The Conservative Cave
Interests => The Science Club => Topic started by: Chris_ on September 19, 2011, 06:55:49 PM
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Farmers flee as world's deadliest volcano rumbles
Associated Press (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxmXKE_2XXGagd-29Mn2jHUbLmhw?docId=b5b1d5cf90b04a96871e851ab24df23c)
Evacuation Plans Prepped as Mount Tambora Alert Level Is Raised
Provincial authorities raised the alert level of Mount Tambora to the second-highest available as observers noted an increase of volcanic activity in the volatile mountain.
“On August 30, we recorded seven volcanic earthquakes and since Sept. 8 the frequency of the quakes rose substantially, to between 12 and 16 per day,” Husnuddin, head of the West Nusa Tenggara Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday.
The volcano, which was the site of the world’s deadliest eruption on record, showed no apparent visual signs of any upcoming eruption, but data collected on mechanical instruments gave cause for concern.
Jakarta Globe (http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/evacuation-plans-prepped-as-mount-tambora-alert-level-is-raised/464816)
The Year Without a Summer
The Year Without a Summer (also known as the Poverty Year, Year There Was No Summer, and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death) was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.7–1.3 °F, resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. It is believed that the anomaly was caused by a combination of a historic low in solar activity with a volcanic winter event, the latter caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, the largest known eruption in over 1,300 years.
Europe, still recuperating from the Napoleonic Wars, suffered from food shortages. Food riots broke out in the United Kingdom and France, and grain warehouses were looted. The violence was worst in landlocked Switzerland, where famine caused the government to declare a national emergency. Huge storms and abnormal rainfall with floodings of the major rivers of Europe (including the Rhine) are attributed to the event, as was the frost setting in during August 1816. A major typhus epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816 and 1819, precipitated by the famine caused by "The Year Without a Summer". It is estimated that 100,000 Irish perished during this period. A BBC documentary using figures compiled in Switzerland estimated that fatality rates in 1816 were twice that of average years, giving an approximate European fatality total of 200,000 deaths.
New England also experienced great consequences from the eruption of Tambora. The corn crop was grown significantly in New England and the eruption caused the crop to fail. It was reported that in the summer of 1816 corn ripened so badly that no more than a quarter of it was usable for food. The crop failures in New England, Canada and parts of Europe also caused the price of wheat, grains, meat, vegetables, butter, milk and flour to rise sharply.
The eruption of Tambora also caused Hungary to experience brown snow. Italy experienced something similar, with red snow falling throughout the year. The cause of this is believed to have been volcanic ash in the atmosphere.
In China, unusually low temperatures in summer and fall devastated rice production in Yunnan province in the southwest, resulting in widespread famine. Fort Shuangcheng, now in Heilongjiang province, reported fields disrupted by frost and conscripts deserting as a result. Summer snowfall was reported in various locations in Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, both in the south of the country. In Taiwan, which has a tropical climate, snow was reported in Hsinchu and Miaoli, while frost was reported in Changhua
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer)
This should give Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich enough material for at least three movies.
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For those not wedded to the idea of the Flood as literal history, there is apparently a genetic chokepoint in the human genome about 70,000 years ago, which together with evidence of other volcanic activity in the same area dating from the same time, is hypothesized by some to mean that a titanic caldera explosion of Mt. Toba came within a field goal of wiping out early modern humans at that point.