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I think volcanic winters deserve more preparation than the possibility that the climate scientists are right. If the climate scientists are right, it'll be a sl
by teslabox 5y ago
I think volcanic winters deserve more preparation than the possibility that the climate scientists are right. If the climate scientists are right, it'll be a slow moving disaster, and we'll have to gradually abandon all the buildings next to the ocean that will have to be abandoned anyways (e.g. Surfside Condos in Miami Florida collapsed because the life of reinforced concrete isn't much more than 100 years).
1816 was The Year Without A Summer. At the time people in Europe didn't know why it didn't heat up that summer, but it was a catastrophe for humans who lived in the northern hemisphere, in every sense of the word.
Catastrophe: an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering; a disaster. "a national economic catastrophe"
> The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).[1] Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record between the years of 1766–2000.[2] This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.[3]
>
> Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (known today as Indonesia). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the extreme weather events of 535–536), and perhaps exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
1816 Summer in France was 3 degrees celcius cooler than average:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#/media/File:1816_summer.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#/media/F...
How do you prepare for both a certain "volcanic winter"-type events (losing growing seasons in the northern latitudes) and the possibility of anthropogenic climate change?
How many people would die if we had two volcanoes go off, in 2022 and 2023, like what happened in 1814 and 1815?
Volcanic Winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
My understanding is the 1814 and 1815 volcanic eruptions reduced the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans [0]. By 1816 the oceans were super-chilly, and didn't have enough heat to give off for Europe to have a normal summer.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013166
Climate is variable. Deal with it. Volcanoes are much more of a threat to humans than slow moving disasters.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago"How do you prepare for both a certain "volcanic winter"-type events" Like we did for the past few hundred years - fill up a grain elevator. You store 2 years worth of grain, you get through any such event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_elevator Also we have greenhouses.
- ethbr0 5y agoI'd be curious what our modern food storage : population ratio is. I expect a lot lower than when yearly famines were a frequent occurrence.
- loopz 5y agoThe emergency storages have been mostly shut down everywhere due to unprofitability.
- AngryData 5y agoNot great, that is for sure. Mostly because we overproduce via subsidization to prevent the shortages that necessitate large graneries. But of course we subsidize against the relatively small shortages we expect like poor rain or crop damages, we don't spend enough for it to make up for sudden 20% drop in yield across the entire farming sector.
- abakker 5y agoThis is a very interesting perspective, but it is also something we are mostly unable to predict. It is certain that if this kind of event happened, that it would cause harm. However, the long term trend due to anthropogenic climate change is certainly a big risk. for one, volcanic induced winters don't seem to have the long-term ability to change the climate trajectory. The other is that the existence of additional risks does not absolve us of the responsibility to plan for the eventuality of climate change. there are billions of people on the planet and we as a species do have the capacity to think about and plan for both kinds of risk.