Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive'
Glacier cores reveal Icelandic volcano that plunged Europe into darkness
//Summary - Level-B2//
In 536, a huge volcanic eruption—likely in Iceland—caused a dark fog and global cooling, making it the coldest decade in the past 2,300 years. Crops failed, famine spread, and snow fell in summer. Then in 541, the deadly Plague of Justinian hit, killing up to half the Eastern Roman Empire. Ice cores and tree rings reveal three major eruptions and show how natural disasters and disease collapsed economies and reshaped history. Signs of recovery only appeared around 640, with rising silver use. This research links climate, disease, and economic change more clearly than ever before.
1)
Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, primarily young adults. But 536.
In Europe, "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year," says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.
2)
A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night, for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius.
In the summer of 536, temperatures fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China, crops failed, and people starved.
3)
The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt.
McCormick says what came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse.
4)
Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle.
Now, an ultraprecise analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by a team led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine (UM) in Orono has fingered a culprit.
5)
At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536.
Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547.
The repeated blows, followed by plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted until 640, when another signal in the ice—a spike in airborne lead—marked a resurgence of silver mining, as the team reports in Antiquity this week.
6)
To Kyle Harper, provost and a medieval and Roman historian at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, the detailed log of natural disasters and human pollution frozen into the ice "give us a new kind of record for understanding the concatenation of human and natural causes that led to the fall of the Roman Empire—and the earliest stirrings of this new medieval economy."
7)
Ever since tree ring studies in the 1990s suggested the summers around 540 were unusually cold, researchers have hunted for the cause. Three years ago, polar ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica yielded a clue.
When a volcano erupts, it spews sulfur, bismuth, and other substances high into the atmosphere. These substances form an aerosol veil that reflects the sun's light into space, cooling the planet.
8)
By matching the ice record of these chemical traces with tree ring records of climate, a team led by Michael Sigl, now of the University of Bern, found that nearly every freezing summer over the past 2500 years was preceded by a volcanic eruption.
The team suggested that a massive eruption—perhaps in North America—stood out in late 535 or early 536; another followed in 540. Sigl's team concluded that the double blow explained the prolonged darkness and cold.
9)
Mayewski and his interdisciplinary team decided to look for the same eruptions in an ice core drilled in 2013 in the Colle Gnifetti Glacier in the Swiss Alps.
The 72-meter-long core, smack in the centre of Europe, entombs more than 2000 years of fallout from volcanoes, Saharan dust storms, and human activities.
10)
The team deciphered this record using a new ultra–high–resolution method. In this method, a laser carves 120-micron slivers of ice, representing just a few days or weeks of snowfall, along the length of the core.
Each of the samples—some 50,000 from each meter of the core—is analysed for about a dozen elements.
UM volcanologist Andrei Kurbatov says the approach enabled the team to pinpoint storms, volcanic eruptions, and lead pollution down to the month or even less, going back 2000 years.
11)
Darkest hours and then a dawn:
A high-resolution ice core record combined with historical texts chronicles the impact of natural disasters on European society.
12)
UM graduate student Laura Hartman found two microscopic particles of volcanic glass in ice from the spring of 536. By bombarding the shards with X-rays to determine their chemical fingerprint, she and Kurbatov found that they closely matched glass particles found earlier in lakes and peat bogs in Europe and a Greenland ice core.
13)
Those particles, in turn, resembled volcanic rocks from Iceland.
The chemical similarities convinced geoscientist David Lowe of the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, who says the particles in the Swiss ice core likely came from the same Icelandic volcano.
However, Sigl says more evidence is needed to convince him that the eruption was in Iceland rather than North America.
14)
Either way, the winds and weather systems 536 must have been just right to guide the eruption plume southeast across Europe and, later, into Asia, casting a chilly pall as the volcanic fog "rolled through," Kurbatov says.
The next step is to find more particles from this volcano in lakes in Europe and Iceland, confirm its location in Iceland, and tease out why it was so devastating.
15)
A century later, after several more eruptions, the ice record signals better news: the lead spike in 640. Silver was smelted from lead ore, so the lead is a sign that the precious metal was in demand in an economy rebounding from the blow a century before, says archaeologist Christopher Loveluck of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.
16)
A second lead peak, in 660, marks a significant infusion of silver into the emergent medieval economy. Loveluck and his colleagues write in Antiquity that it suggests gold had become scarce as trade increased, forcing a shift to silver as the monetary standard.
"It shows the rise of the merchant class for the first time," he says.
17)
Still later, the ice is a window into another dark period. Lead vanished from the air during the Black Death from 1349 to 1353, revealing an economy that had again ground to a halt.
"We've entered a new era with this ability to integrate ultra-high-resolution environmental records with similarly high-resolution historical records," Loveluck says. "It's a real game changer."
Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive'
Glacier cores reveal Icelandic volcano that plunged Europe into darkness
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive
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//New words//
1. plunged – Fell or dropped suddenly and deeply.
Example: A mysterious fog plunged Europe into darkness.
2. starved – Suffered or died from not having enough food.
Example: Many people starved during the long winter.
3. plague – A deadly disease that spreads quickly.
Example: The plague killed millions in medieval Europe.
4. Pelusium – An ancient Egyptian city near the Nile Delta.
Example: The army arrived near the old city of Pelusium.
5. Justinian – A Byzantine emperor known for his reforms and wars.
Example: Justinian tried to rebuild the Roman Empire.
6. hastening – Causing something to happen sooner or faster.
Example: The cold weather was hastening the harvest season.
7. ultraprecise – Extremely accurate or exact.
Example: Scientists used an ultraprecise clock to measure time.
8. fingered – Pointed to someone or something as responsible.
Example: The police fingered him as the main suspect.
9. culprit – A person or thing responsible for a problem or crime.
Example: The real culprit of the fire was faulty wiring.
10. cataclysmic – Causing sudden and great disaster or change.
Example: A cataclysmic eruption changed the island forever.
11. eruption – A sudden release of lava or gas from a volcano.
Example: The eruption covered the town in ash.
12. spewed – Threw out something in a fast and forceful way.
Example: The volcano spewed smoke and ash for hours.
13. stagnation – A state of no growth or progress.
Example: The economy fell into stagnation after the crisis.
14. spike – A sudden sharp increase.
Example: There was a spike in flu cases last winter.
15. provost – A senior administrator in a university.
Example: The provost announced new rules for the campus.
16. concatenation – A series of events or things linked together.
Example: A strange concatenation of events led to the discovery.
17. stirrings – The beginning signs of a feeling or action.
Example: She felt the first stirrings of anger.
18. yielded – Produced or gave results.
Example: The research yielded surprising results.
19. clue – A piece of information that helps solve a problem.
Example: The footprints were a clue to the thief’s identity.
20. sulfur – A yellow chemical often found in volcanic areas.
Example: The smell of sulfur filled the air near the volcano.
21. bismuth – A heavy metal used in medicine and cosmetics.
Example: Bismuth is used to treat stomach problems.
22. aerosol – Tiny particles or liquid drops in the air.
Example: Aerosol sprays can affect the environment.
23. reflects – Bounces light, heat, or sound back.
Example: Snow reflects sunlight and makes the area brighter.
24. preceded – Came before something else in time.
Example: A warning alarm preceded the explosion.
25. interdisciplinary – Involving two or more areas of study.
Example: The team used an interdisciplinary approach to solve the problem.
26. deciphered – Understood or figured out the meaning of something.
Example: He finally deciphered the old message.
27. particles – Tiny pieces of matter.
Example: Dust particles floated in the sunlight.
28. resembled – Looked like or was similar to something.
Example: The baby resembled her mother.
29. convince – Make someone believe or agree with something.
Example: I tried to convince him to join the trip.
30. chilly – Cold enough to make you feel uncomfortable.
Example: The morning air was chilly and fresh.
31. pall – A dark cloud or covering, often suggesting sadness.
Example: A pall of smoke hung over the city.
32. devastating – Causing great damage or suffering.
Example: The earthquake had a devastating effect on the town.
33. ore – Rock or soil that contains metal.
Example: Miners searched for gold ore in the mountains.
34. vanished – Disappeared suddenly and completely.
Example: The ship vanished without a trace.
