The eruption that split an island and changed Earth's future was a massive volcanic blast that literally tore an island apart. This eruption, like the famous Krakatoa eruption in 1883, was so powerful that it created a huge crater, or caldera, and sent ash and gases high into the atmosphere. It wasn’t just about the island splitting; the eruption caused tsunamis and dramatic weather changes worldwide. The ash blocked out sunlight, leading to cooler temperatures for months, affecting crops and weather patterns across the globe. It’s a perfect example of how one big natural event can have a ripple effect on the entire planet. This eruption not only changed landscapes but also reshaped history by impacting economies, environments, and lives everywhere. Credit: De uitbarsting van de Krakatau: by Anonymous, CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_uitbarsting_van_de_Krakatau,_KITLV_5888.tiff Anak Krakatau: by Lord Mountbatten, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anak_Krakatau-2.JPG Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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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.
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