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>Summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere fell by an average of 0.4 °C (0.72 °F) in the year following the eruption.

Hmm... This could be useful for fighting climate change! What if we artificially triggered an eruption in the Yellowstone caldera? Maybe a few hydrogen bombs at the right locations could weaken the crust enough to trigger a huge eruption, which would lower global temperatures for a few years.

...and raise local temperatures, just a bit...
Yeah but if im nearby we'll raise the global IQ by a lot. Im super dumb.
Or we could have the same effect without any direct terrestrial detestation or massively expensive projects.

https://news.mit.edu/2020/reflecting-sunlight-cool-planet-st...

Even then it’s incredibly risky and a bulletproof scientific model is needed to understand exactly what would happen before anything large scale is done.

> a bulletproof scientific model is needed to understand exactly what would happen

You see, that's exactly the kind of thing we keep telling mad scientists, but they're always saying, "Ze model is bulletproof. Vatch!". And then, foom it goes again.

No no no.

I’m picturing an evil Emeril Lagasse: “this holocene mass extinction thing... let’s kick it up a notch!”

If this interests you, then you might like to check out Samalas eruption.

Krakatoa eruption has a Volcanic Explosivity Index(VEI) of 6, 1257 Samalas eruption[1] has VEI of 7 apart from massive death toll, the resulting ecological disaster is now expected to have played a major role in ending the Mongol empire and collapsing several others in Asia. Severe droughts, famine followed up by extraordinary rains during this period has been recorded throughout the world.

I personally believe that's what lead to the end of Chola Dynasty(A Tamil empire spanning Southern India and SE Asia from 3rd BCE to 1279 CE)[2]. Although academic texts generally attribute to the end of Chola empire to the victory of long rival Pandya empire in wars, it's a common knowledge among Tamil people that it was drought induced famine[3] which ended the Chola and such famines generally do give an edge to the rival empires leading up to wars.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1257_Samalas_eruption

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty

[3]https://www.jstor.org/stable/44140197

Like many kids, I learned about Krakatoa from William Pene du Bois' 1948 Newbery Award-winning YA novel "The Twenty-One Balloons" [0]. The story is about a fantastical steampunk civilization hidden on Krakatoa, which (spoiler) is eventually destroyed in the eruption. The book is an absolute trip , figuratively and literally - recommended for all ages!

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-One-Balloons-Puffin-Modern-Cla...