Tambora: the eruption that changed the world

摘要

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia was witnessed by many people, ash fell hundreds of kilometres away, and the explosions could be heard from twice as far away again. The explosion affected global climate patterns for the next three years. The eruption was, vulcanologists tell us, of an order of magnitude more powerful than any other in recorded human history. Nevertheless, the world was a bigger place in 1815; Tambora was, to most of the world, an isolated event in an obscure corner of tropical Asia. Nascent scientific disciplines were unable to connect such an event with the subsequent climatic events, popularly known in the west as the 'Year without a Summer'.