Two hundred years ago, half of the world went dark.
The Tambora volcano in what is now Indonesia blew its top in April 1815, killing more than 60,000 people and turning the summer into winter across much of the Northern Hemisphere. It is considered the largest eruption to have occurred in 750 years.
“Because Tambora ejected sulfurous gas that generated sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere, which block sunlight, the eruption created a year without a summer, leading to food shortages — people were eating cats and rats — and very general hardship throughout Europe and eastern North America,” said Stephen Self, an adjunct professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley and an expert on volcanoes.
To commemorate the eruption, scientists will gather at a four-day conference next month in Bern, Switzerland. Along with discussing that disaster, they plan to talk about what can be learned from it, including the threat posed today from volcanoes and what role eruptions are playing in regulating the world’s climate.
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