The Dust Veil of AD 536

Dust Veil of AD 536

According to written records and supported by dendrochronology and archaeological evidence, for 12-18 months in AD 536-537, a thick, persistent dust veil or dry fog darkened the skies between Europe and Asia Minor. The climatic interruption brought by the thick, bluish fog extended as far east as China, where summer frosts and snow are recorded in historical records; tree ring data from Mongolia and Siberia to Argentina and Chile reflect decreased growing records from 536 and the subsequent decade.

The climatic effects of the dust veil brought decreased temperatures, drought and food shortages throughout the affected regions: in Europe two years later came the Justinian smallpox plague.

The combination killed perhaps as much as 1/3 of the population of Europe; in China the famine killed perhaps 80% of people in some regions; in Scandinavia the losses may be been as much as 75-90% of the population, as evidenced by the numbers of deserted villages and cemeteries.

More...

I've never heard of this event. Perhaps others haven't as well.

Pretty spooky.

See also, Extreme weather events of 535–536

reply to post by loam


Wow that is crazy!

On a related note (News from yesterday):

Asian Dust May Impact North American Weather

It's obviously not as bad as the year 536 but the potential is always there.

reply to post by loam


I read the book by David Keys mentioned in the wiki link....well worth the read and, to me, poses a likely reason for the global dimming, disease, population and weather issues.

In 1999, David Keys in his book Catastrophe: A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World (supported by work of the American volcanologist Ken Wohletz), suggested that the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded at the time and caused the changes.[16] It is suggested that an eruption of Krakatoa attributed to the year 416 by the Javanese Book of Kings actually took place at this time–there is no other evidence of such an eruption in 416.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by loam


I totally agree.

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


Ah, I knew about the Krakatoa event, but assumed because of the date it was not the same as the one described in this thread.

I did not know the Krakatoa event might just be a theory, and that the 536 event remains largely unexplained.



I'll have to check the book out.

reply to post by loam


Yep, it seems to have ushered in the Dark Ages as well as a mini-Ice Age...what seems to be in doubt is what the actual cause of the 536 event was. Whatever it was, it was colossal.
And there is now evidence it was an eruption:

An international research published in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters" has found sulphates, molecules representing marks of an eruption, in Greenland ice.

news.softpedia.com...

www.sciencedaily.com...

customers.hbci.com...

Makes the weather we have now pale in comparison.

reply to post by loam


There has also been recent research to suggest that there may have been a meteor impact at that time too, and given the growing evidence that there is a relationship between major impacts and vulcanism, that could explain the extent and longevity of the 'Dust Veil'.

Based on the new research, Abbott thinks the two craters were made by an object that split into pieces as it approached Earth.

To make a pair of craters this big in the seafloor's soft sediments, the original object must have been about 2,000 feet (600 meters) across before it broke up, she said.

Core samples from the region back up the case for such an impact, Abbott added. Previous research had found that the samples contain smooth, magnetic spherules, which were probably created when the object's explosive landing melted material and blasted it into the sky.

Furthermore, a 2004 paper in the journal Astronomy and Geophysics suggested that the circa-A.D. 500 global cooling event might have been caused by dust from an impact of approximately the size Abbott has now calculated for Carpentaria.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

reply to post by loam


Fascinating thread!

I hope the "Nothings going to happen" crowd sees this thread and realizes that anything is possible.
It's just a matter of time before their comfy bubble is upset. Mother Nature will always have the upper hand.
After all, the House always wins and we're in her house.

reply to post by loam


Luckily we have the tech to create tons of huge Giant Fans that can help get rid of the dust if it ever covered part of the earth.....

We could either blow the dust out into space or back down into the ocean or something....

reply to post by LucidDreamer85


Or maybe just move a lot of stuff around locally.

Originally posted by loam
reply to post by LucidDreamer85

 

Or maybe just move a lot of stuff around locally.

Yeah, surely if we 'have the tech' to make massive fans, we'd be better applying it to suction and making a massive vacuum cleaner. Far more sensible...than fans...though still not particularly sound...if one were to think it through. A humungous sprinkler system, perhaps?

I believe that at this time apart from Krakatoa going up, one of the large Icelandic volcanoes also erupted. Much of this was proven by a tree ring scientist but his research has sort of disappeared. The history channel did a special on it and at that time there was a reasonable amount of supporting data. It almost seems as though there is some scientific jealousy involved, possibly vulcanologist not liking the tree ring guys crossing into their territory.

Any event of this magnitude occurring now would send billions to their deaths via starvation. At some point in time it will happen again. The world can not support the current population in the long term. Mother nature will bring the planet back to a desirable balance point.

P

reply to post by pheonix358


I think that the solar system and perhaps even the whole universe has a vested interest in the health of our planet too.

Too much information to quote...but check out the attached link and the studies surrounding meteor strikes during this period...and as I previously stated, there is an overwhelming correlation in the major impacts that have so far been studied and vulcanism contemporary to those events.

www.barry.warmkessel.com...

While we are aware that our biosphere is a self-regulating organism, I also believe that we are also learning to understand that it is also an organism within an organism...much like we are. The micro to the macro can be viewed as quite literal in meaning, and implication.

reply to post by pheonix358


Just noticed that you're in Australia too...the article that I previously posted, a little bit more of that...

Furthermore, a 2004 paper in the journal Astronomy and Geophysics suggested that the circa-A.D. 500 global cooling event might have been caused by dust from an impact of approximately the size Abbott has now calculated for Carpentaria.

It's even possible the impact had eyewitnesses: Aboriginal rock art from the region seems to have recorded the event, although the researchers examining this art declined to discuss details until after their paper has been published.

Still, Duane Hamacher, a Ph.D. student at Macquarie University in Sydney not involved with the rock-art work, recently demonstrated that Aboriginal stories can be used to locate meteorite craters.

"Numerous examples of fiery stars falling from the sky and striking the earth, causing death and destruction, are found throughout Aboriginal Dreamings [spiritual folk stories] across Australia," Hamacher wrote on his blog.

"The descriptions seem to indicate that the events were witnessed, not simply 'made-up.'"

In findings yet to be published, Hamacher used one set of Aboriginal stories, along with images in Google Earth, to locate a 919-foot-wide (280-meter-wide) impact crater in Palm Valley, in Australia's Northern Territory.

Now isn't that interesting!

And, similarly, we have folk stories from Estonia, relating to the Kaali Crater.

Fascinating implications.

I watched a program some time ago that showed that a Krakatoa eruption caused the 'dark ages,' to which you are referring. They matched the date of a massive eruption to the beginning of the dark ages, right around the date that you are referring to.

reply to post by loam


Amazing! Thanks for sharing I've never heard of this so will be reading up on it tonight S & F.

reply to post by loam


Very very interesting,
Can't wait to see how this pans out,
I think that the event of 536 may have been caused by both happenings.
A Swedish vulcanologist has identified an ash layer near krakatoa that is from the right time period and was from a large eruption. The ice core studies also point to a volcanic event.
But the stories and pictures of stars falling from the sky, not only by the aborigines but by other peolples asia with tales of dragons and such, might harken back to witnessing such an event.
A couple of weeks ago I read an article about how aborigines tales of falling stars and great .firey birds in the sky were based on an eyewitness account of seeing an impact event. The authors used a story about fiery rocks from the sky made a set of small craters in the interior, but the craters are to old for humans to have seen them formed, but the aborigines knew how they were formed, so they must have witnessed that type of event at least once

Whatever the cause of the dimming of the sun, the event of the mid 6th century was one of the most profound events in human history.
Let's sum up the some of the effects.
The cooler temps allowed yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes bubonic and pnuemomic plague, to be deadly.
Normally in its tropical home environment the bacteria is harmless, when temperature is above a certain point, something like 80 deg. the bacteria is non transmisable. It lives its life cycle in the gut of a flea. But when the temp drops below that level something happens . A blood clot forms in the gullet of the flea preventing any blood the flea feeds on from reaching the stomach. Consequently the flea slowly starves and jumps from host to host in an attempt to feed and passes the bacteria to the host, while normally the flea would feed once and die.
The plague had tremendous ramifications for European development.
2) The Islamic prophet Mohammed' s family ran what amounted to a soup kitchen in medina at this time , and it was the large influx of destitute and starving people that led him down the path that started Islam.
3) Part of the effects of the event was a general warming of northern Europe, this led to a population explosion in Scandinavia. This led to the Scandinavians to expand in Europe and the new world.
Battery is dying so I will add to this.

This is probably the most intelligent thread I've read since joining ATS.

I've been watching the "global warming" environmental changes and looking into similar historic changes. You do know that the chemical component of breathable ambient air has been what would be considered fatal to the human organism for most of the planets history? I found that to be the most humbling. The pebbles in my driveway, I see at my feet, the ones i paid for, were formed when the Earth's air was more methane than I could breathe....

The planet cooled before the dinosaur's croaked. Even they lived in an environment that would not have condusive to our habitation.

There are several places that can provide info, here is one that summarizes it:

www.killerinourmidst.com...


"This book is about the release of that methane, and, in particular, about the possibility of methane catastrophe. Methane catastrophes have occurred several times in Earth's history, and when they have occurred, they have sometimes caused abrupt changes in the history of life, and at least one significant extinction. That extinction, at the end of the Permian Period 250 million years ago, is the greatest in the history of life. More than 90% of the then-existing species perished, and the course of life on Earth was altered forever."

Originally posted by SeenAlot
"This book is about the release of that methane, and, in particular, about the possibility of methane catastrophe. Methane catastrophes have occurred several times in Earth's history, and when they have occurred, they have sometimes caused abrupt changes in the history of life, and at least one significant extinction. That extinction, at the end of the Permian Period 250 million years ago, is the greatest in the history of life. More than 90% of the then-existing species perished, and the course of life on Earth was altered forever."

Very interesting. It makes one wonder whether by learning better harness it, and utilise it as a source of power, we could as a by product, reduce it as a threat atmospherically.

Methane in the Earth's atmosphere is an important greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 25 compared to CO2 over a 100-year period (although accepted figures probably represents an underestimate[30]). This means that a methane emission will have 25 times the effect on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect for a brief period (a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 72. The Earth's atmospheric methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases (these gases don't include water vapor which is by far the largest component of the greenhouse effect).[31] Usually, excess methane from landfills and other natural producers of methane is burned so CO2 is released into the atmosphere instead of methane, because methane is a more effective greenhouse gas. Recently, methane emitted from coal mines has been successfully utilized to generate electricity.

en.wikipedia.org...

However, it would, quite probably, be a process that simply exchanges one threat for another, given the current processes involved. I suspect that the greatest threat of methane, apart from it's combustibility, is that it has the ability to displace oxygen, but not being entirely sure of the bio-chemistry involved, and much of the information going over my head in that respect, I cannot be entirely sure that I understand what that implies.