On April 10, 1815, one of the largest eruptions in history occurred on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. The consequences of this event covered the entire globe, resulting in the so-called year without summer, i.e. the volcanic winter of 1816 and weather anomalies in the following years. How has this influenced world history?
There are several types of eruptions. One of the most deadly is Plinyńska, not without reason also called Vesuvian. During such an eruption, the volcano is able to throw up to 2/3 of its volume into the air. The rise of eruption columns into the stratosphere usually causes the climate to cool periodically. The last, well-documented Plininian eruption took place in the Philippines when the Pinatubo volcano erupted in 1991. The following year, the average temperature was 0.5 degrees cooler than in 1991. However, the Tambora eruption was the largest recorded in human memory. It only gives way to prehistoric eruptions of supervolcanoes.
Sumbawa is part of the archipelago of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Its mountainous terrain gives it a picturesque, somewhat romantic look. It has a humid equatorial climate with a lot of rainfall. The main source of income for the inhabitants is agriculture. It was similar over 200 years ago. In addition to the cultivation of rice and cotton, sappan trees (Brezylka) and honey from wild bees were obtained from the forests. The Dutch brought coffee beans to Sumbawa, which were grown on the slopes of Tambora. The island was also known for horse breeding.
The very district around Mount Tambora was more mountainous, less suitable for agriculture, but very picturesque. Some people calculate that before its destruction, Mount Tambora must have reached over 4,000 m above sea level, which made it the highest peak in the so-called East Indies.
As a result of the Napoleonic wars in 1808, the island came under French rule along with other Dutch possessions, but in 1811 it was taken over by the British together with Java. Lieutenant Sir Stamford Raffles was elected Governor-General. We owe him the first history of Java and a fairly detailed description of the events related to the outbreak of Tambor.
Before 1815, the island had a population of at least 10,000. people of non-Thai origin. The entire culture disappeared within hours as a result of the volcanic eruption.
Until 1812, the volcanic properties of Mount Tambora were probably not known at all. This year, the volcano began to emit clouds of ash. John Crawfurd, who sailed along the Sumbawa coast in 1814, initially thought it was a tropical squall and was getting ready to meet the gale when he learned the true cause of the dark clouds.
However, the first serious eruptions took place in early April 1815, i.e. a few days before the main eruption. The troops stationed on the island even mistook the roar of the explosion for the enemy's cannons. It was not at all impossible in those turbulent times. Although pirates were expected rather than the fleets of any of the hostile powers.
The biggest eruption occurred on April 10 at 7 PM local time. It lasted three hours. The earthquake was felt on the neighboring islands, and the next day the sun was barely visible behind the thick red clouds. The height of the eruption columns reached 43 km, and the volume of ejected materials was over 100 km3. The eruption on the 8-point scale of the Volcanic Explosion Index is marked with the number 7. For comparison, the explosion of the famous eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the Herculaneum and Pompeii, is estimated at 5. Therefore, the eruption of Tambora is considered to be the largest in recorded history.
People living within the range of the explosion (the so-called Tambora culture) died on the spot. A further direct consequence of the outbreak was the tsunami. While not the deadliest in history, it contributed to further devastation. The deadliest wave, 4 meters high, hit Sanggar around 10:00 PM on the same day. She destroyed the rice paddies and the homes of the islanders. In the more distant islands, the effects were not that much felt, but the wave even reached Java, 500 km away.
When the survivors finally saw the sun on April 12, they faced new adversities. A huge volcano, located on a peninsula surrounded on almost all sides by the sea, threw huge amounts of pumice into the water. Three years after the eruption, the floating islands formed of them made it difficult to navigate between the islands of Mojo and Sanggar.
The most difficult thing was getting rid of the ash that fell on the island in the immediate vicinity of the volcano. The old rice and coffee fields were covered with a thick layer. Of those who survived, many had to sell their children into slavery to ensure their survival. Despite this, up to 10,000 people could die of starvation and disease from the outbreak. In 1847, the naturalist traveling on the islands, Heinrich Zollinger, recorded knee-length ash in the western part of Sumbawa Island.
Surviving the blast and tsunami didn't mean everything would be back to normal. It has been calculated that the eruption ejected about 30 megatons of sulfur into the stratosphere (three times more than the Pinatubo eruption). This had an impact on the climate on a global scale. In the summer of 1815, unusual sunrises and sunsets were observed. It is believed that the paintings of the famous landscape artist J.M.W. Turner from that time show the anomalies that resulted from the outburst. Residents of the east coast of the United States recorded this and the next year a strange "dry fog" that obscured the sun so that it was possible to see the spots on our star with the naked eye. However, it wasn't until the following year that summer came at all. The summer of 1816 of the previous year turned out to be colder than it had been in the last six centuries. We know descriptions from around the world. Connecticut residents in the US had to wear woolen warmers and cries in June. Clothes hung out to dry were frozen as if after the first frost. Snow has fallen on Montreal and Quebec. Characteristically, cold and humid weather in summer was accompanied by slightly warmer winters. The weather effects of the explosion were felt for the next two years. With more rainfall in Europe (except in the eastern Mediterranean) in the summer of 1817. This means that the so-called Summer was not so cold in the Little Ice Age.
Weather anomalies and major natural disasters take their toll on people who have experienced them. They also often affect the lives of the next generations. The volcanic eruption was a tragedy in the first place for the inhabitants of Sumbawa and the neighboring islands. The survivors often fell into slavery and, willingly or from above, were relocated to other parts of the island. The entire culture is gone, and with it - apart from human life - huge amounts of crops and livestock.
However, the largest volcanic eruption in history also affected people in Europe. The lack of summer caused most of the crops to be lost, followed by starvation. Not only was there a shortage of plants for humans, but also animal feed, which also partially starved. Particularly difficult conditions in certain regions forced the inhabitants to mass migrate. The lower the yield, the more expensive the food, which made the tragedy even worse. The poorest regions were especially the victims. In the years 1816-18, there are, among others the first big heads in Ireland.
More rainfall also meant more flooding in many parts of Europe. Weakness as a result of hunger, cold, and migration opened the way to another defeat - disease. Mostly typhus, cholera, and in some regions also the plague. In Ireland alone, about 100,000 people died of typhus.
All of this happened from the summer of 1815 to around 1818. So it overlapped with the losses caused by the Napoleonic Wars. One should also remember the thousands of demobilized soldiers who suddenly did not have enough to feed their families.
When one looks at historical events, it is difficult to pinpoint a single cause. Since the end of the 18th century, Europe and its colonies have gone through a series of revolutions, uprisings, and wars. Great hunger and accompanying diseases and migrations caused by sudden cooling were only part of complicated and difficult times. However, it can be assumed that they were not completely without influence on political events.
After the Congress of Vienna, there is a clear shift toward conservatism. The time of revolution and bold reforms was over, many states tightened their laws, and societies did not want or did not have the strength to oppose it. It is worth adding here that the Russian economy did not suffer from the volcanic winter. It even got rich by selling grain at a high price to countries that have lost most of their crops. This allowed Russia to recover from the war with Napoleon and continue its imperial expansion. Bad conditions on the east coast of America and exceptionally good years for the farmers of the then-western border could also contribute to the expansion of the settlers to the west.
Today it is difficult to determine what was really a consequence of the weather anomalies after the outbreak of Tambora in 1815, and what was the result of other events. However, the topic of the impact of climate and its rapid changes on human history certainly deserves more attention.
Bibliography:
- Clive Oppenheimer, Eruptions that shook the world, Cambridge 2011
- Gillen D'Arcy Wood, Tambora: the eruption that changed the world, Princeton 2014
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