Cultural impact of major volcanic eruptions: before and after the telegraph
In the last thousand years, there have been several major volcanic eruptions with global climatic and human impacts. Only a few have been well documented at the time — often scientists and historians must puzzle out the rest. Two fascinating but catastrophic volcanic events which occurred in recorded history are the April 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, and the August 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, both in Indonesia (formerly the Dutch East Indies). Tambora is now understood to be the larger and more deadly of the two, yet Krakatoa is more firmly anchored in history. Why? Because the eruption of Krakatoa volcano occurred shortly after invention of the telegraph, and news of the explosion quickly traveled around the world-wide telegraphic network.
When Mount Tambora erupted, it killed over 70,000 Indonesians and led indirectly to the deaths of many more in the following volcanic winter (Oppenheimer, 2003). During volcanic winters, ash and gases from the eruptions obscure the Sun and increase the reflection of solar radiation in the stratosphere, resulting in cooler temperatures here at the Earth’s surface. The year following the Tambora eruption is now commonly called “The Year Without Summer”; global temperatures were already cooler for at least two hundred years (The Little Ice Age), but the eruption and subsequent volcanic winter pushed temperatures even lower. Both crops and livestock suffered from long winters and cool, wet summers, which triggered major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. On June 6, 1816, snow fell in New York and Maine (Oppenheimer, 2003).
The eruption of Krakatoa, and the resulting tsunami, killed nearly 40,000 people on surrounding islands. The catastrophe made headlines across the world the very same day; a state-of-the-art telegraph station in Jakarta sent news to Singapore, and from there information spread to the major urban centers of the world. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa is estimated to have about 10 times less ejected volcanic material than the 1815 Tambora eruption (Newhall and Self, 1982). Still, Krakatoa’s eruption was catastrophic enough to also spur a global climatic response. Ash in the atmosphere again obscured the sun, and produced reportedly colorful sunsets. In 2004, three scholars suggested that the red sky in Edvard Munch’s famous 1893 painting The Scream may be an accurate depiction of what Munch’s saw in the post-eruption Norwegian sky (Olson, Doescher, and Olson).
The Tambora and Krakatoa volcanic eruptions left a mark on the globe, through both climatic impacts and lives lost. However, the new technology of submarine telegraph cables allowed for the Krakatoa eruption to leave a greater cultural impact.
Want to learn more?
Read…
- Oppenheimer’s paper on the Tambora eruption
- The eruption of Krakatoa: short paper or detailed book
Listen…
- NPR stories on the Tambora eruption
