00:00So, this huge volcano, everyone thought to be extinct, woke up and spat out a black ash
00:07cloud 50 miles high.
00:09That's about 9 times as tall as Mount Everest.
00:12Located in what is now Indonesia, the powerful Krakatoa had caused huge tsunamis that rocked
00:17over ships as far away as South Africa.
00:20It also changed the temperatures around the world for several years.
00:24The volcanic island of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait was likely born thanks to another
00:29major eruption several centuries ago.
00:32It hadn't erupted for at least 200 years before 1883.
00:36So the first tremors and blasts in May of that year came as a total shock to people
00:41living nearby.
00:43Then ships sailing through the busy water passage started reporting clouds of ash above
00:48the volcano.
00:49It went quiet again for a while, but they could still see ash above it.
00:56The eruption culminated at the end of August.
00:59It was so powerful that it shattered the island into fragments.
01:03Witnesses heard the sound produced by it in Australia, around 3,000 miles away.
01:08They described the noise as the roar of heavy cannons.
01:12Some say it was the loudest sound ever heard.
01:15During the next 5 days, the pressure wave from the eruption traveled around the globe
01:193.5 times and was seen on barographs on different continents.
01:24Loud avalanches of ash spread down the volcano as far as 25 miles away at crazy speeds.
01:30They ruined the surrounding islands and took 36,000 lives.
01:34Tens of thousands more drowned in tsunamis that happened after the volcano had collapsed
01:39into the caldera.
01:41Over a hundred coastal villages on Java and Sumatra were completely wiped out.
01:46All this made the waking up of Krakatoa one of the most devastating in the entire recorded
01:51history.
01:55The Earth's crust is like a giant puzzle, made up of massive pieces known as tectonic
02:00plates.
02:01These plates are constantly sliding against each other over the mantle, which is the molten
02:06layer beneath.
02:07Indonesia is right in the middle of the so-called subduction zone.
02:11Here, the Indo-Australian plate collides with part of the Asian plate as it moves northward.
02:17As the Oceanic plate dives down, it gets heated up, and you've got the perfect recipe for
02:22a volcanic hotspot.
02:25Krakatoa had three peaks, each serving as an exit door for a massive magma chamber beneath
02:30it.
02:31During a previous eruption, debris blocked one of these exits, and the pressure built
02:35up beneath.
02:36When Krakatoa finally blew its top, the blast split the magma chamber wide open.
02:44The eruption led to a so-called volcanic winter.
02:47Krakatoa had sent 6 cubic miles of rock, ash, and debris into the atmosphere.
02:53They created a thick veil that surrounded the Earth.
02:56The particles scattered sunlight, and the troposphere below cooled down.
03:00The effect stayed strong for several years.
03:03The northern hemisphere experienced colder-than-average temperatures, and in some regions, summer
03:08temperatures didn't rise to typical levels.
03:11Northern California received a record amount of rainfall in the months following the eruption.
03:18The sky became darker in different parts of the world for years afterwards.
03:23The sunsets, for many months, turned into a spectacular show of red and orange.
03:28One astronomer supposed it was the source of the inspiration for The Scream by Edvard
03:33Munch.
03:34The painting shows exactly what the sky over Norway looked like after the eruption.
03:39It also produced a rare type of halo called Bishop's Ring, and a volcanic purple light
03:44at night.
03:46For several years after Krakatoa had blown up, the moon looked blue, and sometimes green.
03:51That's because some ash clouds were full of particles large enough to scatter red light,
03:57only letting other colors pass.
03:59Someone even witnessed lavender sun and night-shining clouds.
04:05Krakatoa became the first scientifically well-recorded and studied eruption of a volcano.
04:11Between the moments the first clouds of ash were seen by a ship passing by, and the disastrous
04:16eruption, scientists managed to organize geological expeditions.
04:20They studied the volcano and gathered samples of volcanic rocks.
04:25It became useful for understanding volcanic activity.
04:29Krakatoa was sleeping tight until the 1920s, when some locals noticed a column of steam
04:34and debris spewing from the collapsed caldera.
04:37Within weeks, the rim of a new cone sprang up above sea level.
04:42After a year, it was a small island named Child of Krakatoa.
04:46It continues to erupt, but fortunately, without serious consequences… so far.
04:54In April of 1815, Mount Tambora unleashed a massive eruption, wreaking havoc on the
05:00Indonesian island of Sambawa.
05:02It destroyed homes and claimed 10,000 lives.
05:06Another 80,000 perished because of diseases that spread in the aftermath.
05:10The following went in history as the year without a summer.
05:15Cold wet conditions wrapped Europe and North America in an unexpected chill.
05:20It became the coldest in at least 250 years.
05:24In the summer of that year, the temperatures dropped the most.
05:27Crops didn't grow, livestock didn't survive, and famine took over Western Europe and North
05:32America.
05:33New England had snow and terrible frost in the summer months.
05:37Food prices went up, oats for horses became a luxury.
05:41Some people say it even inspired the invention of the bicycle in 1817.
05:48Scientists used early data and climate models to see if it was all because of the Tambora
05:53eruption.
05:54They compared the data to similar years.
05:56They showed that precipitation was around the same, but the temperatures were much warmer.
06:02When they introduced the volcano into the scenario, they got the exact data for the
06:06year without summer.
06:08They say that a powerful volcanic eruption like that one increases the likelihood of
06:13extreme cold by up to 100 times.
06:19The explosion of the Toba supervolcano on the island of Sumatra around 74,000 years
06:25ago became the Earth's largest volcanic eruption in 28 million years.
06:30Parts of Indonesia, India, and a slice of the Indian Ocean got a cozy blanket made up
06:35of 6 inches of volcanic debris.
06:38It spat out a volume of rock comparable to almost 3 million Empire State Buildings.
06:44The crater it had left behind is still seen from space.
06:48All the ash and volcanic gases that sprang into the atmosphere because of the eruption
06:52partially blocked the sunlight.
06:54A severe volcanic winter began and lasted for 6 to 10 years.
07:00Some anthropologists see a connection between the Toba eruption and how limited modern humans
07:05are when it comes to genetic variety.
07:08Around 74,000 years ago, exactly when the Toba erupted, there was a population nosedive.
07:14That's why all modern humans trace their roots back to a tiny group of survivors.
07:20The Toba catastrophe theory proposes that most early humans in Europe and Asia didn't
07:25make it through the post-eruption climate chaos.
07:28Instead, a lucky, genetically limited bunch found their safe haven in Africa.
07:34But archaeological and paleoclimate records disagree with this theory.
07:41Benjamin Black from Rutgers University and his team set out to crack the code and discovered
07:46a hidden paradox.
07:48Maybe we were peering through the wrong climate lens.
07:51They ran 42 different climate model simulations, varying the magnitude of volcanic emissions,
07:57time of year of the eruption, background climate state, and eruption column height
08:02to see what climate disruptions the Toba eruption might have caused.
08:07There was a significant drop in temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the first year
08:11after the event, up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:15The Southern Hemisphere, where the early humans were settling, didn't go through a rough
08:19cooling that could have affected them all.
08:24The most significant eruptions that can seriously change the world's climatic patterns come
08:29from supervolcanoes like Yellowstone or Mount Toba.
08:33Luckily, these erupt very rarely, about every 100,000 years or more.
08:39Still, climate scientists study volcanic eruptions to understand and explain short periods of
08:44cooling in the history of our planet.
08:47Every few decades or so, a volcanic eruption lets out a substantial number of particles
08:51and gases.
08:53Some of them will block enough sunlight to start a brief global cooling period.
08:57Nothing like the real volcanic winter, but still felt across the globe.
09:05That's it for today!
09:06So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
09:11friends!
09:12Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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