Apparently, a recent study, the effects of weather that caused the Toba eruption subsides relatively lighter and faster than the estimate made by the archaeologists and climatologists before. Man who suffered catastrophic eruption of Toba was estimated to have passed safely.
Despite of numerous studies reveal that the Toba eruption is now leaving the world's largest volcanic lake that darken and freeze the world, using data eruption of Pinatubo, Philippines in 1991, Stephen Self, volkanologis from the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK and Michael Rampino, paleobiologis of New York University, stated that the temperature of the cooling effect caused by the Toba eruption was only 3 to 5 degrees only.
Based on data obtained from archaeological sites in India, a team of anthropologists University of Oxford, England, led by Michael Petraglia said that the man who lived not far from the eruption zone actually even made it through the disaster with ease.
To find a bright spot, a team of researchers led by Claudia Timmreck, of the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany to be able to describe the modeling of more realistic (although this method also has some disadvantages) what happens when the Toba eruption.
Researchers focus on how the sulfate aerosol particles formed in the stratosphere by the eruption of sulfur dioxide-containing gas to cool the atmosphere by reflecting sunlight. From the data obtained, and adapted to the assumptions that have been made previously, it is known that the Toba sends about 850 million metric tons of sulfur into the atmosphere. This figure is 100 times more than the Pinatubo volcanic deposits into the atmosphere.
Of simulation is also known that the impact of Toba is just down the temperature as much as 3 to 5 degrees Celsius throughout the world. However, the concentration of sulfur is not solid and soon disappear from the stratosphere for 2 to 3 years. Extreme temperature changes that occur in Africa and India only last for 1 to 2 years. In this area, in the first year the temperature dropped 10 degrees and 5 degrees in the second year.
According Timmreck, as quoted from ScienceMag, Toba did not destroy the flora and fauna. However Timmreck admit, life in these times is difficult.
Michael Petraglia argues, Toba is not the main cause of drop in the number of human population in that era. However, Toba make the situation worse. The next step, says Petraglia, researchers still need to continue the simulation results with direct observations in the region around the Toba to determine more accurately the environmental impacts that occur.
