at the end of December 2021 an underwater volcano with a rather exotic name hunga Tonga woke up after several years of sleeping it did that with so much energy and strength that people heard the eruption from over 100 Mil away then it went back to sleep but a couple of weeks later it woke up again with a force seven times greater than the first time it broke the island above it in two parts the lightning storm that started because of the eruption was the most intense in recorded history the sound waves from the eruption traveled
around the planet several times someone even heard a loud boom from it in Alaska and it started the first known mega tsunami since ancient times this tsunami took the lives of two people as far as Peru and caused trouble for two fishermen in California but that's not all this eruption could change the weather patterns on Earth for years you may see the first proof in the summer of 202 4 which is forecast to become much wetter than usual scientists believe the eruption was caused by gas building up to a critical point different minerals including anhydrite
quarts and sulfides were building up for several months until they blocked the flow paths and sealed the gas within hunga Tonga normally when a volcano erupts the fumes cause a temporary cooling effect on Earth's surface but hunga tonga's eruption was different it didn't didn't produce much fumes but released a massive amount of water vapor roughly equal to 60,000 Olympic swimming pools the intense heat of the eruption turned huge amounts of seawater into steam which then blasted high into the atmosphere all that water vapor ended up in the stratosphere a layer of the atmosphere that's too
dry to form clouds or rain scientists don't have any observations of volcanic eruptions like hunga Tonga to predict its effects on our weather patterns the they can't tell exactly how long these effects might last either this is because the only way to measure stratospheric water vapor is with satellites which have only been around since 1979 and there hasn't been an eruption similar to hunga Tonga in that [Music] time experts from different countries started analyzing satellite data right after the hunga Tonga eruption they wanted to find out how long water vapor would stay in the stratosphere
where it would go and most importantly what this would mean for the planet the first big result of the eruption at least partially was a huge hole in the stratosphere that was hanging on for several months in 2023 by the time it appeared the water vapor had reached the polar Stratosphere over Antarctica in the following years there wouldn't be enough water vapor left to enlarge this hole it looks like hunga Tonga will have just a minimal effect on global average temperatures but there are some surprising lasting Regional impacts one of the scientific models forecasts colder
and wetter Winters for Northern Australia until about 2029 in North America it predicts warmer Winters and Scandinavia could have even colder Winters this is just one study though and one approach to understanding how the eruption of hunga Tonga can change our weather we do have at least one example from history when a volcano eruption changed the world over 2 centuries ago in 1815 Mount Tambora erupted and caused The Year Without a summer in the following year the winter was unusually cold and wet weather across Europe and North America a recent study confirms that 1816 wouldn't
have been this cold without the volcanic eruption the immediate effects of the eruption were catastrophic with tsunamis destroying homes claiming 10,000 lives and 880,000 more who fell ill in the aftermath the eruption of Mount tamboro was one of the strongest in the last thousand years it had ejected an enormous amount of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere which quickly spread across the world it resulted in the coldest year in at least the last 250 years in May Frost wiped out most of the crops in New York Massachusetts New Hampshire and Vermont by June heavy snow covered
the ground in Albany New York and Denville Maine and New Jersey had five straight nights of Frost the the cold continued into late summer which should have been the harvest season in July lakes and rivers were still frozen as far south as Northwestern Pennsylvania and frost state in Virginia until late August temperatures would drop from above normal summer highs to near freezing within just a few hours the weather was completely unpredictable prices of food skyrocketed the cost of oats for horses which were the main mode of transportation also Rose sharply some people believe this situation
inspired Carl Dre to invent the bicycle in 1817 as an alternative transportation method Tambora changed weather patterns completely for not just one but 3 years the whole planet got colder and as crops failed probably at least a million people starved scientists don't have solid evidence of volcano eruptions that have taken more lives than Tambora but the katoa eruption in Indonesia 1883 is far more famous than Tambora because information about it spread worldwide via telegrams and photos its final blast was the loudest recorded sound in history and people could hear it on 10% of the entire
Earth's surface the eruption started a tsunami with waves about half as tall as the Statue of Liberty still it was less powerful than tamora's eruption the island that once hosted katoa disappeared in the eruption but but new eruptions began less than 50 years later and created the child of katow cone in the center of the Caldera of the old eruption the new volcano still comes to life from time to time Mount vesuvius's eruption which took down Pompei is one of the most well-known volcanic disasters in history it took around 2,000 lives much fewer than Tambora
according to a famous Roman author of that time the eruption lasted 18 hours Pompei was covered by a layer of Ash and pmus that was thicker than twice an average human height the nearby Coastline also changed dramatically in today's world the after effects of volcanic eruptions are often more dangerous than the eruption themselves thanks to advances in technology we can now predict volcanic eruptions more accurately and use safety measures like evacuations and flight cancellations but there's still a lot of risk that changes in weather patterns and drought all over the world especially in areas like
India East Asia and East Africa that are affected by monsoons volcano eruptions can also have effects you wouldn't probably expect like the evolution of dinosaurs these guys were once the size of cats waiting for their time to shine it came around 230 million years ago this time is known as the caran plal episode before it Pangia was a dry and Aid supercontinent but then there were four major volcanic events that pumped huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere global temperatures and humidity spiked because of it these massive eruptions most likely happened because of the
rangelia large Ignus Province eruption in what is now British Columbia and Alaska this prolonged volcanic activity created the right conditions for dinosaurs to Blossom and diversify and ALS for the rise of other groups like modern conifers ferns crocodiles Turtles insects and early mammals with higher temperatures and more rainfall terrestrial plants have evolved and humidity loving ones have become dominant without those changes in the world we could have a completely different Natural History there's some solid proof that volcanic activity has really changed the weather patterns back then scientists have found layers in the Earth's core that
show different types of carbon it means there were four massive releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere the data on Mercury and carbon together shows that the spike in mercury levels was thanks to a major volcanic event that affected the global carbon cycle and not just local eruptions that's it for today so hey if you pacified your curiosity then give the video a like and share it with your friends or if you want more just click on these videos and stay on the the bright side
