约74000年前发生在苏门答腊的托巴火山喷发是过去260万年来规模最大的火山喷发事件，喷出的岩浆数量达数千立方公里，相当于1991年皮纳图博火山喷发量的1000倍[1]。然而，最新研究表明这场喷发对全球气候的冷却效应并未如此前推测那样严重。
研究人员通过分析肯尼亚-坦桑尼亚边界一个小火山湖的沉积物，测定了托巴火山喷发的气候影响[1]。研究发现，该喷发引发的降温幅度约为0.5度，冷却效应持续不到两年[1]。这远低于之前关于托巴火山喷发可能威胁人类生存的推测。对此，研究人员解释称，"更大的硫酸盐气溶胶沉降很快，因为它们更重"[1]，意味着火山喷出物在大气中停留时间有限，难以造成长期的全球降温效应。
Researchers have challenged the long-held assumption that the Mount Toba eruption posed an existential threat to humanity. The massive volcanic event, which occurred approximately 74,000 years ago in Sumatra, was the largest eruption in the past 2.6 million years, ejecting thousands of cubic kilometers of lava[1]. However, new evidence suggests its cooling effect on the climate was far more modest than earlier theories proposed.
A team led by Jinheum Park and colleagues from Johannes Gutenberg University analyzed sediment deposits from a small volcanic lake on the Kenya-Tanzania border to reconstruct the eruption's atmospheric impact[1]. Their findings reveal that the cooling effect persisted for less than two years, with global temperatures dropping by approximately 0.5 degrees[1]. This stands in stark contrast to previous speculation that the eruption could have triggered catastrophic climate change threatening human survival. Park explained that "larger sulfate aerosol particles settled quickly because they were heavier"[1], accounting for the relatively brief duration of the cooling period. While the Toba eruption was roughly 1,000 times larger than the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption[1], the new research demonstrates that its climatic consequences were substantially more limited than earlier models suggested.