An environmental drama played out on the world stage in the late 18th century when a volcano killed 9.000 Icelanders and brought a famine to Egypt that reduced the population of the Nile valley by a sixth. A study by three scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a collaborator from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, demonstrates a connection between these two widely separated events. The investigators used a computer model developed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies to trace atmospheric changes that followed the 1783 eruption of Laki in southern Iceland back to their point of origin. The study is the first to conclusively establish the linkage between high-latitude eruptions and the water supply in North Africa. In June 1783, the Laki volcano began a series of eruptions, regarded as the largest at high-latitude in the last 1.000 years. The eruptions produced three cubic miles of lava and more than 100 million tons of sulfur dioxide and toxic gases, killing vegetation, livestock and people. These eruptions were followed by a drought in a swath across northern Africa, producing a very low flow in the Nile. In the northern hemisphere, the summer of 1783 was the coldest in at least 500 years in some locations, according to tree ring data. Sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere kept the warmth of the sun from the Earth’s surface.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061121232204.htm