Rampino has investigated the climatic and environmental effects of stratospheric aerosol clouds produced by explosive volcanic eruptions . With his colleagues Stephen Self , now at UC Berkeley and Richard Stothers of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies he studied the volcanic production of atmospheric sulfate aerosols using volcanological measurements of magmatic sulfur release , observations of volcanic aerosol clouds , and the record of atmospheric phenomena and climate changes after volcanic eruptions from historical accounts ( including the ancient literature ) , and from the record of volcanism contained in polar ice cores These studies included detailed field investigations of the historic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa , the 1963 eruption of Mount Agung and the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia , and their climatic aftermath . The famous “ year without a summer ” in 1816 , during which Mary Shelley was forced to stay indoors to write “ Frankenstein ” , followed the great Tambora eruption . One focus of investigation is the huge “ supereruption ” ( a word coined by Rampino and Self ) of Mount Toba ( now Lake Toba ) in Sumatra ~ 74,000 years ago . This event may have created a severe “ volcanic winter ” ( another term coined by Rampino ) leading to a human population crash predicted from studies of the human genome . Such large eruptions threaten civilization
1883 eruption of Krakatoa
1883 eruption of Krakatoa
Michael R. Rampino