Undersea volcanism may explain medieval year of darkness
Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - 09:40
in Astronomy & Space
Starting in 536 A.D., the sky went dark for more than a year. In some parts of Europe and Asia, the sun only shone for about four hours a day, and "accounts say the sun gave no more light than the moon," says Dallas Abbott, who studies paleoclimate and extraterrestrial impacts at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The mysterious dimming of the sun brought on global cooling, famines, and civil upheavals; the Chinese reported eclipses that still can't be explained today. Naturally, "people thought it was the end of the world," says Abbott.