Volcanoes Helped Violent Revolts Erupt in Ancient Egypt

The problem with the concept of volcanic climate change is that it tends to be one of the strongest instances of confirmation bias. You can see this in the phrasing: "They found that eight of ten large uprisings happened within two years of a volcanic eruption." You can make a game of it: pick a climatic change and find the volcanic eruption that causes it. But that ignores the flip side; volcanic eruptions are so frequent that you can usually find sufficiently close, especially if you're willing to be very open with proximity and scale.

When you start by picking large-scale volcanic eruptions and then try to find the climatic fallout, the link seems far less clear. Of the four largest eruptions in modern times, only the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora is clearly linked with severe fallout (the Year Without a Summer). The eruptions of Novarupta, Krakatoa, Pinatubo, and Santa Maria don't show anywhere near that level of disruption, dispute being only somewhat less powerful.

2000+ years later same place - Arab Spring as a result of the drought caused higher bread prices. For all the tech and society development we are still so much dependent on the climate. I remember living in the USSR in 80-ies, end of the 80 year cycle, cold and wet, lower harvests coupled with lower oil prices - resulted in lower ability to import grain and this is what did the Empire from inside.

It is just me or does it seem like people who study the past like to ascribe major events to a volcanic eruption?

Link to the article, published in Nature, so we can judge it on its merits rather than via the NYT summary: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00957-y

Either way awesome NYT article title.