One indirect hazard brought on by a volcanic eruption is global cooling. A massive eruption can shoot tephra into the stratosphere where it is transported around the globe by the jet stream. The tephra blocks incoming solar radiation cooling the atmosphere until it falls back to the earth.

An example of this occurance was in Indonsia in 1815. The eruption of Mt. Tambora was the largest known volcanic eruption in human history killing over 10,000 people from direct hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and tsunamis. The ash cloud was 150 times larger than the cloud produced by the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980. For hundreds of miles surrounding the Indonesian island, days were as dark as night up to 72 hours after the eruption. The cloud of ash and dust slowly surrounded the globe blocking out incoming solar energy. The next summer, snow fell in Boston in June and early frost destroyed crops in England. 1816 was dubbed by the press as "the year without a summer" and over 82,000 more people died from starvation as a result of the Mt. Tambora eruption.

Log in or registerto write something here or to contact authors.