible bolides, volcanoes, and dating problems. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150708133858.htm https://www.historicalclimatology.com/blog/something-cooled-the-world-in-the-sixth-century-what-was-it "It may well be that an extraordinary confluence of extraterrestrial impacts and volcanic eruptions, coinciding with a gradual fall in solar activity, chilled the Earth in the 530s and 540s CE. These dramatic environmental changes naturally astonished contemporary writers. In 536 CE, Procopius of Caesarea, a major scholar of the Eastern Roman Empire, wrote that the “sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon.” According to John of Ephesos, “there was a sign in the sun the like of which had never been seen and reported before in the world . . . The sun became dark and its darkness lasted for one and a half years." A Syrian chronicler recorded that "The earth and all that is upon it quaked; and the sun began to be darkened by day and the moon by night." Chinese astronomers lost sight of Canopus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. If there was a dust veil, it may well have been thick enough to obscure the heavens, whatever its origins. Cassiodorus, a Roman statesman in the service of the Ostrogoths, wrote perhaps the most striking descriptions of the changes in Earth's atmosphere. "Something coming at us from the stars," he explained, had led to a "blue colored sun," a dim full moon, and a "summer without heat." Amid "perpetual frosts" and "unnatural drought," plants refused to grow and "the rays of the stars have been darkened." The cause, to Cassiodorus, must be high in the atmosphere, for "things in mid-space dominate our sight," and the "heat of the heavenly bodies" could not penetrate what seemed like mist."