Gabriel Salazar / La Pinta Yacht Expedition
The next massive eruption could happen later this century. With an increasingly unstable climate and without a plan of action, this phenomenon could go very, very wrong.
The most powerful eruption on record occurred in 1815. What followed was called the “year without summer“: global temperatures fell, harvests failed, people went hungry, a cholera pandemic spread and tens of thousands of people died, recalls .
Since then, many volcanic eruptions later, this one continues to be remembered as the most massive. But it looks like the next such event is really…near.
Geological evidence suggests a 1 in 6 chance of a massive eruption this century, says climate professor at the University of Geneva Markus Stoffel. Ensures that the next massive eruption “will cause climate chaos”, and “humanity has no plan”.
A massive volcanic eruption could release sulfur dioxide through the troposphere — the part of the atmosphere where weather happens — to the stratosphere, the layer above the Earth’s surface where planes fly.
Here, small aerosol particles that scatter sunlightreflecting it back into space and cooling the planet. These particles “will go around the world and last a few years“explains Alan Robocka climate professor at Rutgers University who has spent decades studying volcanoes.
In the case of modern volcanoes, satellite data shows the amount of sulfur dioxide released. When the Mount Pinatubo, Philippineserupted in 1991, launched about into the stratosphere.
It was not a massive eruption like Tambora, and even so cooled the world by about 0.5ºC for several years. Imagine then what a massive eruption could do.
“Today’s world is more unstable”, he recalls Michael Rampinoa professor at New York University, who researches the links between volcanic eruptions and climate change. “The effects could be even worse than what we saw in 1815.”
Firstly, the immediate impact of a natural disaster of this type must be taken into account. that about 800 million people live within approximately 100 kilometers of an active volcano. A massive eruption can destroy an entire city.
Campi Flegrei, for example, has shown signs of unrest and is located west of Italian city of Naples, where about a million people live.
In the long term, the impacts could be cataclysmic, according to CNN. A 1ºC drop in temperature may seem small, but it is not, and the increase can be much more than that. “If we look at certain regions, the impact will be much greater“, these May ChimEarth scientist at the University of Cambridge.
Although we may believe that the possibility of a massive eruption actually existing is still small, “in reality, it is not”, warns Stoffel, and the world is currently not prepared for the impacts it could trigger. “We’re just starting to get an idea of what might happen“, it says.
