Weather Eye with John Maunder

‘The year without a summer', was caused by dust from volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which shrouding the earth after it erupted in early-April 1815.

During the summer, sunlight was blocked which had a number of significant affects. The map below courtesy of the US Geological Survey shows the location of active volcanoes, plate tectonics, and 'The Ring of Fire”.

In Switzerland, the damp and dismal summer of 1816 led to the creation of a significant literary work.

A group of writers, including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his future wife, challenged each other to write dark tales inspired by the gloomy and chilly weather.

During the miserable weather, Mary Shelley wrote her classic novel Frankenstein.

At the same time, in the United States, the Albany Advertiser proposed some theories about why the weather was so bizarre, which shows the thoughts of an editor over 200 years ago. The mention of sunspots is interesting, as at that time, sunspots had been seen by astronomers. And many people, to this day, wonder about what, if any effect, sunspots may have had on the weird weather.

What's also fascinating is the newspaper article from 1816 proposes such events be studied, so people can learn what is going on. For example:

'Many seem disposed to charge the peculiarities of the season, the present year, upon the spots on the sun.

'If the dryness of the season has in any measure depended on the latter cause, it has not operated uniformly in different places – the sunspots have been visible in Europe, as well as in the United States and yet in some parts of Europe, as we have already remarked, they have been drenched with rain.”

'Without undertaking to discuss, much less to decide, such a learned subject as this, we should be glad if proper pains were taken to ascertain, by regular journals of the weather from year to year, the state of the seasons in this country and in Europe, as well as the general state of health in both quarters of the globe.”

'We think the facts might be collected, and the comparison made, without much difficulty; and when once made, that it would be of great advantage to medical men, and medical science.”

Today, we now know volcanoes can pose many hazards. One hazard is volcanic ash can be a threat to jet aircraft where ash particles can be melted by the high operating temperature. The melted particles then adhere to the turbine blades and alter their shape, disrupting the operation of the turbine.

Large volcanic eruptions can also affect temperature, as ash and droplets of sulphuric acid obscure the sun and cool the Earth's lower atmosphere, or troposphere.

However, they also absorb heat radiated up from the Earth, thereby warming the upper atmosphere, or stratosphere.

Historically, the so-called volcanic winters (in addition to 1815) have caused catastrophic famines.

For further information on weather and climate matters see: https://sites.google.com/site/climaterisksandbenefits/