New evidence for massive pollution and mortality in Europe in 1783–1784 may have bearing on global change and mass extinctions

Abstract

The year 1783 has been referred to in Europe as the ‘Annus Mirabilis’ or ‘Year of Awe’ given the large number of extreme climatic, volcanic and tectonic events that took place. An unusually hot summer of 1783 in western Europe, followed by one of the most severe winters (1783–1784) in the northern hemisphere, an unusual ‘deadly’ haze that covered it down to rather low latitudes, poor crops in various places... On the same year, volcanoes erupted around the world (Etna, Stromboli, Vesuvius, Asama) and earthquakes shook Calabria. Last and probably foremost was the second largest historical basaltic fissure eruption at Laki (Iceland) from June 1783 to February 1784. Only two months after the onset of the eruption, Mourgue de Montredon [4], in a lecture to the Royal Academy of Montpellier (France), noted the coincidence of extreme weather conditions and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This was followed by the better-publicized contribution of Benjamin Franklin [6]. The paper by Montredon, which was published in the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences a few years later [4], is a remarkable piece of careful observation in real time, with daily measurements of temperature, humidity, wind characteristics