The Indonesian “super-volcano” Toba ejected millions of metric tons of volcanic ash, sulfur, and other debris into the atmosphere 74, 000 years ago. The volcanic eruption darkened the skies, and lowered the temperature by 10 degree Celsius for almost half a decade, and gave a different direction to human evolution.

This is what some climatologists and archeologists have come to conclude. However, a new model indicates that Toba’s climate effects were milder and abated quickly. This suggests that humans might have made it through the incident comparatively unscathed.

However, according to a different model to explain the given volcanic eruption, the consequences were quite different from what has been believed by the scientists. This model was created by climate modeler Claudia Timmerick from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany.

Temperature across the globe dipped only 3 to 5 degree Celsius. The high concentration of sulfur particles released in the atmosphere was short-lived. They got settled out of the stratosphere. There they got cooled down.

According to experts, Toba probably made an ill situation worse. However, according to them, the impacts may not have been so bad for humans. An expert said, “Populations survived, but it could have been environmentally nasty for a few years.” According to him, the next step is to mix the simulation with actual field observations about Toba’s environmental impacts.