00:00At the end of December 2021, an underwater volcano with a rather exotic name,
00:06Tonga Tonga, woke up after several years of sleeping.
00:11It did that with so much energy and strength that people heard the eruption from over a hundred miles away.
00:17Then it went back to sleep. But a couple of weeks later, it woke up again with a force seven times greater than the first time.
00:25It broke the island above it in two parts.
00:28The lightning storm that started because of the eruption was the most intense in recorded history.
00:33The sound waves from the eruption traveled around the planet several times.
00:37Someone even heard a loud boom from it in Alaska.
00:41And it started the first known mega tsunami since ancient times.
00:45This tsunami took the lives of two people as far as Peru and caused trouble for two fishermen in California.
00:52But that's not all. This eruption could change the weather patterns on Earth for years.
00:57You may see the first proof in the summer of 2024, which is forecast to become much wetter than usual.
01:05Scientists believe the eruption was caused by gas building up to a critical point.
01:11Different minerals, including anhydrite quartz and sulfides, were building up for several months
01:16until they blocked the flow paths and sealed the gas within Hunga Tonga.
01:21Normally, when a volcano erupts, the fumes cause a temporary cooling effect on Earth's surface.
01:26But Hunga Tonga's eruption was different.
01:29It didn't produce much fumes, but released a massive amount of water vapor,
01:34roughly equal to 60,000 Olympic swimming pools.
01:38The intense heat of the eruption turned huge amounts of seawater into steam,
01:43which then blasted high into the atmosphere.
01:46All that water vapor ended up in the stratosphere,
01:49a layer of the atmosphere that's too dry to form clouds or rain.
01:53Scientists don't have any observations of volcanic eruptions like Hunga Tonga
01:57to predict its effects on our weather patterns.
02:00They can't tell exactly how long these effects might last, either.
02:04This is because the only way to measure stratospheric water vapor is with satellites,
02:08which have only been around since 1979,
02:11and there hasn't been an eruption similar to Hunga Tonga in that time.
02:16Experts from different countries started analyzing satellite data
02:20right after the Hunga Tonga eruption.
02:23They wanted to find out how long water vapor would stay in the stratosphere,
02:27where it would go, and, most importantly, what this would mean for the planet.
02:32The first big result of the eruption, at least partially,
02:35was a huge hole in the stratosphere that was hanging on for several months in 2023.
02:41By the time it appeared, the water vapor had reached the polar stratosphere over Antarctica.
02:46In the following years, there wouldn't be enough water vapor left to enlarge this hole.
02:51It looks like Hunga Tonga will have just a minimal effect on global average temperatures,
02:56but there are some surprising, lasting regional impacts.
03:00One of the scientific models forecasts colder and wetter winters for northern Australia until about 2029.
03:08In North America, it predicts warmer winters and Scandinavia could have even colder winters.
03:14This is just one study, though,
03:16and one approach to understanding how the eruption of Hunga Tonga can change our weather.
03:23We do have at least one example from history when a volcano eruption changed the world.
03:28Over two centuries ago, in 1815,
03:31Mount Tambora erupted and caused the year without a summer.
03:36In the following year, the winter was unusually cold and wet weather across Europe and North America.
03:42A recent study confirms that 1816 wouldn't have been this cold without the volcanic eruption.
03:48The immediate effects of the eruption were catastrophic,
03:51with tsunamis destroying homes claiming 10,000 lives and 80,000 more who fell ill in the aftermath.
03:58The eruption of Mount Tambora was one of the strongest in the last 1,000 years.
04:02It had ejected an enormous amount of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere,
04:06which quickly spread across the world.
04:09It resulted in the coldest year in at least the last 250 years.
04:14In May, frost wiped out most of the crops in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
04:21By June, heavy snow covered the ground in Albany, New York,
04:24and Dennysville, Maine, and New Jersey had five straight nights of frost.
04:29The cold continued into late summer, which should have been the harvest season.
04:33In July, lakes and rivers were still frozen as far south as northwestern Pennsylvania,
04:38and frost stayed in Virginia until late August.
04:42Temperatures would drop from above normal summer highs to near freezing within just a few hours.
04:48The weather was completely unpredictable.
04:50Prices of food skyrocketed.
04:52The cost of oats for horses, which were the main mode of transportation, also rose sharply.
04:58Some people believe this situation inspired Carl Drais to invent the bicycle in 1817
05:04as an alternative transportation method.
05:09Tambora changed weather patterns completely for not just one, but three years.
05:14The whole planet got colder, and as crops failed, probably at least a million people starved.
05:20Scientists don't have solid evidence of volcano eruptions that have taken more lives than Tambora.
05:27But the Krakatoa eruption in Indonesia in 1883 is far more famous than Tambora
05:33because information about it spread worldwide via telegrams and photos.
05:38Its final blast was the loudest recorded sound in history,
05:41and people could hear it on 10% of the entire Earth's surface.
05:46The eruption started a tsunami with waves about half as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
05:51Still, it was less powerful than Tambora's eruption.
05:55The island that once hosted Krakatoa disappeared in the eruption.
05:59But new eruptions began less than 50 years later
06:02and created the Child of Krakatoa Cone in the center of the caldera of the old eruption.
06:08The new volcano still comes to life from time to time.
06:14Mount Vesuvius' eruption, which took down Pompeii, is one of the most well-known volcanic disasters in history.
06:21It took around 2,000 lives, much fewer than Tambora.
06:25According to a famous Roman author of that time, the eruption lasted 18 hours.
06:30Pompeii was covered by a layer of ash and pumice that was thicker than twice an average human height.
06:36The nearby coastline also changed dramatically.
06:42In today's world, the after-effects of volcanic eruptions are often more dangerous than the eruption themselves.
06:48Thanks to advances in technology, we can now predict volcanic eruptions more accurately
06:54and use safety measures like evacuations and flight cancellations.
06:58But there's still a lot of risk that changes in weather patterns and drought all over the world,
07:03especially in areas like India, East Asia, and East Africa that are affected by monsoons.
07:12Volcano eruptions can also have effects you wouldn't probably expect,
07:16like the evolution of dinosaurs.
07:18These guys were once the size of cats, waiting for their time to shine.
07:22It came around 230 million years ago.
07:26This time is known as the Carnian-Pluvial episode.
07:29Before it, Pangea was a dry and arid supercontinent.
07:33But then, there were four major volcanic events that pumped huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
07:40Global temperatures and humidity spiked because of it.
07:43These massive eruptions most likely happened because of the Rangelia-Large Igneous Province eruption
07:49in what is now British Columbia and Alaska.
07:52This prolonged volcanic activity created the right conditions for dinosaurs to blossom and diversify,
07:58and also for the rise of other groups like modern conifers, ferns, crocodiles, turtles, insects, and early mammals.
08:08With higher temperatures and more rainfall, terrestrial plants have evolved.
08:12And humidity-loving ones have become dominant.
08:15Without those changes in the world, we could have a completely different natural history.
08:20There's some solid proof that volcanic activity has really changed the weather patterns back then.
08:26Scientists have found layers in the Earth's core that show different types of carbon.
08:31It means there were four massive releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
08:36The data on mercury and carbon together shows that the spike in mercury levels was thanks to a major volcanic event
08:43that affected the global carbon cycle and not just local eruptions.
08:50That's it for today.
08:51So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
08:56Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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