The year without summer began from a volcanic eruption: what happened in 1816 and the consequences

THE’eruption of the Tambora volcanoin Indonesia, rendered 1816 a “year without summer” because of the large quantities of particulates released into the atmosphere, which absorbed the sunlight thus continuing the cold even in the summer months, in particular in the boreal hemisphere, where even in August frozen and snowfall occurred at low altitudes. The social consequences Of these climatic anomalies they were heavy: they took carestries, addressed for food, migrations. According to some scholars, even phenomena such as the colonization of the United States West and the spread of the first cholera pandemic they originated from the drop in temperatures. These hypotheses are not verifiable and, probably, are exaggerated, but it is out of the question that the consequences of climatic anomalies were very significant. At the moment, however, nobody understood the causes of the cold.

What happened before 1816: the eruption of the Tambora volcano

The year without summer, that is, the climatic crisis that affected the northern hemisphere in 1816, originated from the eruption of the Tambora volcano, located in Indonesia, on the island of Sumbawa. The explosion took place Between 5 and 15 April 1815but the eruptive activity continued until July. It was the most powerful eruption that occurred in the historical age. The volcano freed a frightening amount of energy, equal according to some estimates, to about 33 gigatons (i.e. two million times the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, or various tens of times the eruption of Vesuvius in 1979) and released huge quantities of sulfur in the atmosphere.

In Indonesia the eruption caused enormous upheavals: pyroclastic flows and tsunami They destroyed the city and villages, causing more than 100,000 victims, partly directly and in part for the subsequent economic and health consequences.

In Europe, however, at the moment no one noticed the eruption: the peoples of the Old Continent were struggling with the “hundred days” of Napoleon, who had regained the French throne, and had no idea that a volcanic eruption occurred in a completely different part of the world could upset their existence.

Because 1816 was a year without summer: climate anomalies

The eruption of the tambora made its effects felt in 1816 due to the dispersion of ashes in the atmosphere. Making the passage of sunlightThe eruption caused heavy climatic upheaval, also facilitated by other factors: the eruption of other volcanoes in previous years, the continuation of the small glacial era, that is, the average lowering of the temperatures that began in the 16th century and continued until the mid -nineteenth century, and the reduction of the solar activity that occurred between the late eighteenth and 1930s of the nineteenth century (so -called Minimum Dalton).

The eruption of the Tambora, added to the other factors, caused climatic anomalies. The cold enveloped the entire western hemisphere; In the spring of 1816 there were torrential rains, which caused flooding of the rivers, and in the summer months they occurred frozen and snowfall in Canada, in the United Kingdom, in France. In the sky appeared Pulviscolo cloudsdifferent from the normal ones. The temperatures began to trace in 1817, but a few years were necessary for the climate to return to normal.

The economic, social and cultural effects

It is not easy to define the Economic and social effects of the coldwhich were certainly very significant. The most immediate consequence was economic gender: the agricultural production decreased, giving rise to one famine which in some countries caused thousands and thousands of victims. The prices of agricultural products increased dramatically and in various states, including France, they took place revolted for bread.

The famine favored the migration: people moved in search of places where they could find food more easily. In the United States – who had recently made themselves independent and occupied only the eastern part of the current territory – some inhabitants sought fertile lands moving west. Therefore, according to some scholars, the year without summer favored the start of the colonization of the territories of the West (however it is unlikely that it was the only cause).

According to some reconstructions, the cold also caused the First Pandemia di Cholerawhich occurred in the following years, because it meant that the disease, present until then only in India, spread in the rest of the world. Indirectly the drop in temperatures also favored the birth of a New means of transport. The lack of forage for horses pushed a German aristocrat, Karl Christian Ludwig Drais von Sauerbronn, to design a sort of Velocipede without pedalstoday I know how draisin: The vehicle had no widespread, but is considered the pretesignano of the bicycle, born a few decades later.

The year without summer has left Signs in artfor example in the red sunsets painted by William Turner, and even in literature. A group of English friends on vacation in Switzerland, including Mary Shelley And John Polidoridue to the cold, he decided to spend time at home and challenge each other to those who had written the most frightening story. So some were born masterpieces of horror literature: Mary Shelley wrote “Frankenstein”, published in 1818; Polidori made “Il Vampiro”, one of the first stories of modern literature that features this figure as protagonist.