VOLCANIC FALLOUT
Boffins studying impact of 18th century Icelandic volcanic eruption which led to YELLOW SNOW in Scotland ahead of COP26
Updated: 4 Mar 2021, 21:30
SCIENTISTS have been studying the impact of one the biggest climatic events of the last millennium when Scotland was covered in a blanket of YELLOW SNOW in the height of summer.
As world leaders prepare to descend on Glasgow for this year’s United Nations COP26 climate change summit, leading researchers at the University of Dundee have probed Iceland’s volcanic eruptions of 1783.
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The choking sulphurous haze spread across Europe, where tens of thousands died from respiratory failure.
March 4, 2021, 4:07 pm
The eruption killed thousands of people across Europe as a sulphurous haze spread across the continent (James Hickey/University of Exeter/PA)
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An 18th-century volcanic eruption spread a sulphurous haze across Scotland and turned crops black and leaves yellow, research suggests.
A team at the University of Dundee looked at the impact of a series of volcanic eruptions that started at the Laki fissure in Iceland on June 8 1783.
Study sheds light on 18th century volcanic haze that turned Scottish crops black thecourier.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thecourier.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
On June 15 1783, Dr John Purcell went outside his house in Edinburgh, looked up at the clouds and wrote in his diary how dark and gloomy the sky was. The dark skies, he reported, continued for seven days followed by two or three days of fine weather. Then, on June 25 he began to describe the presence of a choking sulphurous haze that lingered over Edinburgh for the rest of the summer. Author provided
Across Scotland, others were describing similar patterns of weather. At Gordon Castle in Morayshire, similar descriptions appear in an estate diary. In Aberdeenshire, Janet Burnet was recording in her farming diary how the leaves of her crops were withering and turning yellow, while on the estate of Henry, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch near Edinburgh, daily weather conditions were being measured with a thermometer, barometer and rain gauge.