If you’re a gardener in New England, you might remember the wet, cool summer of 2009 for its tomatoes and potatoes, ravaged by the earliest and most widespread “late blight” on record. If you’re from south Texas, you were probably just trying to keep green things alive.

Along with unusually persistent rains, there was a different kind of watery surprise this summer for people on the U.S. Atlantic coast. From the barrier islands of the Southeast to the rocky shores of Maine, tides ran as high as 2 feet above predicted values.

By simulating 8,000 years of climate, a team led by scientists from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and NCAR has found a new explanation for the last major period of global warming, which occurred about 14,500 years ago.

NCAR researchers are studying whether the eruption of Indonesia’s Mt. Toba supervolcano about 70,000–75,000 years ago may have cooled Earth enough to initiate an ice age and potentially alter the course of human evolution.