Article | Volcanoes, Climate, and Society

Ulf Büntgen, Nicola Di Cosmo, Jan Esper, Michael Frachetti, Lamya Khalidi, Franz Mauelshagen, Eleonora Rohland, Clive Oppenheimer. 2025. Annual Review Earth and Planetary Sciences, 54.

Source : https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-032524-013254

This review examines the societal ramifications of large volcanic eruptions—not the proximal impacts of lava, ash, pumice, and gaseous emissions but rather the consequences of the climate forcing triggered by dispersal of volcanic sulfate aerosol in the stratosphere. Using ice core records of volcanism and tree-ring data of summer temperature anomalies, we analyze 38 preindustrial eruptions that injected an estimated 6 Tg or more of sulfur into the stratosphere. We then explore more than 100 works that consider the volcanism-climate-society nexus, teasing out the key elements of their arguments for or against the role of volcanically forced climate change in far-field societal impacts. As well as summarizing and interrogating the history of ideas and state of the art on this topic, we hope to stimulate further holistic, interdisciplinary approaches to assess the broader implications of volcanic eruptions, particularly for global food security—both in the past and in the future.