The residents
of Caverswall were convinced on the 23rd June 1783 that the strange colour of
the sun was down to supernatural causes. For a few days the sun was black which
the more superstitious villagers blamed on the malevolent influence of the
ghost of Lady Vane. It was also very hot and the fog was so thick that ships
were unable to leave harbour. Not so far away from Caverswall ,the people of Derby
witnessed an extraordinary thunderstorm and the blood red sun commenting on the
state of the atmosphere.
What the
observers in Caverswall, Derby and elsewhere were witnessing was the after effect
of millions of tons of material being expelled far into the atmosphere by the
eruption of an Iceland volcano Laki at the beginning of June. A large amount
of sulphur dioxide was emitted, about three times the total annual European
industrial output now (but delivered to
higher altitudes, hence the more persistent).
Iceland initially suffered grievously itself , about 20% of natives and
50 % of livestock either died from the effect of the gas or from the famine
that followed. Further away outpourings of sulphur dioxide during eruption caused a thick haze to spread across Western
Europe, The dense cloud of gases were blown south east. It reached Prague
by the 17th. By the 20th it had arrived
in Paris and 3 days later it had crossed the Channel, A fine dust ,in
effect, a volcanic ash fell throughout
England and the summer became known as the “Sand Summer”. It was a time of
extremes as the very hot weather came with violent thunderstorms and hailstones
which were so large that it was reported that Cattle were killed. The summer
gave way to an early and long winter. The Naturalist Gilbert White recorded 28
days of frost in Hampshire, the River Severn froze at Worcester and cottages in
Northamptonshire were covered so deeply with snow that the inhabitants starved
to death. The deep snows and plunging temperatures killed thousands in Britain
but it was the arrival of the gas the previous June that killed many more
Inhaling the noxious gas causes victims to choke
and their internal organs to swell as the gas reacts with the moisture in lungs
and produces sulphurous acid. In Great Britain, the records show that the
additional deaths were among outdoor workers; the death rate in East Anglia was
perhaps two or three times the normal rate. It has been estimated that 23,000
Britons died from the poisoning.
The
meteorological impact of Laki continued, contributing significantly to several
years of extreme weather in Europe. In
France, the sequence of extreme weather events caused poverty for the rural
population, and a violent hailstorm in 1788 destroyed crops. These events
contributed significantly to an increase in poverty that may in turn have contributed to the French
Revolution in 1789.
It would not
have been the first such occurrence to
claim a dynasty in the 10th century the Eldgja eruption in Iceland
caused such freak weather conditions in
China that the resultant famine bought down the Jin Dynasty.
Volcanoes in
Iceland are back in the news as scientists
have been closely observing Iceland’s volcanic activity. Bardarbunga
volcano in the early autumn was continually spewing lava and sending tremors
across the island. The amount of material voided is greater than a volcanic
eruption of 2010 when ash and dust high in the altitude caused flights to be
cancelled in the UK.
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