April 16, 2015, by Lucy

Marking the anniversary of the eruption of Tambora

1815-2015

As detailed in our previous post, last week I attended the ‘International Conference on Volcanoes, Climate and Society: Bicentenary of the great Tambora eruption’ in Bern, Switzerland. It was a fantastic event with speakers drawn from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and from all over the world. Throughout the week I was able to talk to other delegates, to learn more about the eruption and the records of it that are present in natural (tree-rings, ice cores, speleotherms), archaeological and documentary archives, to make important connections, and to publicise the wider Weather Extremes project. On the final day I presented a paper based on research completed for the Weather Extremes project within a session on ‘Impacts and Societal Response to the Year without a Summer’.  I learnt about potential new research sources, new literature, and of comparative work in other countries, all of which will be tremendously helpful in taking this case study, and the wider project, forward. I was also able to network further with representatives from ACRE (Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth), one of the Weather Extremes project’s non-academic partners, and to learn more about their work and the potential for collaboration.

Universitat Bern

This week, rather than a new post, we’ve rounded up the best of the online Tambora eruption anniversary news coverage from around the world over the last couple of weeks:

Journal special issue:

• Nature Geoscience, April 2015, 8:241-327 

Radio:

• High Explosive: The Tambora Story, Radio 4, 3 April 2015

Newspaper and magazine online coverage (subscription required for some articles):

• Bill McGuire, The Guardian, 28 March 2015, Are we ready for the next volcanic catastrophe 

• Sarah Zielinski, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 April 2015, 200 years after Tambora, some unusual effects linger 

• The Times, 9 April 2015, Weather eye: Wet summer spawned Dracula 

• Clive Cookson, FT Magazine, 10 April 2015, Volcanology: the mysteries of mega-eruption

• Erik Klemetti, WIRED, 10 April 2015, Tambora 1815: Just how big was the eruption

• The Economist, After Tambora, 11 April 2015 

• Richard Cavendish, History Today 65, Possibly the most destructive volcanic eruption of all time occurred on April 10^th, 1815

Blogs:

• ‘The world had turned to ash’ – Hugo Unwin, The Royal Society 

• ‘The great 1815 Tambora eruption: What if this volcano blew today? Andrew Alden, KQUED science blog

In Indonesia:

• The anniversary was marked with the ‘Tambora greets the world’ festival and the inauguration of the Mount Tambora National Park.
• http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/98498/mount-tambora-national-park-transformed-into-new-ecotourism-destination
• http://www.indonesia.travel/en/news/detail/1639/-tambora-greets-the-world-west-nusa-tenggara-special-highlight

If we’ve missed anything on Tambora that you’ve enjoyed reading please do let us know in the comments below.

End of conference treat from Gelateria di Berna!

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn