The volcanic eruption in Tonga has attracted worldwide attention, and many people are worried that the eruption will have some other follow-up effects on the earth and humanity in addition to the tsunami. This fear is not unfounded, as several serious volcanic eruptions and their secondary disasters in history have indeed brought deep disasters to the earth. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia in the 19th century brought a "summerless year" to mankind.
Painting depicting the eruption of Mount Tambora
The Great Famine
On April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora in the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumbawa suddenly erupted, and the loud noise of the eruption could be heard as far away as 2,000 kilometers away. The eruption left a 700-meter-deep crater with a diameter of 700 kilometers, which killed 71,000 people in the vicinity and continued to erupt into mid-July. More than three consecutive eruptions have sent millions of tons of rubble, dust and hundreds of millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the sky. Although particulate matter exists in the atmosphere for only a few days, large amounts of sulfur dioxide are converted into sulfuric acid, which then forms aerosols in the atmosphere, which block solar radiation for a long time, creating consequences similar to a "nuclear winter" throughout the northern hemisphere.
This eruption caused global temperatures to drop, altering the climate of the entire world, especially bringing record cold to much of the Northern Hemisphere in the following summer. In Europe, Asia and North America, a rare series of extreme weather phenomena such as snow, ice and frost occurred in June, July and August of 1816. Therefore, 1816 is called "the year without summer" by the world, and some people call it "1816 when people freeze (starve) and die"...
In the predominantly agrarian society of the time, many parts of the Northern Hemisphere suffered from widespread famine. Take China, for example, which coincided with the twenty-first year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty. According to relevant historical records, in the sixth and seventh months of the lunar calendar of this year, there were serious frost disasters in Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and many places in Jiangsu. The Yangtze River basin even saw heavy snow in the summer, with parts of Anhui province falling more than an inch of snow in July. Due to the sudden drop in temperature, it seriously affected the growth of crops, resulting in a significant reduction in food production. The subtropical Yunnan region was also seriously affected, and according to the Yunnan "Deng Chuan County Chronicle", Jiaqing's twenty-first year "was a great famine of the year, and the road died." "But according to another study, after the Jiaqing disaster, China's agricultural structure has also undergone some positive changes, farmers in the north have begun to like to grow more hardy crops, sweet potatoes, peanuts and corn have been popularized, China's staple food has become more diversified, and Chinese recipes have become more abundant.
Not only in China, but also in 1816 a similar famine occurred throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The United Kingdom snowed in July, Germany began to winter in August of that year, but the grass and trees were frosted, the rivers froze, most crops froze to death, and it is said that more than 200,000 people in Europe died of this severe famine in the year of summerless years. The impact of the eruption of Mount Tambora on North America was equally enormous, especially in the eastern part of North America, where a report showed that snowfall reached 15 centimeters on June 6, 1816. Weather anomalies have caused widespread crop failures in the United States, and the price of food has risen sharply. Hungry people in the eastern United States began to gradually migrate west in order to feed themselves. At the same time, countless hungry Europeans were also seduced into emigrating to the United States in search of fertile land for the fabled New World. The superposition of the two factors, a large number of people continue to pour into the western United States, kicking off the prelude to the large-scale development of the western region and laying the foundation for the later rise of the United States.
Most crops freeze to death
Pandemic after the Cataclysm
As the saying goes, "after a catastrophe there will be a great plague", and the pandemic that followed the eruption of Mount Tambora was the cholera pandemic of the 19th century. According to recent scientific research, volcanic tectonic activity may contribute to some extent to the proliferation of Vibrio cholerae by increasing the salinity and temperature of surface water and groundwater.
In other words, volcanic eruptions are closely linked to cholera disease. Due to the eruption of Mount Tambora, the arrival of the Indian monsoon in 1816 and 1817, and the anomaly of the climate led to a mutation in Vibrio cholerae, which triggered the deadliest cholera pandemic ever recorded. From 1816 to 1821, 10,000 British soldiers stationed in India were reported to have died of cholera, while the death toll on Indian soil exceeded 100,000. Over the next dozen years, the cholera epidemic gradually spread to Europe and began to spread globally. Experts estimate that millions of people died from the pandemic, and cholera in the 19th century became a lingering nightmare for humanity.
In 1816, a summerless year, the demons that were released were not only cholera, but most likely opium. According to Western scholars, after a widespread crop failure in 1816, farmers in some parts of Asia were forced to start planting hardy opium poppies, which are the raw materials for refining opium. Opium trafficking became a lucrative business, and poppy cultivation became a pillar industry in some places.
Tambora's butterfly wings
The eruption of Mount Tambora is like a pair of huge butterfly wings, and its flapping has had a profound impact on the world, and it can even be said that it has influenced the course of human civilization to a certain extent. In the year of the eruption of Mount Tambora, Napoleon was fighting the Battle of Waterloo on the Battlefield of Europe. The weather changes caused by the volcano brought continuous rain, and on the day of the decisive battle on June 18, it poured down, which made Napoleon's artillery superiority in vain, and also limited the mobility of Napoleon's army, and under various unfavorable conditions, Napoleon's army lost Waterloo.
Nature is wonderful, and when one part of the world experiences extreme weather, somewhere nearby tends to experience the opposite weather to balance it out. In the summerless year, when most of the northern hemisphere experienced cooling after the eruption of Mount Tambora, the Arctic warmed, and a strange countercurrent forced warm winds to move northward, causing some of the arctic ice layers to melt over the years, so European explorers found a way to the north, which prompted more people to embark on the path of Arctic exploration. When extreme weather in 1816 led to crop failures, it wasn't just humans who had no food. The price of oats soared, horse breeders could not afford to pay for feed, and many horses that were pulled were killed and turned into human food. In order to transport goods, the German Carl Dreis built a kind of wooden wheeled bicycle, so there was a prototype of the bicycle.
In the year of no summer, human beings also have many unexpected gains in the field of literature and art. The large amount of dust and ash produced by volcanic eruptions is more conducive to scattering, so there are more brilliant sunrises and sunsets, and they last for several months. In terms of painting, the birth of the Romantic and Impressionist oil paintings and the advent of some representative works may be related to the unique brilliant colors of the summerless year, such as William Turner's "Chichester Canal" and Monet's "Sunrise Impression".
Mona's Work "Sunrise Impression"
Also this summer of 1816, a group of writers and intellectuals on vacation on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland were trapped indoors due to cold and rain, including Byron, his doctor John Politoli, and the Shelleys, who were not yet married at the time. Sitting indoors for a long time, In order to pass the time, Byron proposed that everyone tell ghost stories... In this way, Mary Shelley began the work of her classic novel Frankenstein – The Story of Modern Prometheus; inspired by her, John Politurius also wrote Vampire. Mary Shelley is revered as the mother of science fiction, and Vampire has brought infinite inspiration to the literary and film productions of later generations.
Later, historians such as Geniville Glassford and William Klingemann wrote a book titled "The Year Without Summer" about the impact of the eruption of Mount Tambora on the world and the course of human history. The slightly philosophical name "Year Without Summer" has also inspired many novelists, and Jack Hunt's thriller novel of the same name is set in a volcanic eruption.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan Text Editor: Fang Ying Title Image Source: IC photo Photo Editor: Xiang Jianying
Source: Author: Wang Xiaoyan Li Boning