The Decade Without A Summer

JohnJacques

Banned
Coming from the thread about the weakest United States possible......

1901, Yellowstone Volcano erupts.

I honestly haven't done enough research on the topic to know how it affects the world, but thats why I'm posting.

Anyone care to discuss it?
 
Yellowstone is waaaay too big. The US from the Rockies to the sea is essentially wiped out under the ashfall, and climate is crewed for centuries. Yellowstone is a apocalyptic scenario.
 
Coming from the thread about the weakest United States possible......

1901, Yellowstone Volcano erupts.

I honestly haven't done enough research on the topic to know how it affects the world, but thats why I'm posting.

Anyone care to discuss it?

Lots of dead people. Probably a new ice age. The Southern Hemisphere gets off a little easier compared to the Northern Hemisphere.

To give you an idea how big of an area that was directly impacted. Here is a map from a previous eruption of the area covered just by the pyroclastic flow. Anything living in that area is incinerated.

2nrdkpf.jpg


It would take humanity centuries to recover.

Torqumada
 

JohnJacques

Banned
Well, from what I've read, Yellowstone supervolcano scenarios range from less worse than the last eruption to far worse than the last one.

Thats a whole range of bad, though.

As I brought up in that thread, the Supervolcano would not only hurt the United States but it would for most intents and purposes, destroy human civilization.

How much better would it be in the Southern Hemisphere, exactly?
 
How much better would it be in the Southern Hemisphere, exactly?

It would be a relative thing, understand. From what I understand, the resulting ash would hit the northern hemishpere the hardest since there isn't a great deal of mixing between the northern and southern jet streams.

Jetstreamconfig.jpg


There will still be some mixing and there would be a decrease in sunlight to the southern hemisphere, but not as badly as that northern hemisphere. You might get some short growing seasons to at least get some food, instead of just massive vegetation die off. So, it wouldn't be a tropical pardise, but there could be a basic level of sustinance agriculture.

It's the exact same kind of scenario as Peshawar Lancers.

Torqumada
 
As I brought up in that thread, the Supervolcano would not only hurt the United States but it would for most intents and purposes, destroy human civilization.

Doubt that. The thing does erupt every 600 000 years or so, and does not trigger ice ages, or even manage to leave a track in the extrinction records. Which means that all the species around in North America manage to survive.

The USA is gone though. Mexico and Canada may be in for bad immediate effects as well. Depending on the weather during the eruption and which way the wind takes most of the ash.

The rest of the world goes through a number of really bad years in terms of summers that just blend into winter. Significant starvattion may topple already shaky countries, such as Russia.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
But there is a big difference between the pre-human world and even 1901.

Human infrastructure and "pockets" of the natural environment prevent migrations that did stop extinctions. Look at the Midwest in 1800 compared to today, for a good example of this. Also, look at the number of domesticated animals- animals ill-suited to life in the wild or even in harsh conditions.

Secondly, human populations at the time require a large amount of food- most of which at this point, is gathered by intensive agriculture. A big die-off would hurt more than just countries like Russia. Its going to starve Africa as well, and likely hurt Britain and much of Europe as well.

Significant starvation across the globe will get worse when combined with wars- which will certainly happen. Look at the intense effort needed to feed Europe after WWI. Now make it worse.

Its not going to just hit the USA or even the Western hemisphere- that is certain. Just the OTL Year Without a Summer was bad enough. This is much worse than Tambora's explosion.
 
Perhaps Yellowstone erupts, but it's a smaller-scale eruption, not a pyroclastic-flow-that-destroys-half-the-US.

US agriculture takes a big hit, meaning less US food exports abroad. European crops suffer as the smoke and ash spread.
 
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