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Map of the Indonesian archipelago indicating names mentioned in the text. Circle indicates approximate 5-cm isopach for the phoenix cloud ashfall Source: from Stothers, R. 1984: The great Tambora eruption in 1815 and its aftermath. Science 224, 1191-98, and used with permission of Science
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The 1815 eruption of Tambora volcano (Sumbawa island, Indonesia) expelled around 140 gt of magma (equivalent to ≈50 km3 of dense rock), making it the largest known historic eruption. More than 95% by mass of the ejecta was erupted as pyroclastic flows, but 40% by mass of the material in these flows ended up as ash fallout from the 'phoenix' clouds...
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... distant effects of the eruption were astonishing. Explosions were heard through the night of Monday 10 to Tuesday 11 April in Benkulen (1800 km away), Mukomuko (2000 km), and perhaps Trumon (2600 km) on Sumatra ( Figure 5). The following report came from Fort Marlborough in Sumatra in May 1815: somewhat remarkable instance has occurred recently on this coast. ...
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One of the strongest ozone depletion events in the Arctic stratosphere was observed in March 2011 due to the strengthening of the polar vortex in February 2011. Earlier, in November 2010, the eruption of Mt. Merapi volcano (Java, Indonesia) with a maximum plume altitude of 18.3 km was recorded. The effect of aerosol heating in the tropical lower st...
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... Recent multi-dimensional disasters serve as benchmarks for studying the cascading effects of hazards and impacts. Studies on historical Indonesian cascading disasters are still rare and limited to large-scale events that marked the archipelago's history (Sastrawan 2022), and whose consequences were global, such as the 1257 Samalas eruption (e.g., Lavigne et al. 2013;Mutaqin and Lavigne 2019), the 1815 Tambora eruption (e.g., De Jong Boers 1995;Oppenheimer 2003), or the 1883 Krakatoa eruption (e.g., Dörries 2003;Paris et al. 2014). However, Indonesian history is full of cascading disasters that have received little or no study, e.g. the 1856 Gunung Awu eruption triggered a coastal landslide, that caused a tsunami (Bankoff et al. 2021) or the cascading disaster that occurred on 22 November 1815 in the Buleleng kingdom, an event which is locally known as "Zaman Gejer Bali," or "the time when Bali shook". ...
... The offshore earthquake would have triggered a tsunami and a huge landslide on the northern flank of the Buyan-Bratan caldera (Fig. 1a), which evolved into a massive debris flow that devastated various valleys and Singaraja-Sukasada villages, and caused fatalities of a large number of Balinese (Soloviev and Go 1974;Nordholt 1996;Harris and Major 2017). Little is known about these multi-risk sequences and their impact on Balinese society, already shaken by the cataclysmic Tambora eruption seven months before this disaster and forced to adapt to sudden events (e.g., De Jong Boers 1995;Oppenheimer 2003). The purpose of this paper is to fill this knowledge gap through the exegesis of historical accounts. ...
... The Lesser Sunda Island region is known for its volcanoes, whose activities have left deep traces on Indonesian society, including the Agung eruption in Bali in 1963 (Volcanic Explosivity Index -VEI 4+; Fontijn et al. 2015; and the Samalas eruption in Lombok in 1257 (VEI 7; Lavigne et al. 2013;Mutaqin and Lavigne 2019). The Tambora eruption in April 1815 (VEI 7;Oppenheimer 2003;, occurred in Sumbawa, 300 km east of Bali, seven months before the earthquake-triggered landslide and debris flows that devastated Buleleng in November of that year. PDCs and tephra fallout killed 12,000 people in Sumbawa, and more than 49,000 people died in Lombok and Sumbawa from the indirect consequences of the eruption due to famine and epidemics (Oppenheimer 2003). ...
In November 1815, the deadliest “natural” disaster in Balinese history was caused by the exceptional combination of multiple natural hazards that occurred simultaneously and cascaded in the present-day province of Buleleng. This major disaster, which is thought to have claimed more than 10,000 lives, has never been scientifically analyzed. The study conducts an in-depth analysis of this cascading disaster, from the root causes and chronology of natural hazards to their environmental and societal effects, by thoroughly examining all available written sources about this event, whether colonial or Indonesian. Seven months after the Tambora eruption, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, which occurred in the Bali Sea off the northern coast of the island, triggered a very large landslide on the northern flank of the Buyan-Bratan caldera. The initial mass movement evolved into a cohesive debris flow that reached the sea after traveling up to twenty kilometers through Banyumala River Valley and Singaraja City downstream. According to historical accounts, fifteen villages were buried or devastated by the debris flow. The large volume of sediment entering the sea triggered a local tsunami along Buleleng’s coast. This geohistorical approach offers a comprehensive overview of various sources describing Singaraja’s situation before the crisis, the hazard succession, the cascading hazard intensities, and the short- to long-term impacts on Buleleng. Based on the written sources, Bali took around fifteen years to recover from the 1815 disasters.
... Several climate and environmental historians and scholars have explored the societal impacts of the Little Ice Age (LIA) and how different societies responded to its global cooling, examining imperial regimes like the Ottoman or Ming (Brook 2013;White 2011;Parker 2013;Di Cosmo 2014;Degroot 2018), while others have focused on specific climatic events such as the coldest years following large tropical eruptions like the Tambora eruption of 1815 (Brönnimann et al. 2019;Oppenheimer 2003). This article employs an interdisciplinary approach, bridging research findings from both natural and human archives to examine a particular climatic event on the Tibetan Plateau. ...
Drawing on primary historical sources and secondary paleoclimatic data, this paper examines the significant ‘snow disaster’ (gangs skyon) that occurred in the Nagchu region of Northwestern Tibet in 1828. It places this event within the context of the ‘Little Ice Age’, a globally cold period. By analysing reports of natural disasters exchanged between the Ganden Podrang Government and local administrators, the paper argues that the snow disaster led to an ‘unprecedented’ ecological and economic crisis. This crisis resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of livestock and triggered various social and economic catastrophes. It also highlights that the Tibetan government responded by providing relief measures, including the suspension of yearly taxes. Notably, the Qing court extended substantial aid, facilitating the acquisition and replacement of livestock. This study underscores how a single climatic event can contribute to triggering various socio-political challenges in societies that are more exposed to vulnerabilities.
... Similarly, the eruption of the Mount Tambora volcano in Indonesia in April 1815 led to a drop in temperature of approximately 1.5°C in 1816 in what is now Slovenia, and this was accompanied by above-average rainfall (Čeč 2017); the estimated average surface temperature anomalies of the northern hemisphere in the summers of 1816, 1817, and 1818 are −0.51, −0.44, and −0.29 K (Oppenheimer 2003). The year 1816 is also known as the »year without a summer« (Oppenheimer 2003), and the year 1817 as the »year of famine«. ...
... −0.44, and −0.29 K (Oppenheimer 2003). The year 1816 is also known as the »year without a summer« (Oppenheimer 2003), and the year 1817 as the »year of famine«. It was the 1816-1818 famine that contributed to the development of a new cultivar -the potato -in certain areas of present-day Slovenia (Čeč 2015;Studen 2018). ...
The Slovenian climate has undergone significant fluctuations, and an understanding of the past climate is necessary to improve models and recognise long-term patterns. The cryosphere environment, such as ice core samples, provides valuable palaeoclimate data. Palynology and dendroclimatology are also effective ways to study long-term changes in vegetation and reconstruct past climates using pollen and tree proxies. Sediment cores from various locations in Slovenia have been studied to understand past environmental changes. Borehole temperature profiles as well as historical records were also used to reconstruct past climate conditions. Studies have shown specific periods when climatic changes likely played a major role, but a complete timeline of the Slovenian climate throughout the Holocene has not yet been fully developed.
... Due to its proximity to the study of interest, it was deemed appropriate to further discuss the implications of this "once in a 1000-year" event on the ocean, with an emphasis on Chl-a and other factorsas Chl-a can be triggered according to literature. Such eruptions may have socio-economic consequences on Pacific Island populations like boat damage, hindered mariner transportation between islands and blocked harbors from thick floating pumice (Hurlbut & Verbeek, 1887;Oppenheimer, 2003;Sigurdsson et al., 1982) as seen during the 2019 Tonga eruption (Chapter 3), as well as food, water, and health security issues as seen during the 2022 HTHH eruption (Chapter 4). ...
... Through an uncommon occurrence, underwater volcanic eruptions can have socio-economic consequences on island populations. Boat damage hindered mariner transportation between islands and blocked harbors as a result of thick floating pumice (Hurlbut & Verbeek, 1887;Oppenheimer, 2003;Sigurdsson et al., 1982) drifting across the seas and settling on shores can cause problems for communities. Ohno et al. (2022) revealed the ecological impacts associated to pumice stone drift on various ecosystems. ...
The utilization of free satellite data has significant potential for coastal and open ocean applications, particularly in resource-limited Pacific Island nations. Understanding the factors influencing chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) enrichment is crucial for addressing the impacts of environmental changes in this region. This study aimed to investigate Chl-a variability in Fiji and Tonga by exploring two potential factors: volcanic eruptions off Tonga (in 2019 and 2022) and land runoff during heavy rain events in Laucala Bay, Fiji. Satellite remote sensing, utilizing various sensors such as MODIS, VIIRS, Sentinel 2-3, and combined multi-sensor OC-CCI products, was employed to detect, monitor, and map surface and subsurface objects and their drift with currents. Results showed no immediate impact on Chl-a levels following the 2019 volcanic eruption, suggesting insufficient nutrient supply for phytoplankton growth in a pumice-dominated environment. However, a significant increase in Chl-a levels was observed after the more substantial eruption in 2022 using NASA's standard algorithm on MODIS images. In the absence of definitive evidence of rapid phytoplankton growth and in-situ measurements, it was hypothesized and concluded that particles with high backscattering coefficients likely caused the Chl-a increase, such as suspended matter associated with volcanic ash deposition in the upper ocean. The study also addressed the challenges of observing Chl-a in Fiji’s Case 1 and 2 waters, demonstrating that an initial approach using free CMEMS (Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service) data allowed surprisingly accurate estimation of chlorophyll when coastal pixels were avoided, enabling valuable long-term monitoring of changes over two decades for coastal management. A more tailored approach, utilizing high-resolution Sentinel-2 data and neural networks, could be beneficial for monitoring coastal ecosystem dynamics. However, further validation tests are required under high turbidity conditions. In Case 1 waters, OC-CCI (Ocean Colour – Climate Change Initiative) products enabled the observation of ocean phytoplankton dynamics in the southern Fiji waters around Kadavu Island, validated by in-situ data from a recent IRD and USP campaign (SOKOWASA).
The algorithms developed or tested in this study for validating remote sensing-based Chl-a provide scientists with the ability to monitor marine ecosystem health and support policymakers in making informed decisions for ocean sustainability. Furthermore, they enhance our understanding of phytoplankton level changes and the factors triggering Chl-a proliferation across various temporal scales, including sudden events and short-, medium-, and long-term processes.
... Temperatures rise again until late medieval ages in the co-called medieval climate anomaly (MCA) and peak in the 1360 s, which are on average 0.76 °C (uncertainty range: -0.08 to 1.6 °C) warmer than the reference period 1961-1990 CE. This maximum is followed by a slow long-term decrease in temperatures during the Little Ice Age (LIA) until the early nineteenth century, when the Tambora eruption caused the "year without summer" of 1816 CE (Stothers 1984;Oppenheimer 2003). This decade is the coldest decade of the record and marks the peak of the LIA. ...
Europe experienced severe heat waves during the last decade, which impacted ecological and societal systems and are likely to increase under projected global warming. A better understanding of pre-industrial warm-season changes is needed to contextualize these recent trends and extremes. Here, we introduce a network of 352 living and relict larch trees (Larix decidua Mill.) from the Matter and Simplon valleys in the Swiss Alps to develop a maximum latewood density (MXD) chronology calibrating at r = 0.8 (p > 0.05, 1901–2017 CE) against May–August temperatures over Western Europe. Machine learning is applied to identify historical wood samples aligning with growth characteristics of sites from elevations above 1900 m asl to extend the modern part of the chronology back to 881 CE. The new Alpine record reveals warmer conditions in the tenth century, followed by an extended cold period during the late Medieval times, a less-pronounced Little Ice Age culminating in the 1810s, and prolonged anthropogenic warming until present. The Samalas eruption likely triggered the coldest reconstructed summer in Western Europe in 1258 CE (-2.32 °C), which is in line with a recently published MXD-based reconstruction from the Spanish Pyrenees. Whereas the new Alpine reconstruction is potentially constrained in the lowest frequency, centennial timescale domain, it overcomes variance biases in existing state-of-the-art reconstructions and sets a new standard in site-control of historical samples and calibration/ verification statistics.
... In Central and Western Europe, the extraordinary year of 1816 was referred to by historians as a "Year Without Summer", with particularly cold, wet, and cloudy conditions during the summer months; it is also known as "Eighteen hundred and froze to death" for similar weather and climate in the northeastern US (Auchmann et al., 2012;Briffa et al., 1998;Brönnimann and Krämer, 2016;Crowley et al., 2014;Stommel and Stommel, 1983;Wetter et al., 2011). The shifted precipitation patterns and summer cooling can partly be explained by the enormous and devastating eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in April 1815 (Fischer et al., 2007;Harington, 1992;Oppenheimer, 2003;Raible et al., 2016;Robock, 2000Robock, , 2007Schurer et al., 2019;Stothers, 1984;Wagner and Zorita, 2005) and, to a lower extent, by random internal variability and low solar variability during the Dalton minimum (Anet et al., 2014). Besides diseases and a socio-economic depression after times of war, the adverse climatic and meteorological conditions led to delayed plant growth, crop failures, poor fruit harvests, rising food prices and famine (Brázdil et al., 2016;Krämer, 2015;Luterbacher and Pfister, 2015;Trigo et al., 2009). ...
The “Year Without Summer” of 1816 was characterized by extraordinarily cold and wet periods in Central Europe, and it was associated with severe crop failures, famine, and socio-economic disruptions. From a modern perspective and beyond its tragic consequences, the summer of 1816 represents a rare occasion to analyze the adverse weather (and its impacts) after a major volcanic eruption. However, given the distant past, obtaining the high-resolution data needed for such studies is a challenge. In our approach, we use dynamical downscaling, in combination with 3D-variational data assimilation of early instrumental observations, for assessing a cold-air outbreak in early June 1816. We find that the cold spell is well represented in the coarse-resolution 20th Century Reanalysis product, which is used for initializing the regional Weather Research and Forecasting Model. Our downscaling simulations (including a 19th-century land-use scheme) reproduce and explain meteorological processes well at regional to local scales, such as a foehn wind situation over the Alps with much lower temperatures on its northern side. Simulated weather variables, such as cloud cover or rainy days, are simulated in good agreement with (eye) observations and (independent) measurements, with small differences between the simulations with and without data assimilation. However, validations with partly independent station data show that simulations with assimilated pressure and temperature measurements are closer to the observations, e.g. regarding temperatures during the coldest night, for which snowfall as low as the Swiss Plateau was reported, and a rapid pressure increase thereafter. General improvements from data assimilation are also evident in simple quantitative analyses of temperature and pressure. In turn, data assimilation requires careful selection, preprocessing and bias-adjustment of the underlying observations. Our findings underline the great value of digitizing efforts of early instrumental data and provide novel opportunities to learn from extreme weather and climate events as far back as 200 years or more.
... Furthermore, when extremely strong explosive paroxysms occur, volcanic ash and SO 2 may reach the stratosphere. Since this atmospheric layer is characterised by vertical stratification, ash and sulphate aerosol particles (resulting from the oxidation and nucleation of SO 2 emission), which interact with solar and terrestrial radiation, can reside in the stratosphere for a longer time than in the case of tropospheric injections, thus modulating the radiative balance and impacting the climate system (e.g., Pinatubo 1991 [7,8] and Tambora 1815 [9], Raikoke 2019 [10], Hunga Tonga 2022 [11,12]). ...
Volcanic eruptions pose a major natural hazard influencing the environment, climate and human beings at different temporal and spatial scales. Nevertheless, several volcanoes worldwide are poorly monitored and assessing the impact of their eruptions remains, in some cases, challenging. Nowadays, different numerical dispersion models are largely employed in order to evaluate the potential effects of volcanic plume dispersion due to the transport of ash and gases. On 28 August 2019, both Mt. Etna and Stromboli had eruptive activity; Mt. Etna was characterised by mild-Strombolian activity at summit craters, while at Stromboli volcano, a paroxysmal event occurred, which interrupted the ordinary typical-steady Strombolian activity. Here, we explore the spatial dispersion of volcanic sulphur dioxide (SO2
) gas plumes in the atmosphere, at both volcanoes, using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) considering the ground-measured SO2
amounts and the plume-height as time-variable eruptive source parameters. The performance of WRF-Chem was assessed by cross-correlating the simulated SO2
dispersion maps with data retrieved by TROPOMI and OMI sensors. The results show a feasible agreement between the modelled dispersion maps and TROPOMI satellite for both volcanoes, with spatial pattern retrievals and a total mass of dispersed SO2
of the same order of magnitude. Predicted total SO2
mass for Stromboli might be underestimated due to the inhibition from ground to resolve the sin-eruptive SO2
emission due to the extreme ash-rich volcanic plume released during the paroxysm. This study demonstrates the feasibility of a WRF-Chem model with time-variable ESPs in simultaneously reproducing two eruptive plumes with different SO2
emission and their dispersion into the atmosphere. The operational implementation of this method could represent effective support for the assessment of local-to-regional air quality and flight security and, in case of particularly intense events, also on a global scale.
... In contrast, past large subaerial eruptions, such as the 1991 Pinatubo, 1883 Krakatau, and 1815 Tambora eruptions, have led to short-term cooling of the planet due to the dominant role of sulfate aerosols [19][20][21][22] . Additionally, explosive volcanic eruptions significantly perturb stratospheric ozone concentration, especially where sulfate aerosols interact with a moistened stratosphere [23][24][25] . ...
Explosive volcanic eruptions can profoundly cool Earth's climate by injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere ¹ . However, the submarine explosive eruption of Hunga Volcano in 2022 was unusual in that it injected into the stratosphere a massive amount of water vapor 2,3 , which warms the climate, and a much smaller amount of sulfur dioxide ⁴ than previous explosive eruptions of similar magnitude. It has therefore been proposed that the Hunga eruption produced a net warming effect due to enhanced stratospheric water vapor, thereby increasing the chances that Earth’s temperature would temporarily breach the 1.5° C threshold specified in the Paris Climate Accord ⁵ . However, accounting for the cooling produced by sulfate aerosols is crucial in understanding the effects of Hunga eruption ⁶ . Here, we combine satellite observations of stratospheric composition with idealized radiative transfer model simulations to show that the Hunga eruption produced a net instantaneous clear-sky radiative energy loss of -0.48 ± 0.04 Wm ⁻² at the top-of-atmosphere in the southern hemisphere, resulting from its effects on stratospheric water vapor, aerosols, and ozone. Using an emulator of a two-layer energy balance model ⁷⁻⁸ , we estimate that this energy loss resulted in a cooling of -0.1 K in the southern hemisphere at the end of 2022 following the eruption. We find that the cooling produced by sulfate aerosols due to the scattering of sunlight overwhelmed the warming by stratospheric water vapor. This occurred in part because the sulfur dioxide turning into sulfate aerosols affecting optical depth was unusually efficient compared to previous subaerial eruptions. We also find that the decreased stratospheric ozone led to a cooling effect that nearly balanced the warming caused by increased stratospheric water vapor. We thus conclude that the Hunga eruption did not warm ⁵ , but rather cooled the planet with a strong hemispherical asymmetry.
... The observed pumice from the recent Fukutoku-Okanoba eruption is gray, vesicular, and has a groundmass containing a black enclave (Yoshida et al., 2022a). Pumice rafts cause various destructive impacts, such as: clogging harbors and beaches, disrupting marine traffic, damaging hulls and propellers engines, seriously disrupting the fishing industry, as well as threatening marine wildlife and local tourism (Jutzeler et al., 2014;Oppenheimer, 2003;Tada et al., 2021;Ohno et al., 2022). ...
On August 13th, 2021, the Fukutoku-Okanoba, a submarine volcano in the Northwest Pacific Ocean, erupted. Satellites detected various pumice rafts that had drifted westward to reach southern Japan over two months. To cope with the potential danger from pumice rafts, predicting their trajectories is crucial. Using a Lagrangian particle tracking model, the trajectories of the rafts were investigated. The model results showed strong sensitivity to the windage coefficient of pumice rafts, which is uncertain and could cause significant errors. An optimal windage coefficient was estimated by comparing the model results with satellite images using a skill score based on the distance between simulated particles and the nearest observed rafts divided by the travel distance of the particles. The optimal windage coefficients ranged between 2 and 3 % and produced pathways comparable to the observations from satellites. The simulation results showed that the pumice rafts moved from Fukutoku-Okanoba toward the Ryukyu Islands for approximately two months prior to being pushed by the north-easterly wind toward Taiwan against the Kuroshio. The methods presented here may become a valuable tool in managing coastal hazards due to diverse marine debris.
... In this way, not only it is possible to establish the record of past volcanism but also it can identify the impacts and societal repercussions of eruptions (e.g., Oppenheimer 2011;Pyle 2017;Pyle et al. 2018;Pyle and Barclay 2020). The 1815 eruption of Tambora (Sigurdsson and Carey 1989;Oppenheimer 2003) and the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius (Sigurdsson et al. 1982) would be the representative example of the approach. Oral traditions also describe well past volcanic activities, alerting geoscientists to the volcanoes that were not previously considered as sites of future eruptions. ...
This study re-assesses the historical records pertaining to the activity of Mt. Baekdu according to volcanic phenomena. We categorized volcanic phenomena into five categories: rumbling, atmospheric abnormality, ash rain, ash cloud and phenomenon sightings, and investigated historical records (in Chinese) for each phenomenon and identified their volcanological implications. Among the volcanic phenomena, ash rain had the most abundant records, and in particular, Goryeosa recorded the ash rain phenomenon 56 times. And more than 90 volcanic eruptions were discovered from the Millennium Eruption from November 3, 946 AD, to February 7, 947 AD, most of which were either Plinian or Vulcanian eruptions with volcanic ash dispersed into the regions surrounding the volcano creating fallout ash. Based on the historical eruptions, eruption precursors, and volcanic unrest of the volcano between 2002 and 2006, Mt. Baekdu is regarded as an active volcano that has the potential to erupt. Therefore, to mitigate the hazard caused by the eruption of Mt. Baekdu, it is necessary to analyze the historical eruption records of Mt. Baekdu and understand the characteristics of the eruptions through this analysis.
