>
>> The most significant recorded volcanic explosion since the Holocene
>>took place in 1257/58. It was magnitudes larger than the Krakatoa explosion,
>>which was dwarfed by the 1815 Tambora explosion. It precipitated the Little
>>Ice Age by injecting so much debris into the atmosphere that global
>>temperatures slowly decreased until the mid-19th century. The Little Ice
>>Age was the result of this long-term cooling plus the complete lack of solar
>>activity during the Maunder Minimum.
>
>Hmm. Right to the time of the industrial revolution! Hmm. Wait a
>second. Isn't global warming blamed on the industrial revolution? This
>can't be right... Ah, I get it. The industrial revolution is what was
>required to return the global climate to the normal state.
>
>Except, what is "normal"? Mega volcanic explosions have occurred
>throughout the history of the planet and appear to be the great
>climate leveler. If it wasn't for the volcanoes occasionally spewing
>their ash up into all layers of the atmosphere (I'm waiting for NASA
>to officially report that the particle sensors on the ISS have
>detected volcanic particles), we'd be a whole lot warmer.
>
Actually, the end of the last Ice Age was punctuated by the length of the
Kamchatka Peninsula being in relatively continuous volcanic activity for
500-1000 years, together with fairly constant activity along the length of the
Aleutian Islands. Global temperatures peaked near the end of the Holocene and
had been declining ever since until the middle of the 19th century. We go
through this every 100,000 to 110,000 years in sync with the ellitic nature of
the Earth's orbit.
Chris
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