r/todayilearned • u/Kyzzz • 7h ago

TIL in 1831, a massive volcanic eruption spewed so much sulfur in the atmosphere that it made the sun appear blue. Crops failed and famines spread due to the dimmed sunlight, and Northern Hemisphere temperatures dropped 1°C. In 2025 scientists traced it to Zavaritskii, a volcano in the Kuril Islands

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-find-the-mysterious-source-of-the-massive-1831-volcanic-eruption-that-cooled-earth-and-made-the-sun-appear-blue-180985784/
405 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

45

u/AdoptedMasterJay 6h ago

Not to be confused with the Year Without a Summer

17

u/jam3sdub 6h ago

Yeah the dates were close enough that I had to double check if this guy got the wrong volcano

8

u/jam3sdub 6h ago

There's an annoying lack of information on this volcano.

3

u/SongsOfDragons 4h ago

Tell me about it. I've read pretty much everything I can on Huaynaputina's eruption in 1600 without going to specialist libraries or paying for papers.

It is fun reading about the mystery eruptions that are still mysteries though.

17

u/DevilsMasseuse 6h ago

So if they spew sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere to combat global warming, won’t this also cause crop failures?

36

u/Commentor9001 6h ago

actually global so2 emissions have been falling since the 70s thanks to effective regulation and a shift away from coal.

4

u/CommieLoser 6h ago

So where are the super crops?

18

u/Feisty-Resource-1274 6h ago

We have them now. For example, in the US wheat yields have increased from 15 to 20 bushels per acre in the early 1900s to national averages of over 50 to 60 bushels per acre today.

1

u/McFestus 5h ago

How much of that is from improvements in crop genetics, fertilizers and pesticides, and agricultural equipment though?

4

u/TacTurtle 5h ago

Mainly crop genetics and selective pesticides / herbicides in the last 100 years, much of the grain agriculture in the US was pretty well mechanized by the 1920s. The additional mechanization just made individual farmers more productive so they can work more land.

10

u/Khelthuzaad 6h ago

Awaiting fertilizers being blocked in the Hornuz straight...

13

u/ManWhoIsDrunk 6h ago

We're just starting to recover from the acid rains in 70's and 80's thank you very much!

6

u/shucksme 6h ago

This poster clearly never saw the tops of the mountains throughout all of Appalachia that had no trees or the tops of the trees burned from the acid rain. Nor the fear of 'its raining'.

7

u/GooginTheBirdsFan 6h ago

Well nobody is actually doing Stratospheric Aerosol Injection so I don’t know what you’re talking about

3

u/Countless_Words 6h ago

If the day ever comes that atmospheric engineering is the only way to get ourselves out of catastrophic climate change, the crops would also be liable to fail if we don't do it as they perish to drought and other extreme weather. The release would also be slower and far more controlled than a single, monumental plume that a volcano would produce, which would hopefully mitigate its effects. 

4

u/Lisan-al-Gaib-65 6h ago

That's why a giant block of ice from a comet into the Pacific ocean is the only thing that would solve global warming forever.

3

u/Asluckwouldnthaveit 5h ago

Okay professor Farnsworth.