Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Since I was a kid I’ve been reading stories about “The Year Without A Summer”. This was the summer of 1816, one year after the great eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia. The Tambora eruption, in April of 1815, was so huge it could be heard from 2,600 km away (1,600 miles). The stories were always about how the following summer was outrageously cold. Supposedly, the summer was so cold it was like having no summer at all.
Being a suspicious fellow, I got to thinking about that, and I realized I’d never seen any actual temperature data for the year of 1816. So I went off to find some early temperature data. I started with the ECA dataset, and downloaded the Daily Mean Temperature TG (162Mb). That revealed five stations with daily temperature records with starting dates before 1816—Stockholm, Bologna, Milan, Praha-Klementinum, and Hohenpeissenberg.
So once again, I found myself playing “Spot the Volcanoes”, as in my previous post on this subject. When I wrote that post, I hadn’t been able to spot the smaller eruptions of Pinatubo and other modern volcanoes, but Tambora was the big cheese, the grand gorgonzola of volcanoes. Surely I could find that one … so here’s the record from Stockholm.
Figure 1. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Stockholm
So the question is, which year is “The Year Without A Summer”? The year indicated by the blue arrow, or the year shown by the green arrow?
Actually, I fear that was a trick question. Here’s the same data, this time with the years indicated.
Figure 2. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Stockholm, including the dates.
As you can see, the 1816 “Year Without A Summer” actually was warmer than a number of other summers in Stockholm. It’s the third peak from the left in the top panel, and was above 20°C. Just in this tiny sample we see some six summers that were cooler than the summer of 1816 in Stockholm …
So, I looked at the other locations. Here are the other four European cities with records that cover the Tambora eruption—Bologna, Milan, Praha-Klementinum, and Hohenpeissenberg. In these, both the upper and lower panels are from the early 1800s. No more trick questions, in all cases, one or the other of the green and blue arrows actually indicates the “Year Without A Summer”.
Figure 3. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Bologna.
Figure 4. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Milan.
Figure 5. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Praha-Klementinum.
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Hohenpeissenberg.
That was all the daily temperature records I could find from that far back. There’s a monthly record from Armagh, in Ireland. Here’s that record.
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Armagh.
I’m sure that you can see the difficulty. If Tambora actually did something to the temperature, you sure couldn’t tell it from these records. Not one of them is readily distinguishable as missing a summer.
In “The Great Tambora Eruption in 1815 and Its Aftermath” (paywalled, Science Magazine, 1984), the author says (emphasis mine):
To Europeans and North Americans, 1816 became known as “the year without a summer” (41). Daily temperatures (especially the daily minimums) were in many cases abnormally low from late spring through early fall; frequent north-west winds brought snow and frost to northern New England and Canada, and heavy rains fell in western Europe. Many crops failed to ripen, and the poor harvests led to famine, disease, and so- cial distress, compounded by the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars.Tambora’s dust veil is often blamed by modern researchers for the cold summer of 1816. The argument given is that the stratospheric dust veil would have absorbed or reflected solar radiation that could otherwise have reached the ground (42). Not all regions,however, experienced abnormally low temperatures, and the preceding winter had generally been mild. Therefore, a few researchers deny that there was any (or at least a strong) connection with the volcano (39,43).
I’m leaning towards the “few researchers” that deny a strong connection with Tambora. What other records do we have? Well, over at KNMI I find the record for Manchester, England:
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Manchester.
Moving across the Atlantic, here’s the record from New Haven in Connecticut.
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in New Haven, Connecticut.
I’m just not feeling the Tambora love here … where are the records of years without a summer? Or at least of a summer that’s significantly colder than its neighbors?
Don’t get me wrong here. I suspect that generally, the summer of 1816 was a bit colder than most summers. But as the graphs above show, in all of these datasets there are comparable summers within a few decades either side of 1816 that have summers that are as cool, or cooler, than the summer of 1816.
And I would guess that a careful search would reveal some records with cooler summers than the ones I’ve found here. But overall, let me suggest that over the years the Tambora story has gotten greatly exaggerated, just as we do today with our stories of “Cold? You haven’t seen real cold. Why, when I was a young man it was so cold that …”
Conclusions? Well, my main conclusion is what I’ve been saying for some time. The temperature of the earth is not particularly ruled by the changes in how much energy it receives. Tambora cut off a huge amount of sunlight, but the effect was small. Yes, some areas had a summer that was a bit cooler than most summers. And I’m sure there were certain locations where it hit harder than others. But overall? The thermostatic mechanisms of the planet kept Tambora from having a much of a cooling effect.
My best to all. I append all of the figures below, with the dates, so you can see the lack of effect. Note that in many of them, the temperature in 1815 was about the same as 1816 … and that despite the size of the volcano, if there was any effect, it was totally gone by 1817.
w.
If that’s what a really big volcano can do, I’m not impressed. Well, I am impressed, but what’s impressive is the strength of the thermostatic mechanisms that keep the earth’s temperature within a very narrow band. Even a huge volcano can’t put it out of sorts for much more than one summer, and even then not too much.
The place to look for the effect of volcanic eruptions on the climate is in food commodity prices. That is where climate change has its greatest impact on human society. In those records the Tambora eruption is unmissable.
Must be something to do with atmospheric pressure ??
Or ocean – atmosphere heat gradient. The global average near surface atmospheric temperature is a bit less than 2C cooler than the average ocean surface temperature. Reduce the atmospheric temperature by say 0.5C and more heat transfer to the atmosphere through evaporation, and more clouds and rain.
Philip Bradley says:
April 15, 2012 at 7:59 am
There was a series of large volcanic eruptions starting in 1812, so a comparison with pre-1812 temps would be appropriate. In Europe and China the main effect was heavy rain and lack of sunshine causing crops to fail. Indicating aerosol seeded clouds were the main effect.
10Be is deposited by adhering to stratospheric aerosols which then drift down and rain out over the next 1-3 years. The amount of aerosols in the stratosphere is controlled mainly by volcanic eruptions. There were such strong eruptions in 1693 (Hekla on Iceland, having large effect on nearby Greenland), 1809 (see Dai JGR 96, 1991), 1814 (Mayon), 1815 (Tambora), 1883 (Krakatoa), 1964 (Agung).
So, large volcanic eruptions have a signature in the 10Be concentration in polar ice. That concentration [caused by spallation of nitrogen by cosmic rays] is also used as an indicator of solar activity so the activity record is contaminated by volcanism. You can see that in the 10Be record from Greenland [ http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004-Berggren.pdf ]. Here is a blowup of the upper panel of their Figure 3 that shows the 10Be concentration with yearly resolution: http://www.leif.org/research/10Be-NGRIP.png little colored dots show the peaks in 1695, 1813, 1817, and 1966. There is also a peak for Krakatoa, and strong peaks back in 1436 and 1460 [possibly matching eruptions back then]. Of course, there are also numerous other peaks and not all ice cores show all the peaks, so local effects of weather and precipitation also play a role. So, volcanoes may not do much to global temperatures, but certainly louse up the record of cosmic rays determined from 10Be. BTW, it is interesting that the total global production of 10Be is only 2 ounces per year, so it is remarkable that we can measure what is deposited in an annual ring in a an ice core 4 inches across.
izen writes “The place to look for the effect of volcanic eruptions on the climate is in food commodity prices. That is where climate change has its greatest impact on human society. In those records the Tambora eruption is unmissable.”
Possibly so; do you have the charts and can post?
I picked up a bound copy of the issues of the (London) Monthly Magazine for the latter half of 1816 at a book sale many years ago. Here are selected bits of the weather and agricultural reports for July (MM, No. 288, p. 73):
Meteorological Report
Average temperature in London (Covent Garden), July 1816: “53.7 of Fahrenheit” = 12.1°C., rainfall “about 4 inches” (~100 mm)
cf. 1971-2000 normals (Greenwich) July max=22.5°C, July min=12.0°C, rainfall=40 mm.
Monthly Agricultual Report:
“The variable spring seasons, and late successive rains have been this year common to both Europe and America, and the corn crops are probable in consequence, to be universally affected. Much of the wheat in Poland has been destroyed, and great part of Germany and Belgium devastated by floods and storms. In France the crops have escape more favourably. So backward a season has not been experienced in this country since the year 1770.”
So midsummer in southern England was apparently somewhat cooler and much wetter than normal, and wet conditions were obviously fairly widespread across northern Europe. Rick Werme’s report (above) suggests that the poor harvests in New England were mainly a product of low temperatures. Was there a similar effect in the northern hemisphere post-Krakatoa?
Really interesting stuff! I’ve long wondered if the net effect of large volcanic explosions is one of cooling at all, since the Pinatubo explosion after the initial cooling may have caused some decade-long slight tropospheric warming (by cooling the stratosphere).
Summer without a summer, is anectodal evidence. Obviously you have to very cautious, and W is right to check it out.
But I live in Manchester England. and it only takes 3c and a few clouds to turn a lovely barbeque day into a ‘where the heck has the summer gone’ day.
and it doesnt take many of those to produce the myth. It doesnt matter what the rest of the world did, we had a lousy summer.
So the anecdotes dont tell the full story, maybe the stats dont either
P.F. says: April 15, 2012 at 8:47 am
Interesting you should mention that. A google search of “Anak Krakatau” makes for fascinating reading.
In the 1800’s most people were farmers or closely aligned to farmers. As Ric Werme said it was not necessarily the overall temperature of the summer but the killing frosts during the spring and perhaps the extra rain (SO2 + particulates) that wiped out harvests that would be associated in people’s minds as “without summer.” Most people/farmers think of summer as the sunny dry weather that ripens crops and drys hay. Sunshine also helps keep fungus from rotting the crops in the field.
Also if it was rainy the temperatures would be moderated. Lows not as low and highs not as high so the averages would not reflect people’s perception. Again the perception would be of a “cool” summer especially since damp weather seems colder to people.
Willis I would tend to believe the reports of the people who lived through it. This was not the first time this happened.
I think we have here a problem that the perception of a cold summer for humans and the plot of average temperature do not have much to do with each other.
Let me illustrate: the average summer temperature may be 20C, but if it is (16+34)/2 I would call it an air conditioned summer here an Greece: cool nights and pleasant for swimming days.
If the average comes from (40+0)/2 in a desert for example, I would call it pretty uncomfortable.
If it was cloudy all the time and it was (18+22)/2 it would be a disaster for agriculture, with little sun for ripening grapes etc. etc.
In my opinion the data that will show the problem of the volcano will be: wines , wheat production and similar data connected to human activity.
Of course your plots illustrate how irrelevant average temparature is with respect to the economic future.
Firstly I would agree that far too weight is given to volcanic “forcings”,. This is just used as a pretext to CO2 warming effect even further. If the significant volcanoes of late 20th c. did not produce the “expected” cooling this is just proof that the positive feedbacks on CO2 forcing are even stronger. “It’s worse than we thought!”. Note that Hansen’s volcanic forcing is stronger than anyone else’s.
One thing you can also look for is milder winters. That is one thing I noted a year or two back when I was looking the recent volcanoes as Willis did before. In the same way that cloudy whether gives cooler days and warmer nights the blocking effect of volcanic dust gives milder winters.Some of Willis’ graphs show this but not all.
The anecdotal report that Willis cites here also make mention of that.
However, it should be noted that this was not just one volcanic event. The decade leading up to Tambora was highly active and one should not be looking for a one year event.
Also crop yields were crippled by some very late frosts. It only takes one night of heavy frost to kill off all your wheat. Don’t expect to see that in a plot covering 10 years.
You need daily minimum temps, and timing as to months (was the smmer short and late) etc. Again, Will does a very simplistic analysis while trying to refute a more robust analysis. Pretty poor science, and shallow thinking. You would never have gotten a degree from my lab…
I tend to go with the reports from Vermont at the time where frost continued into June and it snowed in July. Not everyday was colder than normal, and the whole average wasn’t necessarily colder than normal, but there were some very cold days indeed.
Thank-you Willis for the very interesting piece. The data unequivocally supports your conclusion.
The observation that the largest volcanic eruption in modern history had a very minor and short lived effect on planetary temperature supports Lindzen and Choi’s data and analysis that the planet resists forcing changes rather than amplifies it.
As most are aware the IPCC’s general circulation models assume there is positive feedback which amplifies the CO2 forcing. If planetary clouds in the tropics increase which reflects more sunlight off into space thereby resisting warming (negative feedback) the planetary warming due a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be less than 1C with most of the warming occuring at hight latitudes which will cause the biosphere to expanded and will result increased crop yields in Canada and Russia due to an increase in frost free days.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2
We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.
Sorry, my arithmetic is faulty 16+34/2 is 25c. It should be something like 12 +28/2 that would be the air conditioned summer with average 20C, but the point remains the same
izen says:
“The place to look for the effect of volcanic eruptions on the climate is in food commodity prices. That is where climate change has its greatest impact on human society. In those records the Tambora eruption is unmissable.”
Please provide a reference. England doesn’t seem to have noticed in their food prices:
Year……Wheat……Rye……Barley…..Oats……Peas……Beans…..Potato……Hops…….Straw
1810……13.05…….7.43……5.83…….3.47……6.89…….6.75……..3.15……..124.85…..57.67
1811…….11.73…….5.66……5.12…….3.34……5.81……..5.83……..3.01……..173.13…..70.75
1812…….14.38……9.18…….8.09……5.39……8.31……..8.49……..4.24……..150.15…..56.42
1813…….13.46……9.59…….7.09……4.67……9.91……..9.74……..5.2……….262.79…..40.83
1814……..9.68…….5.97…….4.53……3.11……6.54……..5.75……..3.3……….198.55……42.33
1815……..8.14…….5.08…….3.67……2.86……4.97……..4.57……..3.3……….186.35……35.75
1816……..8.89…….5.09…….4.11…….3.29…..4.44……..3.95……..3.48……..220.02…..44.04
1817…….12.16…….6.95…….5.98……3.93……6.33……..5.77……..3.97……..340.82……39.12
1818…….10.82……6.84…….6.53…….3.93…..5.91……..7.24……..4.04……..305.13……50.5
1819……..8.84…….6.98…….5.55…….3.42…..6.68……..7.42……..4.18……….91.43……58.17
1820…….8.26……..5.2………4.1……..2.93……5.11……..5.41……..3.57………..78.62…….31
Source: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Agprice.pdf
It seems to me that there are 2 issues being discussed here. 1. Was the period 1816-1817 abnormally cold, especially in North America? (meaning freezing people, killed crops etc.) 2. If there was an abnormality was it caused by vulcanism? Searching “1816 year without summer:” find many links which do support the below normal temperature historical record. So I for one, even though a sceptic, accept that. The above graphs do not seem to agree, hence the vulcanism issue is not relevant. Question: do we have any reason to believe in the accuracy of the temperature records? I read that even the temperature histories from the mid 19th century are suspect, some were read from thermometers which were inside of buildings.
“So the question is, which year is “The Year Without A Summer”? The year indicated by the blue arrow, or the year shown by the green arrow?”
———————————————————————–
Willis
You might want to scrub the dates from figure 1.
Not much of a quiz, otherwise.
I repeat what I said about Dronning Maud etc. on Friday:
“If this proves anything it is that volcanic eruptions just don’t measure up to their reputation. I have come to the conclusion that volcanic cooling that is supposed to follow an eruption and have an influence on climate simply does not exist. Part of it is due to ignorance of the fact that all climate graphs at all times are full of El Nino peaks and La Nina valleys in between. Those are the spikes they try to eliminate by their running averages. It so happens that when a volcano erupts when an El Nino has just peaked and a La Nina valley is beginning to form that La Nina valley is recruited as an example of volcanic cooling happening. Two examples of this are Mount Pinatubo and Gunung Agung. On the other hand, when the eruption takes place when the La Nina has bottomed out and the next El Nino is just beginning the expected cooling is simply absent and nobody has any idea where it went. El Chichon in Mexico is an example of that. Whether a cooling can be observed after any particular eruption thus depends upon the timing of the eruption with respect to the location of neighboring El Nino and LacNina phases of ENSO. This of course is contrary to claims that volcanic cooling can ovecome El Nino warming as so-called “experts” have been telling us. For more info read pages 17-21 in What Warming?”
On the scale you show here the ENSO oscillation cannot be seen but I see a distinct jiggle that may contain El Nino peaks if expanded. It is worth it to print it out in full and try to check out Tambora’s timing with reference to the ENSO oscillation. Bimonthly resolution that HadCRUT3 uses ought to show it.
Should the effect of Tambora be in question, or the temperature record?
Detailed description of 1816 New England and Quebec weather.
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/1816.htm
[izen says:
April 15, 2012 at 7:59 am
What this demonstrates is just how fragile our agricultural system has been to quite small climate changes.]
No.
What this illustrates is the huge affect an insignificant cooling has on Mankind. One degree warmer hasn’t fazed us a bit.
Think about that.
The real question is not how did volcanic eruptions affect one summer, the question is how did they affect the Little Ice Age and the cold temps during the Maunder and Dalton minima. If you can overcome the argument that the cooling during those periods were not volcanic induced then you are talking and may have something. That is very difficult to do though.
Uncorrected temperatures (without annual cycle removed) are usually very deceiving, as most of values lie on rather steep slope hiding most of differences. You basically see four out of twelve months in a year. Next time you feel like playing this little game I’d appreciate if you removed the annual cycle.
Now I’m not saying it’s all hidden in there. I did not analyse the data this way and am not going to. My bet is rather on other, non-temperature related phenomena. It’s known fact that volcano eruptions cause bright red sunsets which may be perceived negatively by many people. There’s also slight atmospheric shading effect caused by large volcano eruptions – people don’t really see that the brightness has changed and temperature doesn’t really change as well, yet they have feeling of impeding doom and feel colder.
Hutch says:
April 15, 2012 at 8:58 am
“…(London) Monthly Magazine for the latter half of 1816 …..selected bits of the weather and agricultural reports for July (MM, No. 288, p. 73):”……….The variable spring seasons, and late successive rains have been this year common to both Europe and America, and the corn crops are probable in consequence, to be universally affected. Much of the wheat in Poland has been destroyed, and great part of Germany and Belgium devastated by floods and storms…”
And we want to knock the temperature down 2C+. Is this the “new world order” utopia?
This is actually funny, from Mr. Bradley’s link:
“Of the cold summers in the period 1811 to 1817, the year 1816 has gone down in the annals of New England history as “The Year There Was No Summer,” the “Poverty Year” and “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” The year began with a moderate but dry winter. Spring was tardy and continued very dry. The growing season from late spring to early fall, however, was punctuated by a series of devastating cold waves that did major damage to the crops and greatly reduced the food supply. In areas of central and northern New England, the summer had only two extended periods without frost or near freezing temperatures. A widespread snow fell in June. As a result, corn did not ripen and hay, fruits, and vegetables were greatly reduced in quantity and quality.”
So the year without a summer may have had near normal averages, it was the unexpected cold waves that killed crops that got it the name. Maybe Will should do some research on the null hypothesis before he posts, as this post is irrelevant to the question if the link is correct.