London, April 12 (ANI): A new study has suggested that a volcanic eruption that happened in 1600 in the Andes mountains may have plunged the world into cold climate chaos.
According to a report in nature News, the eruption of the volcano, known as Huaynaputina, blanketed nearby villages with glowing rock and ash, killing some 1,500 people.
But it may also have had a far wider effect, by injecting sulphur particles high into the atmosphere and disrupting the climate worldwide.
Geoscientists had known that the eruption was big, but the new research addresses for the first time just how it might have changed society the world over.
Were talking about sudden and abrupt change over a very short period of time, said Kenneth Verosub, a geologist at the University of California, Davis. What would that have done to the global agricultural economy? he added.
For their research, Verosub and his coauthor, student Jake Lippman, trawled through historical records of crops, famines and other events in the years just after the Huaynaputina eruption.
According to them, the year 1601 featured several climate discrepancies.
Tree-ring records show that it was the coldest year in six centuries in the Northern Hemisphere - possibly due to the cooling caused by the sulphur particles spewed from the volcano.
The effect was felt on the other side of the globe, where a severe winter caused famine in Russia. Snow blanketed Sweden, leading to record flooding and a poor harvest.
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