The Eruption of Mount Tambora: the Year Without Summer

The eruption of Mount Tambora: the year without summer

Monthly Strategy Report February 2017

Alejandro Vidal Crespo Director of Market Strategies Monthly Strategy Report. February 2017

The eruption of Mount Tambora: the year without summer

On 10 April 1815 at 7 p.m., an explosion that could be heard as far as 2,600 km (1,600 mi) away rumbled over the Pacific Ocean. Mount Tambora had rocketed into the sky, releasing the equivalent of 800 megatons of energy (16x more energy than the Soviets’ Tsar Bomb, the most powerful weapon ever detonated by man).

Today, Mount Tambora rises 2,850 meters above sea level, but at the time of the eruption it reached a height of 4,300 meters (one indication of the magnitude of the event). The eruption also released a volume of 160 km3 of molten rock and enormous quantities of volcanic ash, which were deposited at distances of 1,300 km away. Though the local effects were devastating, the event would have global repercussions.

The eruption column reached the stratosphere, an altitude of more than 43 km, blanketing the globe with fine particles that would take months or years to settle. Optical phenomena were observed worldwide at sunrise and sunset in the initial months following the event. In addition to ash, Tambora is estimated to have launched millions of tonnes of sulphur into the atmosphere, creating a phenomenon known as “dry fog” in the northeastern United States, a gaseous veil so dense that it dimmed the sunlight and made sunspots visible with the naked eye.

This accumulation of particles and gases in the atmosphere drastically reduced solar radiation since the light was reflected in the upper layers of the atmosphere, causing temperatures to plummet, especially in the summer of 1816 when northeastern North America saw an abundance of snowfall from 6-10 June, with Quebec recording accumulations of 30 cm. Snow fell in atypical places like Guatemala and the Great Lakes maintained their ice sheets until July. Heavy frost ruined much of the crops in North America, China, and Europe, while in India the monsoons stopped, spoiling the season’s harvest.

The result was the worst famine of the 19th century, as prices soared for staples like oats (the price of which increased eight-fold). Because the short supply of available food was designated for human consumption, incalculable numbers of draft and transport animals, like horses and oxen, perished. This, in turn, would exacerbate the agrarian crisis in the years to come, with no animals to work the fields or pull the carts that transported the goods to market.

The question is: would we be as sensitive to such an event today? Unfortunately, given the fallout from the recent 2010 eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, which caused air-travel chaos for weeks in Europe, the answer may be yes, despite the fact that Eyjafjallajökull only released 5 km3 of ash relative to Tambora’s 40km3.

While naturally there are records of devastating eruptions with global effects, we are unable to predict their occurrence. We can only identify areas of eruption risk, like Indonesia, Mexico, the Phlegraean Fields in Italy, or the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in the United States. In addition to the climactic risks, which would involve fallout similar to that of the Tambora eruption, other basic elements, like transport and communications, would be seriously affected with inestimable consequences in a globalised world like ours. Moreover, an event of this nature in a densely populated area could trigger migratory movements of huge masses of people: a sort of volcanic refugee crisis.

Nevertheless, positive elements for human development emerge from even the most disastrous events, like the eruption of Mount Tambora. The lack of transport animals demonstrated man’s dependence on this type of resource, leading to the advent of alternative technologies like the bicycle and the steam engine which, though patented by Watt in 1769, would undergo a major evolution in locomotive Monthly Strategy Report. February 2017 form between 1811 and 1830, the years between the first truly functional steam locomotive and the construction of the first railway line between Manchester and Liverpool, which was the starting point for the exponential development of rail transport for people and goods.

The explosion of Tambora even figured in the creative process of some artists at the time. In the summer of 1816, two celebrated writers—Mary Shelley and Lord Byron—planned to spend their holiday on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, but the inclement weather, the rain and cold, forced them to stay indoors in a dark and gloomy environment. The result: Mary Shelley devised the character of Frankenstein, while Lord Byron wrote Darkness, one of his most famous works. To grasp the idea of a volcanic winter, simply read a few of the poet’s lines.

Ihad a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light: