The ash plume over Mount Pinatubo on 12 June 1991 (Image: D Harlow, United States Geological Survey/Wikimedia Commons)
WE CAN put away the life rafts for now. The near doubling in the rate of sea level rise during the 1990s was probably due in part to the delayed effects of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines – and not runaway melting of ice caps.
Volcanic eruptions have long been known to cause a global chill by filling the upper atmosphere with particles that block out some of the sun’s radiation. Pinatubo’s 1991 blast cooled the atmosphere for two years,…
