The 1452 or 1453 A.D. Kuwae eruption signal derived from multiple ice core records: Greatest volcanic sulfate event of the past 700 years

Abstract

We combined 33 ice core records, 13 from the Northern Hemisphere and 20 from the Southern Hemisphere, to determine the timing and magnitude of the great Kuwae eruption in the mid‐15th century. We extracted volcanic deposition signals by applying a high‐pass loess filter to the time series and examining peaks that exceed twice the 31 year running median absolute deviation. By accounting for the dating uncertainties associated with each record, these ice core records together reveal a large volcanogenic acid deposition event during 1453–1457 A.D. The results suggest only one major stratospheric injection from the Kuwae eruption and confirm previous findings that the Kuwae eruption took place in late 1452 or early 1453, which may serve as a reference to evaluate and improve the dating of ice core records. The average total sulfate deposition from the Kuwae eruption was 93 kg SO4/km2 in Antarctica and 25 kg SO4/km2 in Greenland. The deposition in Greenland was probably underestimated since it was the average value of only two northern Greenland sites with very low accumulation rates. After taking the spatial variation into consideration, the average Kuwae deposition in Greenland was estimated to be 45 kg SO4/km2. By applying the same technique to the other major eruptions of the past 700 years our result suggests that the Kuwae eruption was the largest stratospheric sulfate event of that period, probably surpassing the total sulfate deposition of the Tambora eruption of 1815, which produced 59 kg SO4/km2 in Antarctica and 50 kg SO4/km2 in Greenland.

Technical details concerning development of a 1200 yr proxy index for global volcanism

“…There is also a difference in estimate of the 1450s "Kuwae" peak (Gao et al, 2006). In our reconstruction we do not find a large 1453 signal in Greenland records and use a 1456 estimate from Castellano et al (2005), which was what we considered the best estimate at the time (subsequently we now think the Castellano et al (2005) data suggest 1457 rather than 1456).…”

Volcanic synchronisation between the EPICA Dome C and Vostok ice cores (Antarctica) 0–145 kyr BP

“…Testing isotopic synchronisation therefore requires using synchronisation methods independent of stable isotope records. Volcanic signatures have this potential and also offer sharp stratigraphic markers: the deposition typically spans 1-2 yr, even for stratospheric events (Gao et al, 2006), which gives excellent accuracy to the synchronisation. Volcanic products (mainly minerals, glass particles and SO 2 , rapidly oxidised to H 2 SO 4 ) are emitted into the stratosphere and/or into the high troposphere during volcanic eruptions, deposited on the Earth's surface via wet and/or dry deposition and preserved in ice or sediment sequences as tephra layers and/or sulfate (and as a consequence acidity and conductivity) spikes (Gao et al, 2008).…”

“…Ice cores from the same ice sheet are presumed to record more similar volcanic signatures (both global and regional), even if some local events of very low intensity could be recorded only at local scale . The total volcanic deposition can greatly differ spatially depending on geographic location, atmospheric transport pathways and the ratio between wet and dry deposition contributions (Castellano et al, 2005;Wolff et al, 2005;Gao et al, 2006). The Toba super-eruption ∼73 kyr ago is one of the most important of the last million years (e.g.…”

Volcanic forcing of climate over the past 1500 years: An improved ice core‐based index for climate models

“…**The original deposition in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet was multiplied by 1.81 and 1.02, respectively. See Gao et al [2006] for details. ***We found a large signal (about 7 kg/km 2 ) in the Greenland ice cores during 1963-1964, but this is probably due to the aerosol input from a high latitude NH eruption (Surtsey in Iceland).…”