News Paleontology

Major eruption cooled the climate but went unnoticed

Ice-core records suggest that a major 1809 eruption cooled Earth even before the Tambora eruption and 'the year without a summer'

By Sid Perkins

- More than 2 years ago

A large, previously unknown volcanic eruption somewhere in the tropics helped make the 1810s the coldest decade of the past 500 years, a new analysis suggests.

Scientists have long known about the 1815 eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora, an eruption whose climate-cooling effect was so large that 1816 is often called “the year without a summer” (SN: 8/30/2008, p.