Articles | Volume 18, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1475-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1475-2022
Research article
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29 Jun 2022
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 29 Jun 2022

The 852/3 CE Mount Churchill eruption: examining the potential climatic and societal impacts and the timing of the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the North Atlantic region

Helen Mackay, Gill Plunkett, Britta J. L. Jensen, Thomas J. Aubry, Christophe Corona, Woon Mi Kim, Matthew Toohey, Michael Sigl, Markus Stoffel, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Christoph Raible, Matthew S. M. Bolton, Joseph G. Manning, Timothy P. Newfield, Nicola Di Cosmo, Francis Ludlow, Conor Kostick, Zhen Yang, Lisa Coyle McClung, Matthew Amesbury, Alistair Monteath, Paul D. M. Hughes, Pete G. Langdon, Dan Charman, Robert Booth, Kimberley L. Davies, Antony Blundell, and Graeme T. Swindles

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Cited articles

Abbott, P. M., Plunkett, G., Corona, C., Chellman, N. J., McConnell, J. R., Pilcher, J. R., Stoffel, M., and Sigl, M.: Cryptotephra from the Icelandic Veiðivötn 1477 CE eruption in a Greenland ice core: confirming the dating of volcanic events in the 1450s CE and assessing the eruption's climatic impact, Clim. Past, 17, 565–585, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-565-2021, 2021. 
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Amesbury, M. J., Swindles, G. T., Bobrov, A., Charman, D. J., Holden, J., Lamentowicz, M., Mallon, G., Mazei, Y., Mitchell, E. A., Payne, R. J., and Roland, T. P.: Development of a new pan-European testate amoeba transfer function for reconstructing peatland palaeohydrology, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 152, 132–151, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.09.024, 2016. 
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Short summary
We assess the climatic and societal impact of the 852/3 CE Alaska Mount Churchill eruption using environmental reconstructions, historical records and climate simulations. The eruption is associated with significant Northern Hemisphere summer cooling, despite having only a moderate sulfate-based climate forcing potential; however, evidence of a widespread societal response is lacking. We discuss the difficulties of confirming volcanic impacts of a single eruption even when it is precisely dated.
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