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Ice core evidence for the Los Chocoyos supereruption disputes millennial-scale climate impact
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William Hutchison ,
Michael Sigl,
Laura Crick ,
Peter Abbott ,
Matthias Bigler ,
Nathan J. Chellman,
Siwan Davies ,
Steffen Kutterolf ,
Joseph R. McConnell ,
Mirko Severi ,
R. Stephen J. Sparks ,
Anders Svensson ,
Eric W. Wolff ,
James W. B. Rae ,
Andrea Burke
Communications Earth & Environment, Volume: 6, Issue: 1
Swansea University Authors:
Peter Abbott , Siwan Davies
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DOI (Published version): 10.1038/s43247-025-02095-6
Abstract
Volcanic supereruptions are considered among the few drivers of global and existential catastrophes, with recent hypotheses suggesting massive volcanic stratospheric sulfate injection could instigate major shifts in global climate. The absence of supereruptions during recent history as well as large...
| Published in: | Communications Earth & Environment |
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| ISSN: | 2662-4435 |
| Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2025
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68969 |
| Abstract: |
Volcanic supereruptions are considered among the few drivers of global and existential catastrophes, with recent hypotheses suggesting massive volcanic stratospheric sulfate injection could instigate major shifts in global climate. The absence of supereruptions during recent history as well as large uncertainties on eruption ages limits understanding of the climatic risk they impose. Polar ice cores have well-resolved continuous age models, record past temperature, and contain volcanic sulfate and cryptotephra deposits which can be geochemically fingerprinted to determine eruption timing and improve stratospheric sulfur loading estimates. Here, we provide an age of 79,500 years for the Atitlán Los Chocoyos supereruption, one of the largest Quaternary eruptions, by identifying tephra shards in ice cores from both Greenland and Antarctica. This ice core age is supported by a revised marine sediment core stratigraphy age for the Los Chocoyos ash layer. Through comparison with well-dated ice-core temperature proxy records, our study suggests that despite being one of the largest sulfur emissions recorded in ice cores, the Los Chocoyos supereruption did not trigger a millennial-scale cold period. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
This work was funded by IAPETUS2 NERC Doctoral Training Program Studentship (HI), UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship MR/S-33505/1 (WH), ERC Horizon 2020 grant 820047 (MSi and PMA), Leverhulme Trust grant RPG-2015-246 and Fellowship EM-2018-050/4 (RSJS), Leverhulme Trust Prize PLP-2021-167 (AB). The EPMA facilities at the University of St Andrews are supported by the EPSRC Light Element Analysis Facility Grant EP/T019298/1 and the EPSRC Strategic Equipment Resource Grant EP/R023751/1. We thank the National Science Foundation-Ice Core Facility (NSF-2041950). M. Twickler and G. Hargreaves for providing access to GISP2 samples, ice-core sampling assistance, and curation; we thank the NGRIP and NEEM communities, J.P. Steffensen and I. Koldtoft for providing access to NGRIP and NEEM samples, and we thank I. Gabriel for ice-core sampling assistance. This research contributes to the NGRIP and NEEM ice-core projects, which are curated by Physics of Ice, Climate and Earth (PICE), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen (KU). These projects were supported by funding agencies in Denmark (SNF, FI), Canada (NRCan/GSC), China (CAS), Belgium (FNRS-CFB, FWO), France (IPEV, IFRTP, INSU/CNRS, CEA and ANR), Germany (AWI), Iceland (RannIs), Japan (MEXT, NIPR), South Korea (KOPRI), Sweden (SPRS, VR), Switzerland (SNF), The Netherlands (NWO/ALW), United Kingdom (NERC) and the United States of America (NSF, Office of Polar Programs). |
| Issue: |
1 |