On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 8:05:27 PM UTC+1, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:19:47 +0100
"Anne B" wrote:

The April issue of Weather has a review of a book about the
Tambora
eruption. In the review, it says that the "eruption was bigger
by at
least one order of magnitude than any before it." Should he
have
added something on the lines of "except for the mystery
eruption that
occurred only seven years earlier which may have been as big
and had a
greater effect on the climate"?
Graham P Davis, Bracknell

And the Toba eruption several tens of thousands of years ago?


What the reviewer writes before the phrase I quoted is that the
eruption is the greatest "of the past 10,000 years." I guess he thinks
"any before it" is limited by the previous statement. I'm not so
sure.In any case, if he'd said "at least one order of magnitude bigger
than any in the previous decade" I reckon he would still have been
wrong.

A brief look at temperature data suggests that a sudden cooling occurred
at the time of the mystery eruption and that Tambora merely delayed the
recovery.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through
our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that
democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'
- Isaac Asimov.

The Laki eruption killed more people especially in Ireland, but it was not from a volcano. It was, dare I say it, a dyke.

In the last 10,000 years there was an enormous eruption on the Greek island of Santorini. "The caldera measures about 12 by 7 km (7.5 by 4.3 mi),...".

The 1815 [Tambora] eruption formed a caldera about 4 miles (6 km) in diameter." so judging by the size of the hole left behind (what will Larry make of that?) it was smaller than Satorini.

I've just finished reading "the Age of Wonder" by Richard Holmes, winner of the Royal Society prize for science books 2009. I was struck by this sentences about events following "the arrival of peace in Europe in 1815": "From further afield there came reports of climate change: huge sheets of thawing pack ice were sighted off Greenland, melting snowcaps seen in the Alpine mountains, and unprecedented river spates and flooding were recorded throughout Europe." Presumably the dust from the eruption had altered the albedo of the snow.

Cheers, Alastair.