TAMBORA 1815: The Volcano That Erased a World in 24 Hours

On April 10, 1815, the volcano Tambora released more energy than every bomb dropped in the Second World War combined. It killed 71,000 across three continents. Then it erased the summer of 1816 from the Northern Hemisphere. This is the story of the largest volcanic eruption in modern recorded history — and the global consequences that lasted three years. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Explosion That Shook the World 02:20 Why Tambora Was Forgotten 03:11 Warnings Before the Eruption 04:19 April 10, 1815: The Mountain Opens 05:01 Owen Phillips and the Lost Language 06:30 The Pompeii of the East 07:24 Pyroclastic Flows and Caldera Collapse 09:14 Sulfur in the Stratosphere 09:58 1816: The Year Without a Summer 11:14 How Science Connected the Cause 12:00 Pinatubo and the Climate Mechanism 14:36 Geoengineering and the Tambora Effect 15:05 Frankenstein, Vampires, and the Bicycle 18:08 Could a Tambora-Class Eruption Happen Again? 19:46 Modern Civilization and the Next Darkened Sky SOURCES — Magma volume and stratospheric aerosol output — Self, S., Gertisser, R., Thordarson, T., Rampino, M. R., & Wolff, J. A. (2004). "Magma volume, volatile emissions, and stratospheric aerosols from the 1815 eruption of Tambora." Geophysical Research Letters, 31(20). DOI: 10.1029/2004GL020925 — Plinian column and pyroclastic flow dynamics — Sigurdsson, H., & Carey, S. (1989). "Plinian and co-ignimbrite tephra fall from the 1815 eruption of Tambora volcano." Bulletin of Volcanology, 51, 243-270. DOI: 10.1007/BF01073515 — The Volcanic Explosivity Index — Newhall, C. G., & Self, S. (1982). "The volcanic explosivity index (VEI): An estimate of explosive magnitude for historical volcanism." Journal of Geophysical Research, 87(C2), 1231-1238. DOI: 10.1029/JC087iC02p01231 — Comprehensive review of climatic and human consequences — Oppenheimer, C. (2003). "Climatic, environmental and human consequences of the largest known historic eruption: Tambora volcano (Indonesia) 1815." Progress in Physical Geography, 27(2), 230-259. DOI: 10.1191/0309133303pp379ra — Bipolar ice core sulfate signature — Cole-Dai, J., Ferris, D., Lanciki, A., Savarino, J., Baroni, M., & Thiemens, M. H. (2009). "Cold decade (AD 1810-1819) caused by Tambora (1815) and another (1809) stratospheric volcanic eruption." Geophysical Research Letters, 36(22). DOI: 10.1029/2009GL040882 — Volcanic eruptions and climate mechanism — Robock, A. (2000). "Volcanic eruptions and climate." Reviews of Geophysics, 38(2), 191-219. DOI: 10.1029/1998RG000054 — Mount Pinatubo 1991 atmospheric analog — McCormick, M. P., Thomason, L. W., & Trepte, C. R. (1995). "Atmospheric effects of the Mt Pinatubo eruption." Nature, 373(6513), 399-404. DOI: 10.1038/373399a0 — Northern Hemisphere cooling reconstruction — Stoffel, M., Khodri, M., Corona, C., Guillet, S., Poulain, V., Bekki, S., et al. (2015). "Estimates of volcanic-induced cooling in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1,500 years." Nature Geoscience, 8(10), 784-788. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2526 — Stratospheric sulfate geoengineering concept — Crutzen, P. J. (2006). "Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: A contribution to resolve a policy dilemma?" Climatic Change, 77(3), 211-220. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y — Cultural, demographic, and pandemic aftermath — Wood, G. D. (2014). "Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World." Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691150543 — Original eyewitness documentation — Raffles, T. S. (1817). "The History of Java." Volume I, Appendix. London: Black, Parbury, and Allen. Containing Lieutenant Owen Phillips's transcribed interview with the Rajah of Sanggar, November 1815.