The blue suns of 1831: was the eruption of Ferdinandea, near Sicily, one of the largest volcanic climate forcing events of the nineteenth century?

Abstract

Abstract. One of the largest climate forcing eruptions of the nineteenth century was, until recently, believed to have taken place at the Babuyan Claro volcano, in the Philippines, in 1831. However, a recent investigation found no reliable evidence of such an eruption, suggesting that the 1831 eruption must have taken place elsewhere. We here present our newly compiled dataset of reported observations of a blue, purple and green sun in August 1831, which we use to reconstruct the transport of a stratospheric aerosol plume from that eruption. The source of the aerosol plume is identified as the eruption of Ferdinandea, which took place about 50 km off the south-west coast of Sicily (37.1∘ N, 12.7∘ E), in July and August 1831. The modest magnitude of this eruption, assigned a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 3, has commonly caused it to be discounted or overlooked when identifying the likely source of the stratospheric sulfate aerosol in 1831. It is proposed, however, that convective instability in the troposphere contributed to aerosol reaching the stratosphere and that the aerosol load was enhanced by addition of a sedimentary sulfur component to the volcanic plume. Thus, one of the largest climate forcing volcanic eruptions of the nineteenth century would effectively have been hiding in plain sight, arguably “lowering the bar” for the types of eruptions capable of having a substantial climate forcing impact. Prior estimates of the mass of stratospheric sulfate aerosol responsible for the 1831 Greenland ice core sulfate deposition peaks which have assumed a source eruption at a low-latitude site will, therefore, have been overstated. The example presented in this paper serves as a useful reminder that VEI values were not intended to be reliably correlated with eruption sulfur yields unless supplemented with compositional analyses. It also underlines that eye-witness accounts of historical geophysical events should not be neglected as a source of valuable scientific data.

Out of the blue: Volcanic SO2 emissions during the 2021–2022 eruptions of Hunga Tonga—Hunga Ha’apai (Tonga)

“…There have been no reports of blue (or otherwise unusually colored) suns or moons since the HTHH eruption, but these were observed soon (a few days to weeks) after the August 1883 Krakatau eruption (Symons, 1888). Since 'blueing' of the Sun or moon requires a specific stratospheric aerosol particle size of ~0.5 µm (e.g., Garrison et al, 2021), this may tentatively be attributed to the larger size of the HTHH aerosol particles. Another atmospheric phenomenon first reported after the 1883 Krakatau eruption was the 'Bishop's Ring' halo around the Sun, observed from Honolulu (Hawai'i) by the Reverend Sereno Bishop (Hamilton, 2012).…”