200th anniversary of Tambora eruption a reminder of volcanic perils
Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - 13:30
in Earth & Climate
The volcanologist Stephen Self, an expert on super-eruptions, was the first modern-day scientist to visit Tambora in Indonesia, the site of the largest volcanic eruption in 1,000 years. On the 200th anniversary of its eruption in 1815, Self and others warn of the ever-present dangers of volcanoes like Tambora. Globally dispersed clouds of sulfate aerosols could lead to cooling, crop failures and famine, as happened in the 'year without a summer' of 1816.