The volcanic eruption that triggered a global catastrophe and a ‘year without summer’

Following a changeable and – at times – wintry last few weeks, the thought of snow in May, sunless skies in June and and a pandemic by July is too much to bear.

But two centuries ago, something very much like this did happen, triggered by a volcanic eruption on the other side of the world, which caused a climate catastrophe, three years of disruption and millions of deaths.

On April 10, 1815, the Indonesian island of Sumbawa witnessed one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history.

The eruption of Mount Tambora measured seven out of eight on the Volcano Explosivity Index, spewing 24 cubic miles of gasses, dust and rock into the atmosphere. (By comparison, Mount Vesuvius, which killed an estimated 2,000 people in 79 AD, was a magnitude five. The last known level-eight eruption occurred around 26,000 years ago.)

‘The eruption of Tambora was a catastrophic event and one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in 10,000 years. It threw a huge plume of volcanic eruption high beyond the troposphere, which is where we live, into the stratosphere,’ meteorological expert Nathan Rao tells Metro.

‘There, the aerosols reflected sunlight, and caused temperatures to drop for three years. It was 1819 before they recovered. And because the weather affects everything, it had a huge impact, not just short term changes and fluctuations in temperature and wind, but also on climate.’

Around 10,000 people were killed instantly as the explosion destroyed all vegetation on the island. Uprooted trees, mixed with pumice ash, washed into the sea, forming rafts up to three miles wide. Meanwhile, 100 megatons of sulphur aerosols created a deadly haze that blocked sunlight and cooled the Earth by an estimated 0.5°C.

‘That might not seem like much, but over a sustained period, very small changes in the balance of the atmosphere can have huge repercussions. It had a major impact in terms of crops, famine and the resulting disease,’ Nathan explains.

The following summer was recorded as the coldest ever in the UK, with snow falling in the Midlands in May due to the freezing overnight temperatures. Author Mary Shelley, confined indoors by the cold, was inspired by the grim weather to write the literary classic Frankenstein, while Lord Byron wrote the poem Darkness, which imagines the sun extinguished and the world collapsing into cold and chaos.

Gloomy, cold rains fell throughout Europe and in the United States, and the bleak months became known across both continents as ‘the year without summer.’

As temperature changes affected rain and snowfall, and the sun remained hidden, harvests failed globally causing poverty, starvation and food riots across Europe. In Ireland, wheat, oat and potato crops failed and the resulting famine and typhus outbreak took many lives.

Life in the UK was marked by strain and hunger. Soldiers returned home from the Napoleonic Wars to find low wages, scarce jobs and stilted industry. In rural areas, farmers watched fields rot and in the towns, food prices rose and ordinary families were unable to afford food and clothes. The effects were felt more keenly in Ireland, where fields that should have been productive looked sodden or under-grown and the skies were dull and damped by persistent cloud.

Asia was even more severely affected as famine and cholera proliferated across India and rice paddies were destroyed in China.

The eruption is thought to have cost millions of lives. And most frighteningly of all, those affected had no way of knowing whether the death, disease and destruction – and beautiful fiery sunsets caused by volcanic ash – were punishments issued by a vengeful god.

Nathan explains: ‘They had no technology, no internet, no Met Office, so they wouldn’t have known what was going on. They wouldn’t have had a clue.

‘People would have made all sorts of analogies and superstitions about God, spirits or strange forces coming into action.

‘They would have seen their crops failing and people suffering, and not understood why. It had never been experienced before, so the strange weather effects would have been frightening. A bit like when people saw comets and they thought they were omens. It would have been a scary few years.’

So could such a freak weather occurrence happen again? 

While it’s important to note that this was a very rare event and as a civilisation, we are much better protected against natural disasters than 200 years ago, there is nothing to stop another ‘year without summer’. 

As a journalist, Nathan has been called to cover volcano stories at a moment’s notice, and knows how quickly and without caution they can occur.

‘You don’t get many warnings with earthquakes and volcanoes. Look at the Tsunami in 2004. No-one saw that coming.

‘When it comes to natural disasters, if it’s happened once, it can happen again,’ he adds.

‘The eruption of Mount Tambora was a rare event, but theoretically we could see another volcanic eruption somewhere in the world. 

Now,  obviously, there would be much more information and communication, so we’d be able to deal with it much better – but it could still be catastrophic.’

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