Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World

摘要

Many have watched Frankenstein movies loosely based on the story Mary Shelley wrote in Geneva during the frigid summer of 1816. Others may have read about the Year Without a Summer that brought snows, frost, and unforeseen famine to Quebec and New England that same year. Few are aware that the cold Mary described and the dark days Yankees suffered were caused by violent weather changes resulting from the colossal 1815 eruption of an equatorial volcano, the Tambora in Indonesia. The explosion of that single cone brought an apocalypse that affected much of the Northern Hemisphere. Ash covered islands as far as 500 miles west of the eruption center. It smothered rice fields and destroyed their complex irrigation systems. Chemicals in the ash polluted freshwater sources. More than a hundred thousand people died from starvation and related diseases. The eruption also injected large volumes of sulphur dioxide gas into the stratosphere where it turned into aerosol shrouds that encircled the earth and remained suspended for up to three years. These thin veils reduced incoming solar radiation, cooling the atmosphere below and changing the weather globally. The meteorological aberrations brought floods and droughts to regions that had not normally experienced such extremes.