Reply to comment by Cole-Dai et al. on 'Climatic impact of the long-lasting Laki eruption: Inapplicability of mass-independent sulfur isotope composition measurements'

摘要

Here we respond to the comments by Cole-Dai et al. 2014 on our article Schmidt et al. 2012. Specifically, in response to section 2 of their reply, we argued in Schmidt et al. 2012 that based on previously published estimates of the volatile release height during the 1783–1784 C.E. Laki eruption, the lack of a sulfur massindependent fractionation (MIF) anomaly is expected. In other words, no previous study on Laki ever argued that this eruption emitted SO2 into altitudes >13–15 km. In section 2.3, Cole-Dai et al. 2014 argue that the nonzero Δ33S value of their Laki sample 1 may be explained by a short-lived explosive phase at Laki during which volatiles reached the stratosphere. In Schmidt et al. 2012 in section 2, we argued in agreement with Cole-Dai et al. 2014(section 3.1) that for a MIF anomaly to be preserved, the Laki volatiles would have had to be emitted in >20 km altitude. Our main point is that eruption column heights >20 km are unlikely based on the historical accounts and plume-rise modeling for the Laki eruption Stothers et al., 1986; Woods, 1993; Thordarson and Self, 2003.