The Looming Threat of Super volcanic Eruptions

Oh dear! Scientists predict that a volcanic eruption, if it occurs, could be among the most destructive in human history. There is a probability of one in six that it might occur within the next hundred years; it would probably be another serious blow to the climate and put millions of lives at risk. In January 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted in the South Pacific, exploding to colossal proportions. The eruption generated tsunamis that reached Japan, North America, and South America. The damage to Tonga was immense, about 20 percent of the entire economy of the country. Now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen study ice samples taken from Greenland and Antarctica, and the results are alarming as they foretell a global volcanic disaster. They say that there is a fair chance that an even more significant eruption, by 10-100 times Tonga's, is possible. In earlier times, eruptions of this magnitude have altered the climate and even led to the collapse of civilizations. Despite this impending threat from volcanoes, there is an utter absence of any deliberate preparation. Michael Cassidy, a volcanologist from the University of Birmingham, has warned that no meaningful preparation is underway for something that is expected to be far worse than a volcanic eruption. He said already that obviously, there is billions spent by NASA and other agencies in asteroid defense, yet the likelihood of the super eruption of a volcano is way beyond the possible impact of an asteroid. As far as plans for dealing with an eruption are concerned, they do not exist in any coordinated or even national manner at the moment, even though the volcanic eruption is expected to be far worse. The economic fallout from such an eruption would be historic; it would sever supply chains and production, and cause worldwide financial turmoil.

The last major 7 catastrophe occurred in 1815 at Mount Tambora in Indonesia. Thousands lost their lives in a matter of days. The catastrophe altered weather patterns and caused famine and food shortages across the world, affecting millions. That eruption was the biggest in recorded history. It expelled an enormous cloud of particles into the sky. Those particles blocked sunlight, cooled the planet, and caused worldwide havoc. The eruption marked the beginning of a year-long winter, the Year Without a Summer. The winter cooled, starvation followed after harvest failures, cholera worked its way around, and tens of thousands perished. Shocking! The eruption probably was the reason that Mary Shelley started to write in isolation in Switzerland one summertime that turned out to be unusually cold in 1816! Since then, many volcanoes have erupted, but none has come to near the scale of Tambora. Now, more than 200 years later, scientists warn that the threat of a new supervolcano looms. Another big eruption may come, and the world might be unprepared for it. Should any such eruption occur today, its ramifications would be multiplied by a modern-day global interconnection which would then further amplify the disruptions across different industries and regions.

In this context, as the scientists are debating the probable date of the next eruption, the experts are venting their frustration and insisting on preparing for it as soon as possible. If any volcanic eruption were to take place now, it would prove to be detrimental even compared to the state of The Year Without A Summer. This is because, at that time, we did not have the burden of dealing with other weather changes and a more vulnerable global system-who knows what cataclysmic changes the combined effect would bring? Rampino warns that today the world is more unstable; this means any mega eruption could create more havoc than ever before. This time-when the aftermath of such an eruption is made cooler instead of warmer due to greenhouse gases from fossil fuels. The existence of volcanoes posing threats to humanity. A volcanologist Dr. Thomas Aubry showed that under conditions of a hotter and more dynamic atmosphere, volcanic eruptions would spread sulfur dioxide gas much faster and much farther than they would have in earlier days. Such gas would turn into sulfate aerosols reflecting the sun's rays, causing global cooling. Then the particles would exert greater cooling force because of an even distribution compared to what happened in 1815. The size of those particles floating in the atmosphere has implications for their ability to alter sunlight and absorb it, generating another cooling effect to exaggerate things by 15% if a possible eruption should take place in a warmer climate. Beyond environmental impacts, outages of electricity on general levels to interruptions of transportation networks, interaction with modern structures and infrastructures will surely represent a big challenge.

Simultaneously, everything is still mired in uncertainty. In reality, scientists from the University of Geneva state that we are just beginning to appreciate the global ramifications of such an event. Moreover, forecasting the risk of future volcanic eruptions is problematic because there are very few records of older ones. Ice cores obtained from Greenland and Antarctica, along with ancient tree rings, are used by researchers to reconstruct past volcanic activity; these reconstructive avenues serve as records of historical weather-related disruptions. These data imply that, in the past couple of millennia, several eruptions caused a temporary drop in the global temperature of about 2 to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit for a certain number of years. One of the most disastrous examples is the 1257 eruption of Samalas in Indonesia; it was probably responsible for the beginning of the Little Ice Age, a period of generally global cooling lasting for centuries. More recent and far less powerful, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 caused faint global cooling for a few years. With the eruption occurring in the satellite era, it allowed studies to determine just how much sulfur dioxide was vented and how it impacted the atmosphere. But even with satellites and seismic equipment, volcanologists face serious difficulties with predicting when the next big volcanic eruption will arrive. A lack of sufficient long-term historical records prevents any serious prediction and thus force preparations to be made on probabilistic models.

In readiness, with the requisite foresight confirmed not to be observed, the study of worst-case scenarios would greatly help due preparations by the authorities. Among these would be the laying out of evacuation procedures and also the stockpiling of food against global crop failures induced mainly by volcanic cooling. The different weather patterns might induce volcanic activity. The melting of glaciers reduces the weight over underground magma, which increases the chances of an eruption. More extreme precipitation, which is on the rise, may get into the cracks of the volcanoes' chambers and trigger catastrophic explosions powered by steam. Such explosions could result from either active or dormant volcanoes. Such hazards are leading scientists to map volcanoes that are susceptible to climate change, with their findings pointing to the highest supervolcano hazard from areas such as Iceland, Chile, and Indonesia. These are places where glaciers are fast melting and rainfall is growing very rapid. According to a study carried out in 2022, 716 volcanoes worldwide, approximately 58% of all known active above-water volcanoes, may be set off by extreme rainfall, increasing the chance of another mini ice age. If no anticipation is done, millions could face displacement, economic hardship, the risk of food security, and the enhancement of long-term recovery causation.

Back to what happened on January 15, 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption. Scientists have established it to constitute by far the greatest plume recorded. The underwater volcano in the South Pacific launched an ash cloud to an elevation of 187,000 feet, which is higher than any other eruption on record. Even more fascinating about this eruption is that it is the first-ever reaching the mesosphere-the third layer of the Earth's atmosphere. The mesosphere starts at about 160,000 feet above Earth, where meteors begin burning up and become the shooting stars. In the observational task of measuring the height of the plume, researchers from the University of Oxford and RAL Space combined data from three geostationary weather satellites. Until recently, the record for the highest volcanic plume belonged to the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, which reached 131,000 feet in height. Such measurements were made possible only with the advancement of satellite technology, which nobody would have even dreamt of ten years back. Scientists continue to emphasize that keeping volcanoes under close surveillance is very important because technological advancements could provide warning signs that would save a lot of lives.