Volcanes y Clima

Ahora que tenemos noticias casi a diario sobre erupciones en los volcanes del Sur, encuentro este artículo sobre Volcanes y Clima en The Economist. Habla de una erupción de hace 200 años y de los efectos que causó, tanto su impacto directo como indirectos. El clima fue terrible años posteriores a la erupción y causó desde pérdida de cosechas, con las consecuentes hambunas y aumento de precios de los alimentos, a escasez de agua potable dado el aumento de monzones en el sudeste asiático. Otras consecuencias serían haber causado la primera gran depresión en la economía americana y también la incesante lluvia que llevó a la existencia de Drácula y Frankenstein. Muy interesante para leer.

Two hundred years ago the most powerful eruption in modern history made itself felt around the world. It could happen again at almost any time.

The year after the eruption clothes froze to washing lines in the New England summer and glaciers surged down Alpine valleys at an alarming rate. Countless thousands starved in China’s Yunnan province and typhus spread across Europe. Grain was in such short supply in Britain that the Corn Laws were suspended and a poetic coterie succumbing to cabin fever on the shores of Lake Geneva dreamed up nightmares that would haunt the imagination for centuries to come. And no one knew that the common cause of all these things was a ruined mountain in a far-off sea. 

(...)

[...] uncaptured in models, but even more fascinating to speculate about, are the after-effects of the Tambora downturn. In America, the spike in grain prices caused by Europe’s hunger drove a wave of farmers across the Appalachians to where the Ohio Valley was enjoying far more clement weather, with barges taking exports for Europe down the Mississippi in ever larger amounts. The collapse in the grain price when Europe’s harvest recovered contributed to the American economy’s first major depression.

After Tambora en The Economist.