In 1783-84 Laki in Iceland erupted spreading noxious gases around the globe. It caused cool and rainy summers across Europe for two years following the eruption.

More importantly, Laki caused famine in Britain, hastening the British Parliament’s 1786 decision to transport prisoners housed in overcrowded hulks on the Thames. A year later the First Fleet sailed with convicts bound for Australia, arriving January 1788.

Krakatoa, in the Sunda Strait near Java, erupted in 1883 killing 36,417 people. Average global temperatures following the eruption fell by as much as 1.2C for the next five years, as the huge quantities of sulphur dioxide pumped into the atmosphere resulted in clouds that reflected incoming light from the sun. 

Southern hemisphere weather cycles were cooled for up to 20 years. The 1883 eruption resulted in Krakatoa sinking 820m below sea level, but in 1927 it rose again. Volcanoes erupting under water can bubble high concentrations of carbon dioxide. It erupted in 2007, and again in 2009.

Western Sumatra’s Mount Sinabung is erupting now. Java’s Mount Merapi erupted after a series of earthquakes killing more than 350 people in late 2010.

Sangeang Api disrupted air traffic between Darwin and Bali in May. Indonesia has 130 active volcanoes.

Last September more than 36,000 people were evacuated when the Philippines’ most active volcano, Mount Mayon, rumbled and lava fragments began flowing down the slope. In late August Mount Tavurvur in PNG erupted. Its 1994 eruption nearly destroyed Rabaul. 

In November 2013 a deep sea volcanic eruption raised a new island 200m in diameter. It is now part of the Ogasawara chain in the seismically active Pacific "Ring of Fire" south of Tokyo.

In September this year Mount Ontake in central Japan erupted, spewing steam, gases and thick ash, trapping hikers in cottages near the summit, causing 52 deaths. 

Iceland's Bardarbunga volcanic system is erupting, and its lava flow now covers 55 square kilometres.

Earlier this year an eruption occurred after more than 400 earthquakes were detected in a six hour period.

So far it is a fissure eruption, a crack in the ground, but the actual volcano is under the several hundred metres thick Vattnajokull glacier, Iceland’s biggest glacier.

The nearby Askja volcano under the massive Dyngjujokull glacier is also on high alert. If it melts the glacier, there is the obvious possibility of flooding.

Eyjafjallajokull that stopped air traffic in 2010 was also a sub-glacial eruption. Pavlof in the Aleutian arc erupted on May 18. The Arctic has many active volcanoes.

Right now we seem to be in a particularly active period. Go to http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/erupting_volcanoes.html  to see an up-to-date list.