An attempt to stimulate discussion about the causes of an unexpected event which occurred after the huge eruption of Tambora Volcano in 1815
Guest Essay by Caleb Shaw
Volcanoes cause cooling, right? No.
Having got your attention, I would like to bring up three historical incidents, hoping I may generate some interesting explanations for something I myself have no definite answer to.
On April 10, 1815 the Tambora Volcano exploded. It is estimated it blew 39 cubic miles of ash skywards. (A three-mile by three-mile by three-mile cube is only 27 cubic miles.) (I have no idea how many Manhattans that is.)
The noise was so loud it was heard 1200 miles away. Ships over the horizon assumed it was the cannon of a ship in distress and sailed around looking for another ship, and on one island troops were marched off to reinforce other troops because it was assumed an outpost was under attack. Then the great cloud of ash began to spread across the sky.
It is estimated 10,000 people were killed immediately by the blast, as many as 70,000 more by starvation or diarrhea brought on by the heavy ash fall, and another 4600 by tsunamis ranging from six to thirteen feet. The blast, as large as four Krakataus, penetrated the tropopause, roughly 11 miles up near the equator, and reached 16 miles further into the Stratosphere, to a total height of 27 miles. There, high above the circulations of Haley and Ferrel Cells, it began to spread out around the Globe.
By June 28, 1815 the inhabitants of London were noting amazing, brilliant and long-lasting sunsets.
The following summer, 1816, was remarkably cold over many northern lands, marked by frosts and ruined crops. It is remembered as “The Year Without A Summer” and, in my neck of the woods, as, “The Year Of Eighteen Hundred And Froze To Death.” Here in New Hampshire, where hay was an export that fueled the horse-drawn transport big cities, not even enough grass could be grown to feel local livestock. While the wealthy could import hay from Pennsylvania, the poor knew hunger, and many simply had to slaughter their livestock. In the following years populations of many towns in New England shrank, as people never wanted to see such a summer again, and the rock-free lands of Ohio sounded warmer, and actually were further south.
The link between Tambora and that cold summer seems plain, but here comes the third and, to me, intreauging item from 1817. It involves a quote from John Daly’s site which many know well, that begins,
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated….”
This statement by the President of the Royal Society in London is dated November 20, 1817, and is not what I would have expected. I would have expected Tambora to increase the ice at the pole by making the entire earth colder. The fact the ice apparently decreased is a polar puzzle.
The question then becomes, “Do volcanoes reduce the amount of ice at the poles?”
In the comments at WUWT the commenter Philip Bradley suggested that Tambora’s ash may have fallen on the polar ice, reducing the albedo and increasing the melting. I’m not sure enough ash would fall, that far north, and remain uncovered by snow long enough, to have such a dramatic effect.
I’d be interested to hear the ideas of others. My personal guess is that, even though the climate was colder back then, the AMO still went through warm and cold phases, and just happened to be moving into a warm phase, involving a slosh of warmth moving north, and Tambora accentuated this slosh.
As I have explained elsewhere, “I call this my Slosh Theory, and it is based upon a highly scientific experiment I did at age three in the bath tub. Timing was everything. If you got the timing down, you could generate such a tremendous wave that half the water left the bathtub and wound up on the floor.
My mother did not appreciate my research and stunted my scientific growth, which explains why I became a writer.”
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“My mother did not appreciate my research and stunted my scientific growth, which explains why I became a writer.”
A Youshrieker moment.
Kaboom
July 8, 2013 at 4:03 am
Indeed the winds did blow the ice out of the Arctic in 1816 as illustrated from Hudson Bay Company log books. Go to:
arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/download/…/209…
Flattened temperature gradient from the ash could alter the weather patterns and induce more arctic dipole scenarios and subsequent storms similar to last years arctic cyclone?
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-storm.html
https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/opinion/7732/ice-vs-storm-2012-s-great-arctic-cyclone
Maybe a persistent pattern of southerly wind pushed ice north of the routes normally traveled, thus giving a false appearance of being warmer even though global temperatures dropped as a result of volcanic ash.
The Greenland oxygen isotope record shows that there was a warming period taking place between 1810 and 1820, peaking in 1820. AMO was negative and PDO was positive during this period. The last El Nino was about 1814. I think a change in Arctic wind pattern and direction can cause a major change in ice conditions. I tend to lean on the wind factor as the possible cause.
RE: David Thomson says:
July 8, 2013 at 6:48 am
That’s an interesting idea about the tower of ash acting as a channel for electric currents. Of course, I have no clue how scientific the idea is, but I like it just the same.
I am always reading ideas about the electric and magnetic and gravitational and chemical actions and reactions that go on around us, every day, well aware some of theories are dubious, to say the least, but glad because through such theories I become aware of how fabulously intricate and complex our World is.
One time I was reading about various chemicals ending in “i-n-e” reacting with Ozone in the upper atmosphere. After reading about Chlorine, Bromine, and Florine, I chanced upon an off-hand comment about Iodine, stating it was from plankton in sea spray. My eyes sort of crossed in wonder, as I thought about this little bit of plankton cruising about the stratosphere, likely muttering to himself, “Mamma told me not to go out to that party, but did I listen?”
Its good we have sensible thinkers to bring us back down to earth with a thump. Not that I always enjoy the experience, but it pays to be well grounded.
Try out this idea. Most of the year, The air above the poles is warmer than the surface (inversion). Ash not only reflects energy from the sun, it absorbs it. That ash that is transported from the equator to the poles in the upper atmosphere gains energy on the way. Half of that energy is radiated downward, so at the poles, the surface can be warmed by the ash in the upper atmosphere.
the severity of the cold … has been during the last two years, greatly abated
==========
What the President of the Royal Society is talking about is the cold, not the ice. This is consistent with the cold polar air breaking out of the Arctic and resulting in cold weather in more southerly areas.
The earth generally has 3 bands of circulation between the equator and poles. The westerlies insulate the temperate zones from the polar air to the north. However, if there is a breakdown in the westerlies such that there is only 2 bands of circulation, or more likely only 1 band of circulation, then there is nothing to contain the polar air and it is likely we will enter ice age conditions.
My thinking as to what was going on is along similar lines as to what David Thomson is saying.
lt looks to me that the Polar jet pushed deep to the south over large area’s of the NH, but then would at times swing northwards to push up into the Arctic and then would come back down south again. lt was these large swings in the Polar jet l think that caused the cooling futher to the south but warming in the Arctic. l think the closest match we have in recent years to what was going during the summer of 1816 in europe at least. Was the summer of 2012.
Because it seems that in the summer of 1816 the cold wet weather was mostly in the western half of europe with warmer weather over on the eastern side of europe. This is similar to what happen during the summer of 2012.
To make things even more interesting, the cold period associated with the Dalton Solar Minimum occurred from about 1790 to 1820 so 1814 would be well within it and the polar area should have been colder. The problem is, we really don’t know from the brief description whether or not it was typical of the whole Arctic.
No one ever wants to look at submarine sources of heat. At least 75 percent of the Earth’s volcanoes lie beneath the surface of the ocean. Did the eruption of Tambora signal a general increase in vulcanism on the Earth? If so, how much heating would sub-surface ocean vulcanism impart to ocean water, and hence to the ice pack? Quite a bit of heating I suspect. You can find any number of videos on Youtube of submarine volcano eruptions which help to illustrate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91IMATayaFo
There are many ancestral legends from people all over the world about “boiling oceans,” as well as modern day examples of apparent undersea heating activity correlated with tectonic activity. Here is an example from the Phillippines: http://www.globalpost.com/globalpost-blogs/southeast-asia/philippines-boiling-sea
If the westerlies weaken to the point that they no longer contain the polar air, then the polar air will flow to the equator along the surface, be heated at the equator and rise, and flow to the poles at altitude. This will make the poles warmer and wetter, and the temperate regions cooler and drier. Duplicating ice age conditions.
Perhaps a reduction in solar energy reaching the surface is all that is required to reduce the strength of the westerlies, allowing us to slip into the next ice age.
Caleb Shaw, refer to Robock and Mao (1992) “Winter warming from large volcanic eruptions”
Abstract:
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock/robock_pub4.html
Paper:
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/WinterWarming.pdf
They present a mechanism.
Regards
RE: JFD says:
July 8, 2013 at 7:24 am
Something was really moving the ice about back then. I got the following quote from that treasure trove of old records Tonyb put together, that I mentioned and linked to back at 4:12 AM. The quote is from 1817.
“We learn that a vessel is to be fitted out by Government for the purpose of attempting again the north-west passage, the season being considered as peculiarly favourable to such an expedition. Our readers need not be informed that larger masses of ice than ever were before known have this year been seen floating in the Atlantic, and that from their magnitude and solidity, they reached even the fortieth latitude before they were melted into a fluid state. From an examination of the Greenland captains, it has been found that owing to some convulsions of nature , the sea was more open and moiré free from compact ice than in any former voyage they ever made: that several ships actually reached the eighty-fourth degree of latitude, in which no ice whatever was found; that for the first time for 400 years, vessels penetrated to the west coast of Greenland, and that they apprehended no obstacle to their even reaching the pole, if it had consisted with their duty to their employers to make the attempt…”
The science is settled, and completely clear – it was all down to man-made CO2, including the volcano explosion.
/sarc
thingodonta says: (July 8, 2013 at 4:42 aM)
I suspect that an event of the magnitude of Tambora way well have made any conventional wisdom about the local weather and winds patterns completely irrelevant for some months if not years.
Typo on the third paragraph 5th line “grown to feel local livestock” feed?
henry@caleb
Before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense, people looked at the planets to explain weather cycles, rightly or wrongly.
see here
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
to quote from the above paper:
“A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with
maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
The range in meters between a plentiful flood and a drought flood seems minor in the numbers but real in consequence….
end quote
Acording to my table for maxima,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
I calculate the date where the sun decided to take a nap (this is just a figure of speech) , as being around 1995.
and not 1990 as William Arnold predicted.
This is looking at energy-in. I think earth reached its maximum output (means) a few years later, around 1998 or 1999
Anyway, look again at my best sine wave plot for my data
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
now see:
1900 minimum flooding – end of the warming
1950 maximum flooding – end of cooling
1995 minimum flooding – end of warming.
predicted 2035-2040 – maximum flooding – end of cooling.
Do you see the pertinent correlation with my sine wave?
Now from the report here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
the relevant newspaper reports severe melting of arctic ice more than two decades AFTER the end of warming 1900.
This is how long earth stores its energy in the oceans,
So the report of severe melting of the arctic ice in 1817, nearly two decades after the end of warming 1800 as noted from the flooding of the nile, CAN BE EXPECTED, if you allow for a general 5 year error either way, on my sinewave. It is natural, and it had nothing to do with the volcanoes..
By 2040 everything will freeze up there again in the arctic and we will be back to where we were in 1950!
“thingodonta says:
July 8, 2013 at 3:46 am
I think the most likely explanation is that the President of the Royal Society was talking codswollop. It’s happened since.”
########################
this is a funny post and I’d like to highlight several things.
There is a constant refrain about climate science being “all models” and a constant demand for “data”. I should like to remind people that a historical report is not data.
There is also a constant refrain about appeals to experts. Please note it matters little whether this guy was the janitor or the president of the royal society.
Occams razor is also raised many times here. So we have a “mystery”. That mystery vanishes if we adopt the “codswollop” interpretation. Please note all the byzantine explanations that pop up if you reject the “codswollop” interpretation.
And finally note how easily most people accepted the “mysterious” data without question. Without questioning the source, without checking its reliability, without noting that there is virtually no way of calibrating the statement. What exactly was he talking about? what was measured? by whom? This is not to say that we should discount all historical accounts. historical accounts are words on a page. they are not data. you can’t take the standard deviation of words on a page. you cant go back and repeat the experiment. By epistemic standards historical accounts are worse than models. But despite these difficulties there is some value in historical accounts. That value is merely this: A historical account can give you an interesting question to ask.
RE: Bob Tisdale says:
July 8, 2013 at 8:08 am
Thanks, Bob. I could only glance at the paper, as I’m already in trouble for skipping work to read all the neat comments. Is this research about the winter immediately after an eruption?
As I recall, the winter right after Pinatubo surprised me by being mild, but the next summer my tomatoes refused to ripen. I think I only got eight by the first frost, which was early. Every window sill in the house had green tomatoes sitting on it. Then the second winter was very cold.
I wonder if the reaction to volcanoes is a two step process. First the flow gets very zonal, and second goes all loopy with blocks?
No I must sadly bid adieu for a bit. There are those in this world who think a broken belt on a mower is more important than WUWT.
“I should like to remind people that a historical report is not data.”
Really? What exactly do you think data is?
I wonder what hqappened to my post?
henry@caleb
Before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense, people looked at the planets to explain weather cycles, rightly or wrongly.
see here
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
to quote from the above paper:
“A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with
maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
The range in meters between a plentiful flood and a drought flood seems minor in the numbers but real in consequence….
end quote
Acording to my table for maxima,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
I calculate the date where the sun decided to take a nap (this is just a figure of speech) , as being around 1995.
and not 1990 as William Arnold predicted.
This is looking at energy-in. I think earth reached its maximum output (means) a few years later, around 1998 or 1999
Anyway, look again at my best sine wave plot for my data
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
now see:
1900 minimum flooding – end of the warming
1950 maximum flooding – end of cooling
1995 minimum flooding – end of warming.
predicted 2035-2040 – maximum flooding – end of cooling.
Do you see the pertinent correlation with my sine wave?
Now from the report here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
the relevant newspaper reports severe melting of arctic ice more than two decades AFTER the end of warming 1900.
This is how long earth stores its energy in the oceans,
So the report of severe melting of the arctic ice in 1817, nearly two decades after the end of warming 1800 as noted from the flooding of the nile, CAN BE EXPECTED, if you allow for a general 5 year error either way, on my sinewave. It is natural, and it had nothing to do with the volcanoes..
By 2040 everything will freeze up there again in the arctic and we will be back to where we were in 1950!
Question: Is the amount of incoming or reflected heat absorbed by c02 related to the angle of incidence of such radiation? I’m not an expert in angles of incidence and radiative effects of greenhouse gases (who is), but theoretically, it might be, since with electrons, I remember vaguely from my university days, that the angle that they strike the nucleus effects both the way they are reflected and/or scattered during various experiments.
If so, and I’m really just speculating here without knowing much about the internal physics, maybe large volcanic eruptions make the tropics and temperate regions colder because the ash reflects sunlight better where it strikes the ash layer at a more perpendicular angle, but at high latitudes because of the higher angle of incidence the net result is that it gets proportionally warmer either because incoming radiation makes it through the ash layer better, and/or the reflected heat gets absorbed better where this reflected heat strikes the ash layer at a more acute angle. ?
This is probably incorrect, but I note that there is a difference in the way incoming and radiated heat is absorbed by c02 and other greenhouse gases, so why not with ash, or with different angles of incidence between different mediums,?. Just an idea anyway.
It wouuld have been Heilpful if you had given the location of Tambora in your article.
It certainly a puzzler. I believe Willis adressed this issue about the “year without a summer” and his article gave some interesting facts that seemed to contadict the popular conceptions.
Thanks, Caleb, an interesting article.