Climate Change

When I was in school in Germany, grade 7, I would work on my English by reading.  The reader's Digest, sent to us by my mother's friends in Portland, Oregon - was of immense help. About 1967, I think - but then we know what my memory is worth!, came many articles about Global Warming.  I read these articles with great interest.  This was my world I was growing into and if there was an avoidable problem - I wanted to know about it - and how to avoid it!

I rather quickly figured out that there was NO data to support the hysteria being communicated.  So, it was easy to dismiss. 

In America, going to high school, the hysteria continued and as more data was gathered - across time - it silently went away.  Only to be replaced by "global cooling".  But, this hysteria was equally unsupported by data.  And after Al Gore completely embarrassed himself worldwide with his attempts at yellow journalism in the realm of earth sciences, we ended up with Global Change.  Well, Duh!  History is the story of man adjusting to what the earth throws at us!  However, if the "scientists" would bother with history, they would quickly come to understand that the worst scenario has already happened ......

The tremendous eruption of Mount Tambora on April 10, 1815, was the most powerful volcanic eruption of recorded history. The eruption and the tsunamis it triggered killed an estimated 70,000 people immediately. The magnitude of the explosion itself is difficult to fathom.

It has been estimated that Mount Tambora stood approximately 14,000 feet tall before the 1815 eruption, when the top third of the mountain was completely obliterated. Adding to the disaster's massive scale, the huge amount of dust blasted into the upper atmosphere by the Tambora eruption contributed to a bizarre and highly destructive weather event the following year. 1816 became known as "​the year without a summer" throughout the northern hemisphere.

The disaster on the remote island of Sumbawa in the Indian Ocean has been overshadowed by the eruption of the volcano at Krakatoa decades later, partly because the news of Krakatoa traveled quickly via telegraph.

Accounts of the Tambora eruption were considerably more rare, yet some vivid ones do exist. An administrator of the East India Company, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, who was serving as governor of Java at the time, published a striking account of the disaster based on written reports he had collected from English traders and military personnel.

Beginnings of the Mount Tambora Disaster

The island of Sumbawa, home to Mount Tambora, is located in present-day Indonesia. When first discovered by Europeans, the mountain was thought to be an extinct volcano.

However, during 1812, three years before the eruption, the mountain seemed to come to life. Rumblings were felt, and a dark smoky cloud appeared above the summit.

Then on April 5, 1815, the volcano began to erupt. British traders and explorers heard the sound and at first thought it to be the firing of cannon. There was a fear that a sea battle was being fought nearby.  This sould was hear up to 1,200 miles away!

The Massive Eruption of Mount Tambora

On the evening of April 10, 1815, the eruptions intensified, and a massive major eruption began to blow the volcano apart. Viewed from a settlement about 15 miles to the east, it seemed that three columns of flames shot into the sky.

According to a witness on an island about 10 miles to the south, the entire mountain appeared to turn into "liquid fire." Stones of pumice more than six inches in diameter began to rain down on neighboring islands.

Violent winds propelled by the eruptions struck settlements like ​hurricanes, and some reports claimed that the wind and sound triggered small earthquakes. Tsunamis emanating from the island of Tambora destroyed settlements on other islands, killing tens of thousands of people.

Investigations by modern-day archaeologists have determined that an island culture on Sumbawa was completely wiped out by the Mount Tambora eruption.

Written Reports of Mount Tambora's Eruption

As the eruption of Mount Tambora occurred before communication by telegraph, accounts of the cataclysm were slow to reach Europe and North America. The British governor of Java, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, who was learning an enormous amount about the native inhabitants of the local islands while writing his 1817 book History of Java, collected accounts of the eruption. Raffles began his account of the Mount Tambora eruption by noting the confusion about the source of the initial sounds:

"The first explosions were heard on this Island in the evening of the 5th of April, they were noticed in every quarter, and continued at intervals until the following day. The noise was in the first instance almost universally attributed to distant cannon; so much so, that a detachment of troops were marched from Djocjocarta [a nearby province] in the expectation that a neighboring post was attacked. And along the coast boats were in two instances dispatched in quest of a supposed ship in distress."

After the initial explosion was heard, Raffles said it was supposed that the eruption was no greater than other volcanic eruptions in that region. But he noted that on the evening of April 10 extremely loud explosions were heard and large amounts of dust began to fall from the sky.

Other employees of the East India Company in the region were directed by Raffles to submit reports about the aftermath of the eruption. The accounts are chilling. One letter submitted to Raffles describes how, on the morning of April 12, 1815, no sunlight was visible at 9 a.m. on a nearby island. The sun had been entirely obscured by volcanic dust in the atmosphere.

A letter from an Englishman on the island of Sumanap described how, on the afternoon of April 11, 1815, "by four o'clock it was necessary to light candles." It remained dark until the next afternoon.

About two weeks after the eruption, a British officer sent to deliver rice to the island of Sumbawa made an inspection of the island. He reported seeing numerous corpses and widespread destruction. Local inhabitants were becoming ill, and many had already died of hunger.

A local ruler, the Rajah of Saugar, gave his account of the cataclysm to British officer Lieutenant Owen Phillips. He described three columns of flames arising from the mountain when it erupted on April 10, 1815. Apparently describing the lava flow, the Rajah said the mountain started to appear "like a body of liquid fire, extending itself in every direction." The Rajah also described the effect of the wind unleashed by the eruption:

"Between nine and ten p.m. ashes began to fall, and soon after a violent whirlwind ensued, which blew down nearly every house in the village of Saugar, carrying the tops and light parts along with it.

"I n the part of Saugar adjoining [Mount Tambora] its effects were much more violent, tearing up by the roots the largest trees and carrying them into the air together with men, houses, cattle, and whatever else came within its influence. This will account for the immense number of floating trees seen at sea.

"The sea rose nearly twelve feet higher than it had ever been known to be before, and completely spoiled the only small spots of rice lands in Saugar, sweeping away houses and every thing within its reach."

Worldwide Effects of the Mount Tambora Eruption

Though it would not be apparent for more than a century, the eruption of Mount Tambora contributed to one of the worst weather-related disasters of the 19th century. The following year, 1816, became known as the Year Without a Summer.  And 1817 was a summer of much cooler temperatures.

The dust particles blasted into the upper atmosphere from Mount Tambora were carried by air currents and spread across the world. By the fall of 1815, eerily colored sunsets were being observed in London. And the following year the weather patterns in Europe and North America changed drastically.

While the winter of 1815–1816 was fairly ordinary, the spring of 1816 almost did not happen. Temperatures did not rise as expected, and very cold temperatures persisted in some places well into the summer months.

In New England, the temperatures dropped to as low as 40 degrees in July and August and the year was long remembered as "eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death".   One New Englander, Reverend Thomas Robbins recorded his experiences that spring in his diary.   In the first days of March, he remarked that the land was still "considerably frozen", too early to plant peas.  Later in April, Robbins noted that the "weather is so cold that vegetation does not appear to advance at all.”  On June 9th, Robbins observed that “the cold and wind still continue. The last three days have been extraordinary. It is said that there was snow at the northward last Thursday.” As late as August 22, Robbins noted that there was frost on the ground in the early morning.   During the peak of the harvest in September, Reverend Robbins wrote in his diary.  "I presume no person living has known so poor a crop of corn in New England, at this season, as now.”

In December of that year, President James Madison opened his Annual Address to Congress with a few words about the "year without a summer".   It was brutal for much of the country, but the United States fared better than much of Europe because we were blessed with a variety of soils and climates, not to mention easy trade with our neighbors to the South who were much less impacted.   Despite, cold weather, our country's harvest remained bountiful, surpassing the needs of the country in whole.  In 1816, America was thankful to God for his plentiful blessings, despite it being "eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death".

Widespread crop failures caused hunger and even famine in some places.  Hunger riots were widespread as people sought food by any means!  Ireland, Wales, Germany and the Russia's were all hard hit.  It is estimated that worldwide 700,000 died from the starvation and the associated Typhus plaque through 1817!

In response, Germany issued a medal to fund food purchases for the needy of the country:

"Give me bread for my hunger"

In sheer volume, so much material was thrown into the upper atmosphere, that it would take the total output of mankind for sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and dioxide, as well as, dust and ash, an estimated four centuries to equal that single blast in 1815!

And I set back and now realized just how bad, bad science actually is.
Heck this past summer's California's fires exceeded all carbon release estimated totals for the world!

So, do we have climate change?
Heck yes, it has always been there and active!
We just are cursed with a generation that can not accept what they can not control ...