Cold weather and volcanic eruptions linked by Irish chronicles

Medieval chronicles have allowed researchers to assess how historical volcanic eruptions affected Ireland’s weather from 431 to 1649.

Over 40,000 written entries in the Irish Annals were compared with measurements taken from ice cores, allowing researchers to successfully link volcanic eruptions climatic aftermath to extreme cold weather events.

Of 48 events, 38 were linked to 37 extreme cold weather events including observed meteorological phenomena such as heavy snowfall and prolonged ice covering lakes and rivers.