The volcanic winter of 536

In early 536 AD a veil of dust or ash dimmed the Sun over Europe and the Mediterranean. The Byzantine historian Procopius wrote that the Sun gave light without brightness, like the Moon, throughout the whole year, and writers in Italy and China described summer snow, crop failures and famine. Ice cores from Greenland show a large volcanic eruption, probably in Iceland, in early 536, followed by another in 540; tree rings show one of the coldest decades of the last 2,000 years. The climate shock, followed by the Plague of Justinian in 541, weakened the Byzantine Empire and may have helped to usher in the Dark Ages.

Open on the timeline