Singapore · Indonesia · Ars Technica
A century after Samalas, volcanologists have found, there was yet another intriguing eruption-disease connection
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Historical records from Europe and Asia suggest that skies were darker than usual around that time, perhaps because of a volcanic haze.
Key facts
- In the months and years after the eruption, average summer temperatures fell 0.6° Celsius (1.1° Fahrenheit) in the non-tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere
- In the year 536, scribes in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia wrote about bizarre weather, including a haze that shrouded the sun for 18 months
- Until 2013, researchers knew only that some eruption—the biggest in the last few millennia as measured by sulfur output—occurred in 1257
- Tree-ring studies, which analyze annual growth layers on trees to determine which years had good and bad growing weather, show extensive cooling across North America and Eurasia from 1257 to 1259
Summary
The first telegram arrived in Singapore on a Monday, sent from the city of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). Within days, the source of the destruction was known worldwide. Thanks to Victorian-era telecommunications, it was the first time in history that people around the globe could begin to document, in near real time, the immediate and long-term effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption. In the months after Krakatau, drifting volcanic particles high in the atmosphere circled the globe, causing violently colored sunsets that contemporary artists captured in paintings, likely including the psychedelic background of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. But the key climate-driving component of the volcano’s emissions was sulfur from the molten rock that fed Krakatau.