In 1815, the Indonesian volcano Tambora exploded in multiple spectacular eruptions, two of which were major. In total, it ejected an astonishing 50 cubic kilometers of magma into the atmosphere. the eruptions were heard over 1300 kilometers away (Zollinger, 1855, p.19).
If this estimate is correct, it is a staggering amount of particulate--about 100 billion tons. To compare this to coal-derived particulates, in 2012 the world will consume about 7 billion tons of coal. Only a small percentage of that figure would be airborne ash. Given that that modern plants emit well under 100 ppm particulate mater, Tambora might have emitted over 100,000 times more particulate matter than annual total created by all the coal power plants in the world!
That is a staggering amount of mineral matter.
What History Says
Given that particulate matter, as well as certain chemicals in smog, are known to be able to partially block sunlight, it would not be surprising to learn that there were consequences planet-wide. that the following year, 1816, was known as the Year Without a Summer, or in some quarters, Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death. It is a historical fact that in North America the northern US failed to bring a crop to market, and farmers were not able to feed their livestock. Hence livestock were slaughtered.
In Europe, oak trees did not grow rings that year, attesting to the extreme cold. It also makes me wonder why people who claim to use tree rings to estimate temperature failed to find any evidence of cold weather in 1816--maybe since the ring is missing altogether, some researchers may have ignored the data.
According to Higdon, "In New England, eastern Canada, and western Europe, the late spring through
early fall of 1816 was extraordinarily cold, an estimated 4-7 Fahrenheit (1.5 to
2.5 Celsius) degrees cooler than normal. In New England alone, wintry weather
continued through the summer; snow fell with strong, frigid storms in every
summer month and severe frosts destroyed crops repeatedly all season. In Canada,
conditions were even worse. Small lakes remained frozen through the middle of
July and even the cold-hardy wheat crop failed. The Lancashire Plain of England
reported its coldest and wettest July in written history and Geneva, Switzerland
had its coldest summer in the span of 1753 to 1960."
According to De Boer and Sanders, "Weather data for the early nineteenth century indicate a
two-to three-year period of weather extremes following the eruption. Throughout 1816, average surface temperatures
in teh Norther Hemisphere were as much as 10 degrees Celsius lower than normal.
A global cooling trend had been in
progress for several years before the eruption of Tambora. The Tambora event accelerated that trend."
The basis for the 10 degree number was not specified by De Boer and Sanders, and appears to substantially higher than other estimates. Schneider. wrote, "In England, the following year temperatures dropped some 1.5
to 2.5 oC. In eastern North America and
in Western Europe, the summer of 1816 was reported in places to be 1 to 2.5 oC
colder than the previous years...In New England the loss of most of the staple
crop of Indian corn and the great reduction of the hay crop caused so much
hardship in isolated subsistence farms that they year became enshrined in
folklore as Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.....Whether Tambora caused
these events or was merely a component of them --or even a coincidence--is
still debated. For example, even if the
eruption caused a 3 oC drop in average summer temperatures in New England, such
a large cooling isn’t enough by itself to create mid-summer frosts..."
Earle et al. claim that tree ring growth shows that the 1816 growth ring is missing altogether from trees in Siberia, indicating that the trees did not leave the dormant state and grow during 1816 , presumably due to the cold.
The Scientific Anomaly
The amount of circumstantial testimony concerning 1816 is impressive, at least to the Village Elliot. However, the consensus view from climatologists is that no substantial change occured in global temperature during that time. Nothing much happened, as indicated by the summary graphs below, which are taken from various sources including the famous Mann et al. paper (the "Hockey Stick"). Again, a great deal of fuss has been made about the rise in the 20th century, but I have no major complaint about the 20th century data. Even if the analysis has some errors, there is just too much data indicating that the global average temperature did in fact increase in the 20th century.
The part that I find extraordinary, however, is the implicit assertion that global average temperature remained remarkably constant for thousands of years up until the 20th century, including the Year Without a Summer.
Why it Matters
The failure to characterize the Year Without a Summer may be one of the most
blatant examples of the failure of researchers to agree with the
assertions of history. Moreover, an explanation for the change is
readily available (namely, that the massive Tambora eruption was the most
significant cause of the dramatic cooling of the earth in 1816 and
1817). Thus the existence of the Year Without a Summer does not
directly contradict the carbon dioxide hypothesis.
It does, however call into account the ability of climatologists to
observe changes in global temperature from the past. In my opinion, it
is simply weird that the weather could have been so cold that snow and
frost occurred in June, July and August in the Northern Hemisphere
(Eastern US, northern Europe, and Siberia). In fact it was so cold that
trees on three continents--North America, Europe and Asia-- failed to come out of dormancy in the spring of 1816, so that
tree rings did not even grow. Yet
consensus climatology assures us that the tree ring data is consistent
with only a mild fluctuation of about 0.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius, juding from the compilation provided to us by Mann et al as well as other groups.
Note that the consensus view also denies that there was a global
temperature change associated with the Little Ice Age or the Medieval
Warming Period. As will be made clear in a future blog, there are very
strong historical reasons for believing that these periods were real.
In particular, it is astonishing to believe that medieval Vikings could
have had settlement of 2000 or more people in 600 farms if the global
temperature were not substantially warmer than it is today.
If the scientific community were to agree
that global temperature changes of a few degrees have occurred in the
historical past, this does not negate the possibility of the CO2
Greenhouse Global Warming Theory being largely correct. It would
however, imply that the door should be left open, at least a crack, for other factors that might influence global temperatures, in addition to carbon dioxide.
For Additional Reading
Tambora Volcano: World's Largest Recorded Volcanic Eruption, J. Daniel Perkins,
http://jdanielperkins.wordpress.com/tag/tambora/
Gerald Stanhill, Shabtai Cohen, Globaldimming: a review of
the evidence for a widespread and significant reduction in global radiation
with discussion of its probable causes and possible agricultural consequences,
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Volume 107, Issue 4, 19 April 2001, Pages 255–278
David G. Streets, Ye Wu, Mian Chin, Two-decadal aerosol
trends as a likely explanation of the global dimming/brightening transition,
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L15806, 4 PP., 2006
Mark Z. Jacobson, Climate response of fossil fuel and
biofuel soot, accounting for soot's feedback to snow and sea ice albedo and
emissivity, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 109, D21201, 15 PP., 2004
P. D. Jones et al., Surface air temperature and its changes
over the past 150 years REVIEWS OF GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 37, NO. 2, PP. 173-199,
1999
Kushner, Paul J., Isaac M. Held, Thomas L. Delworth, 2001:
Southern Hemisphere Atmospheric Circulation Response to Global Warming. J.
Climate, 14, 2238–2249.
J. Hansen, M. Sato,
and R. Ruedy, Long-term changes of the diurnal temperature cycle: implications
about mechanisms of global climate change, Atmospheric Research, Volume 37,
Issues 1–3, July 1995, Pages 175–209.
Steven C. Sherwood,
John R. Lanzante, and Cathryn L. Meyer, Radiosonde Daytime Biases and
Late-20th Century Warming, Published
Online August 11 2005
Science 2 September 2005: Vol. 309 no. 5740 pp. 1556-1559
M. J. Filipiak, C. J. Merchant, H. Kettle1, and P. Le
Borgne, An empirical model for the statistics of sea surface diurnal warming,
Ocean Sci., 8, 197–209, 2012
M. Chenoweth, Ships' logbooks and the year without a summer,
Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society, 1996 vol. 77, no 9, pp.
2077-2093.
Rebecca Wood, The Year Without a Summer, Centreville Patch
http://centreville.patch.com/articles/the-year-without-a-summer
Useful Tree Species for Tree Ring Dating, http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/lorim/good.html
Stoffel, M.; Bollschweiler, M.; Butler, D.R.; Luckman, B.H.
(Eds.), Tree Rings and Natural Hazards: A
State-of-Art Series: Advances in Global Change Research, Vol. 41
1st Edition., 2010, XV, 505 p. 177 illus.
Michael Mann et al., “Proxy-based reconstructions of
hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two
millenia,”
Melody Higdon, the Year Without a Summer, 1816: The Year Without a Summer
http://melodyhigdon.com/climotalk/Year_Without_A_Summer.htm
Jelle Zeilinga De
Boer, Donald Theodore Sanders,
Volcanoes In Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects Of
Major Eruptions
Volcanic dust veils and climate: How clear is the
connection? — An editorial Stephen H. Schneider Climatic Change, VOlume 5 Nujmber 2, 1983,
111-113.s
C. Begin and L Filion Tree Rings and Natural Hazards, A
State of Art...
C. J. Earle, L. B. Brubaker, A. V. Lozhkin and P. M.
Anderson Summer Temperature Since 1600
for the Upper Kolyma Region, Northeastern Russia, Reconstructed from Tree Rings,
Arctic and Alpine Research , Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp.
60-65
Published by: INSTAAR, University of Colorado
The temperature reconstructions are taken from Wikipedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png (dowloaded April 2012) with the following annotations:
- (blue 1000-1980): M.E. Mann, R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes (1999). "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations". Geophysical Research Letters 26 (6): 759-762.
- (light blue 1000-1965): Crowley and Lowery (2000). "Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction". Ambio 29: 51-54. Modified as published in Crowley (2000). "Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years". Science 289: 270-277. doi:10.1126/science.289.5477.270
- (lightest blue 1402-1960): K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, F.H. Schweingruber, I.C. Harris, P.D. Jones, S.G. Shiyatov, S.G. and E.A. Vaganov (2001). "Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree-ring density network". J. Geophys. Res. 106: 2929-2941.
- (light turquoise 831-1992): J. Esper, E.R. Cook, and F.H. Schweingruber (2002). "Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability". Science 295 (5563): 2250-2253. doi:10.1126/science.1066208.
- (green 200-1980): M.E. Mann and P.D. Jones (2003). "Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia". Geophysical Research Letters 30 (15): 1820. doi:10.1029/2003GL017814.
- (yellow 200-1995): P.D. Jones and M.E. Mann (2004). "Climate Over Past Millennia". Reviews of Geophysics 42: RG2002. doi:10.1029/2003RG000143
- (orange 1500-1980): S. Huang (2004). "Merging Information from Different Resources for New Insights into Climate Change in the Past and Future". Geophys. Res Lett. 31: L13205. doi:10.1029/2004GL019781
- (red 1-1979): A. Moberg, D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén (2005). "Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data". nature 443: 613-617. doi:10.1038/nature03265
- (dark red 1600-1990): J.H. Oerlemans (2005). "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records". Science 308: 675-677. doi:10.1126/science.1107046
- (black 1856-2004): Instrumental data was jointly compiled by the w:Climatic Research Unit and the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre. Global Annual Average data set TaveGL2v [2] was used.
Elliot,
ReplyDeleteHere are criticisms and observations:
First, the graphs you showed are too coarse to indicate annual temperature fluctuations. The thrust of those publications was to show the generalized temperature trends over centuries, not years. In addition, you say that the summary graphs which you illustrate are taken from the Mann et al. paper. That is not correct. Every line on that graph, with the exception of the Mann et al. line are from subsequent publications, not from Mann et al. Each of those papers represents significant substantiation of the Mann et al. research results.
Second, you say that climatologists failed to recognize the “Year Without a Summer.” However, there are in fact many sources of paleoclimate data documenting the Tambora eruption and that of numerous other volcanic events in which weather and climate were affected. (The term weather is preferred if the effects were only a few years, such as Tambora. The term climate is preferred if the effects of increased volcanic activity affected temperatures over longer periods such as during the Little Ice Age.) You say that in Europe, oak trees did not grow rings in 1816. However, Ogle et al. (2005; http://star.arm.ac.uk/preprints/437.pdf) discuss in their paper the depletion of δ13C in tree rings of Irish oaks in the years 1816 and 1817. Their data set spanned the Tambora eruption (1814-1819). The same condition in tree rings occurred for the Laki eruptions of 1783-1784. Macroscopic observation of tree ring widths is not the only data source offered by tree ring data, although Ogle et al. did mention the narrowness of rings for the years 1816 and 1817. And Salzer and Hughes (2006; http://media.longnow.org/files/2/Salzer_Hughes_2007.pdf) have identified numerous volcanic eruptions from tree ring data dating back 5000 years, including the Tambora eruption, and the great mid-13th century volcanic eruption, which was apparently far larger than Tambora.
In addition to tree ring data there is ice core data. Both Laki and Tambora eruptions are recorded in Greenland ice cores as significant increases in sulfur dioxide in ice bands for those years. In fact, ice cores record numerous climatically significant volcanic eruptions that are too far in the distant past for tree rings to record. As I am sure you know, the Greenland ice cores record atmospheric data back to about 110 thousand years ago. And Antarctic ice cores go back nearly 800,000 years, although timing precision suffers further back in time. A notable eruption was the supervolcano eruption of Toba, occurring approximately 71,000 years BP (Zeilinski et al., 1996; http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1192&context=ers_facpub). Within the last 1500 years, dozens of volcanic eruptions are recorded in ice cores (http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/IVI2/ and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.891/pdf), including the great mid-13th century eruption (Oppenheimer, 2003; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.891/pdf).
Other lines of evidence consist of lake varves and pollen, speleothems, deep sea muds and shell material, and coral growth bands in reefs. I can provide you with references for these data also if you are interested.
So I would argue researchers have not failed to agree with the assertions of history and have in fact, discovered numerous eruptions not recorded by humanity, such as the mid-13th century eruption. The scientific community has very accurately recorded temperature changes not just in the past millennia, but much further back, hundreds of thousands of years back. Their understanding on how greenhouse gases affect climate is very solid.
In the second paragraph of my comment above, I said: "Their data set spanned the Tambora eruption (1814-1819)." It might have been more accurate to say that the Ogle et al. data set spanned from 1814 to 1819, including two years leading up to the eruption, the eruption and immediate aftermath, and the years of recovery.
DeleteHi Steven, thanks for your always thoughtful criticism. I amended the blog to give the other groups credit for their temperature charts. To clarify, I agree with Mann and other reconstructions of the 20th century heating profile, but I am much more skeptical about their ability to reconstruct the 19th century and earlier.
ReplyDeleteAs for a contemporary account of that winter, please check out the following from the July 17, 1816 issue of The Reporter (Brattleborough, VT). Some ancestors were arguing that the Year Without a Summer was anthropogenic, caused by too much logging and agriculture in North America, while others argued it was a sign of the Apocalypse, and others argued it was a natural effect. You see? Nothing has changed...
ReplyDelete"The Season — It is believed that the memory of no man living can furnish a parallel to this present season. From every part of the United States, north of the Potomac, as well as from Canada, we have accounts of the remarkable coldness of the weather, and of vegetation retarded or destroyed by untimely frosts. In Montreal, on the 6th, 8th, and 9th of June were falls of snow, and from the 6th to the 10th, it froze every night. Birds, which were never before found except in remote forests, were then to be met with in every part of the city, and among the [flocks], and many of them benumbed with cold, dropped dead in the streets.
In the northern parts of the state [VT], about the same time, snow fell in considerable quantities. In the town of Cabot it was 18 inches deep on the 8th of June. From the northern and western parts of New York, and from Maine, we have received accounts of summer snows, and winter lingering in the lap of June; and the most gloomy apprehensions of distressing scarcity are entertained by those who witnessed the phenomena.
When remarkable effects appear to be produced, we have always philosophers ready to assign their causes. Ingenious theories on the subject of this apparent alteration of the climate of North America, have made their exits through the medium of newspapers. Some have attributed the diminution of atmospheric heat to immense fields of ice floating in the Atlantic to the eastward Gulph of St. Lawrence (which were met with by British merchantmen in the beginning of May,) together with unusual quantities of ice frozen in the lakes of the north-west of the United States....
...Perhaps we can assign no other cause than the fiat of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE [Adam & Eve]; — and the wisest philosophers will be ready to exclaim with Elihu, the friend of Jub, 'By the breath of God frost is given, and the breadth of the waters is restrained.'
We cannot, however, well forbear remarking, that the experience of several seasons passed has not comported with the theory of those philosophers, who have supposed that the mean heat of our climate has not increased by clearing and cultivating the country. This hypothesis has been opposed with great ability, and much depth of research, by Noah Webster, esq. in an essay which, if we recollect rightly, that gentleman, some time since, exhibited before a philosophical society in New Haven; a tract from which we have derived much pleasure and information, but have not now on hand. Indeed we can hardly believe that by denuding the country of its forests, and giving a free course to the cold and barren winds, which probably originate among enormous ice mountains to the north and west of the river St. Lawrence, the climate of New-England can be greatly ameliorated.
Spots on the Sun have likewise been supposed to have an influence on the present season. The sun is in no doubt the great fountain of caloric, or heat, as well as of light, and it is very rational to suppose that the objects which exhibit to us the appearance of spots on the sun, by intercepting calorific rays, may have deprived the earth of some part of quantity it usually receives. ...
Neither our leisure nor our limits will admit farther discussion of this subject at this time. We may perhaps resume it on some furthre occasion, and give our readers all that 'our philosophy e'er dreamt on'."
A change in temperature of 0.4 degrees Celsius is similar to the difference between Columbus Ohio and Cincinnati Ohio, not a climatic disaster.
ReplyDeleteYet the price of grain doubled in Europe in 1816-1817, with a sevenfold increase in central Europe, testifying to a disastrous harvest. In the northern US, farmers failed to bring a crop to market, and instead slaughtered their livestock since there was not enough grain to feed them.
Data such as this has nothing to do with tree rings (which by the way, did not grown in many regions in the US, Europe and Asia). Thus, I believe there is reason to doubt whether the scientific reconstructions are really all that accurate.
Here is a reference to a review paper on speleothem proxy research from a special edition of PAGES Newsletter devoted to Advances in Speleothem Research: "The use of stalagmite geochemistry to detect past volcanic eruptions and their environmental impacts."
ReplyDeletehttp://pages-142.unibe.ch/products/newsletters/2008-3/Special%20section/science%20hilight/Frisia_2008-3(25-26).pdf
As you can see, stalagmite proxy data detected Tambora and other eruptions.