John Wheeler: It is a matter of time until the next giant volcanic eruption

FARGO — Every few decades or so, a volcanic eruption sends enough tiny particles and gasses into the stratosphere to produce a measurable cooling of Earth's climate. The impacts are usually relatively small and brief. Though rarer, the much larger eruptions of Krakatoa in 1883, Tambora in 1815, Huaynaputina in 1600, and Samalas in 1257 ejected huge volumes of sulphur dioxide particles, which cooled the climate more significantly, resulting in worldwide crop reductions and famine.

Tambora, in particular, resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 people directly from the blast, and tens of millions due to world famine and disease. Samalas, in 1257, was a stronger eruption than Tambora, and Earth's distant past contains evidence of even more impactful super eruptions such as those at Toba some 74,000 years ago and Yellowstone some 2 million years ago, both of which likely caused a significant reduction in the number of living things on the planet..