色情视频

How Cataclysmic Events Have Shaped the Environment and Art

色情视频 scientist describes how environmental forces have forged Frankenstein and other eerie works

Monday, October 30, 2023
Krakatoa volcano erupting (Adobe Stock)
Krakatoa volcano erupting (Adobe Stock)

Imagine a world where dust fills the air, temperatures are freezing, and the sky is the color of flames. It鈥檚 no horror film 鈥 this is a realistic picture of the aftermath of major volcanic eruptions.

As explained by Jessica Whiteside, chair of 色情视频鈥檚 Earth and Environmental Sciences department, these eruptions may have even influenced literary and artistic works from 鈥淔rankenstein鈥 to 鈥淭he Scream,鈥 pieces that reflect the inextricable bond between humans and the environment.

Volcanic eruptions start hot with scorching magma streaming through the inner belly of the earth, causing the volcano to cough up steaming gasses and other materials. In the surrounding area, living things die from the blast, wildfires break out, and for the largest eruptions, long-term global warming can follow. 

But there鈥檚 also a cold side to these eruptions.

鈥淲hen volcanoes erupt, they spew out carbon dioxide and methane, two heat-trapping gasses that we're worried about in our current atmosphere as well,鈥 Whiteside said. 鈥淏ut they also throw up sulfur aerosols, the opposite of heat-trapping gasses.鈥

After reaching the troposphere, these sulfur compounds mix with water vapor to form droplets of sulfuric acid that obstruct sun rays, reflecting the sunlight into space and leading to cooling periods in the post-eruption years.

When Indonesia鈥檚 Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, it heaved up enough debris to cover an area the size of New York State in 650 feet of dust.

鈥淔or human civilization, Tambora is the most powerful volcanic eruption on record,鈥 Whiteside said. 鈥淭he amount of energy it produced would be something akin to three times all of the world's nuclear arsenals blowing up at once.鈥

With Tambora being located in the low latitude tropical region, winds quickly swept the enormous amount of volcanic debris across both hemispheres so that sunlight was shut out and temperatures plummeted around the globe.

鈥淔or about two years after Tambora, the world was put into a cold snap where agriculture failed and epidemics broke out,鈥 Whiteside said.

Out of this bleak volcanic winter, a monster was born.  

鈥溾楩rankenstein鈥 was inspired by the climatic conditions at the time,鈥 Whiteside said. 鈥淢ary Shelley wrote the novel as an expression of the human angst of dealing with the frigid temperatures and dimmed light from the faint sun.鈥

For all the ravages produced by such massive volcanic eruptions, they also generate a strangely beautiful effect. 

鈥淭he sulfur aerosols, they're not good for agriculture, but they do create beautiful sunsets because of the way they alter the atmospheric chemistry,鈥 Whiteside said. 鈥淎fter Tambora, the sunsets and sunrises would have been absolutely glorious. The sky would have been piercing red with swirls of purples, blues, and yellows.鈥

Also in the Indonesia region, a place with many volcanoes, the Krakatoa eruption of 1883 played out similarly to Tambora鈥檚 almost 70 years before. The event impacted people worldwide and some believe Edvard Munch鈥檚 1893 painting 鈥淭he Scream,鈥 captures the otherworldly change in the sky which resulted from it, as he wrote:

I was walking along the road with two friends - then the Sun set - all at once the sky became blood red - and I felt overcome with melancholy. I stood still and leaned against the railing, dead tired - clouds like blood and tongues of fire hung above the blue-black fjord and the city. My friends went on, and I stood alone, trembling with anxiety. I felt a great, unending scream piercing through nature.

鈥淕eology is always linked to the human condition,鈥 Whiteside said. 鈥淭hese volcanic events shaped humanity and our perception of our interaction with the natural world. They show how intertangled the world actually is, especially when talking about anything related to changes to the Earth and our environment.鈥

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