Volcanic Chill?

Researchers believe a previously undocumented volcanic eruption 200 years ago in 1809 may explain the coldest decade on record which occurred between 1810 and 1819. “South Dakota State University researchers made the finding by analyzing chemicals in ice samples from snow-capped Antarctica and Greenland in the Arctic. The year-by-year accumulation of snow in the polar ice sheets records what is going on in the atmosphere. ‘We found large amounts of volcanic sulfuric acid in the snow layers of 1809 and 1810 in both Greenland and Antarctica,’ said Professor Jihong Cole-Dai of SDSU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the lead author in an article published Oct. 25, in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.”