Most climate change agents operate on scales of years and up.
Some catastrophic agents can cause long-term changes in climate in a matter of days.
Large-scale volcanic eruptions. Nuclear weapons exchange. Meteorite or comet impacts. The black eruption plume, the largest in the past 40 years billows from the volcano summit, depositing ash on the show-covered region to the east and southeast. A small steam plume can be seen rising from the peak of Bezymianny, just below the center of the phtograph.