This is what I worry could happen today.
“Archeologists who discovered thousands of skeletons in a mass London grave believe they were the victims of a 13th Century volcanic eruption which took place thousands of miles away,” says this article in The Daily Mail.
One of the largest eruptions of the past 10,000 years, the volcano’s gases created a veil of dry fog across the earth’s stratosphere which blocked out sunlight, altered the atmosphere and cooled the Earth’s surface causing famine, plague and death.
It is believed as many as 15,000 people in London could have perished.
The location of the volcano has not yet been discovered but researchers believe it could have been as far away as Mexico, Ecuador and Indonesia and was up to eight times higher that Indonesia’s Krakatoa eruption in 1883.
A monk wrote in 1258:
“North wind has lasted for several months, hardly a flower or bud has been seen, and the hope of a harvest is uncertain [...] Countless poor people have died and their bodies have been swollen from starvation [...] epidemic was huge, inhuman, it affected the poor in particular. In London alone has 15 000 poor people died. “
The eruption “may have lowered temperatures by up to four degrees, which is a huge setback,” says volcanologist Bill McGuire.
Tests from Antarctica shows that the eruption was nearly eight times more powerful than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, when tens of thousands of people died.
This is what I worry could happen today. Such an eruption could not only drive us into an ice age, it could cause famine, plague and death for those living thousands of miles away from the glaciated areas.
We’d be fighting in the streets for food.
The only thing that could save us is our modern methods of agriculture and our modern means of transporting that food to the people who need it.
But with President Obama and other leaders around the world doing everything in their power to cut off our energy supplies … well, good luck on that one.
See entire article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183973/Thousands-skeletons-London-burial-pit-victims-volcanic-eruption-thousands-miles-away.html
See also:
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/londonbor-i-massgrav-dog-av-vulkanutbrott
Thanks to Emma Corryand Bjorn Sefeldt for this link
“If you look at the chart that put on your site about sun spot counts in relation to mini ice ages that would put it at the wolf stage,” says reader Edwin Rees.
Edwin Rees is correct. That link is here:
Volcanism may have triggered Little Ice Age
30 Responses to Thousands of buried skeletons in London killed by volcanic eruption thousands of miles away
SUNSPOTS
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Modern agriculture is getting its butt kicked by a moderate drought right now. What we need is a modern storage facility with at least 3 years of food. Quit putting food in gas tanks.
Hear hear!
If possible, people should buy and store their own one year supply of food. Staples like the grains are affordable and are easily stored. Grains can be stored safely for many years, if the bugs and moisture are kept out. 60 pounds, one bushel of wheat is worth $8 on the farm. Chickpea $20. Lentil $10 a bushel. Grains are cheap when you buy in bulk from the farmer. Flax, durum, peas, beans, rice. A bushel of each will not cost that much. If you never use your supply, it’s no big loss of an investment.
A similar event happened in Ireland in the 6th Century when harvests failed for several years causing widespread famine and death. The culprit is believed to have been a volcano in Indonesia. Monks wrote about cold and wet summer seasons when nothing grew.
One Vulcanologist who I ran across has specialised in Krakatau and has identified a large eruption by Karakatau in the 13th century. There is much controversy between Vulcanologists on this subject. The 6th century (ending of the Roman period)event is also speculated to be Krakatau.
I agree with David Banks, the so called Modern agriculture is week as agriculture always was. Agriculture is based on a handfull of plant closely related to each other. It’s a recipie for deasaster. One of the most fagile source of food you can imagine. If there is no rain harvest will FAIL no ‘modern’ magic trick can save you. If temperature is too cold no ‘modern’ magic trick harvest will FAIL. The 8000 BC magic trick are not less efficent than moderns ones.
This global civilization foolishly run on 57 days of grain supply (last time I checked), 57 days! A number melting year after year. Because we brainlessly beleave in our own magic trick we beleave we can face starvation on global scale. AH! We need to store food for –at least– 1 full year, and more years of supply the best it will be. The wise Incas had 10 years of food in store. We have this ridiculous 57 days, if not less, it’s insane and suicidal. We are living in one of the most short seeing society in whole history.
I still believe we should be building green houses everywhere not just to help with the cold but with less sunlight too. There is no reason why anybody shold starve with the techknowledgey the world has. If only we used our expertise for the good of all humanity and not just for the wealthy and evil and bring peace and love to everyone.
and we continue to burn our food for fuel and believe wind and sun will be our salvation.
folks in the cities will riot. those of us in coal country or forests will find the fuel and manage to survive in a difficult but sustainable agrarian society. bike riding and horses will get us from here to there, and keep us fit. A new decentralized society will arise and we will learn to help one another. Not unlike the folks in the midwest blizzards who leave the comfort of their homes and take snowmobiles to save stranded drivers on the interstate, not waiting for “THE GOVERNMENT” to save them. Larger rural houses will become sites of communes. we will survive and be better for it.
but those who expect something for nothing will be mighty surprised, and good old individuality and hard work will pull us through.
We may be foolish, and some civilization is not civilized, but in the end most of us are civilized and will come through.
This would have been in the medieval warm period too. Im not totally convinced of this [eruption] argument unless there is other evidence from other civilizations like China for low food production and sunlight. Typical Euro centric archaeologists only looking at Europe and ignoring anything else. Also remember in 168 AD the BIGGEST eruption in the last 2000 years by far. Lake Taupo in New Zealand, recorded as sunsets in China at that time, possible all the debris only affected the southern hemisphere, so no ‘British’ were affected..
Well looks like I spoke too soon..here we go with Tongariro!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatepe_eruption
Could it have been an Icelandic volcano, these two reported here were huge in impact upon Europe and the northern hemisphere? ….’In spite of this major historical event in Iceland that changed the path of history, the Laki Volcano eruption in 1783 was not comparable to previous reported eruptions in Iceland, such as the Edlgja eruption of 934 AD which was even greater.’
Agree with concerns on volcanic eruptions. Yellowstone superfund site is another overlooked concern. Boiling pools of sulfur, negative ph levels in water and emissions of tens of thousands of tons of CO2 have occured for the last 600,000 years. Link of more info http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3024/fs2005-3024.pdf
Last three eruptions emitted 800 cubic miles of ash, enough to fill-in Grand Canyon.
25 million people died in Ecuador from an eruption in the 80′s. Has all your fear mongering made you conveniently forget most of history?
25 million?!
I don’t think so. That would be the worst natural disaster in history. According to the 2010 census there are only 15,000,000 souls in Ecuador.
The worst natural disaster in Ecuador during the 1980′s was the Napo Province eartquake which took approximately 1000 souls, and caused about a billion US dollars in damage.
If you look at the chart that put on your site about sun spot counts in relation to mini ice ages that would put it at the wolf stage
You are correct. That link is here: Volcanism may have triggered Little Ice Age
http://iceagenow.info/2012/03/volcanism-triggered-ice-age/
I’ve been telling my sister and brother-in-law, with whom I live, that if worst comes to worst, we will have to live on ground squirrel stew (the area is thick with them) and acorn mush. We live in the lower foothills of the Central Sierra Nevada mountains in California. We have a predominence of Blue Oak here, but mixed with a few others. I’ve been researching how to prepare acorns for human consumtion. The Miwok, Chuckchanci, and other local Native Americans did just that for thousands of years. Acorns was a major source of their diet. They even built graneries where they would store two to three years, or more, of acorns just in case. The process is labor intensive and the resultant flour or grits is low in protein, okay in fat, but high in carbs–about 15 grams per ounce. Still, if worst does come to worst, it is a food source that could help keep a person alive. Here is a link explaining about acorn processing and a couple of recipes, if anyone is interested.
http://honest-food.net/2010/11/23/acorn-eating-revisited/
The weekly world wide body count is 1,092,000 souls. 210,000 of them are children under the age of 10.
Those are big numbers. Do we imagine that we will actually begin exceeding those numbers? Will we start to die in a statistically meaningful way?
I guess only time will tell.
Watch Iceland. especially Askja. Something is going on there!
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/dyn.gif
One of these days one of these monsters WILL blow and we WILL face this situation. It will be carnage.
“… researchers believe it could have been as far away as Mexico, Ecuador and Indonesia… ”
this basically means: it could be anywhere in the world!:-)
Usual suspects are concentrated around the equator. An equatorial eruption material will be dispersed over both hemispheres.
Sorry can’t let this go.
Flargen: 25 million – modern day, the population is less than 15 millon… in the 60′s it was around 7 million… where did these 25 milion people come from? Who do you think you are … Bill Clinton… just make up a stat.
A friend of mine lost his farm in Georgia because of a drought because he had no irrigation. In CA all farms have an irrigation system. Time to realize the climate may not stay the same and you might not get rain for a while to water your crops. In CA we have droughts all the time. It might be time to update our farming methods.
This eruption is actually what seems to have caused the Earth to go from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age. If it hadn’t happened, then the Greenland Icecap might have disappeared some time ago.
I’ve been concerned at how everyone seems to think that centralized government will ride in on a white horse no matter what may come, and I have rain barrels and backyard agriculture all in the works. I think a virus pandemic or an EMP would have tremendous impact more because of modern technology than in spite of it.
Looks like Mt Tongariro in New Zealand has started acting up
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/new-zealands-mt-tongariro-erupts/story-e6frfq80-1226444411707
In the 50′s the federal government bought surplus food and stored it in wharehouses. There was literally mountains of butter, wheat and half a dozen other foods they stored. While I don’t think this exact method should be used again I do believe that today the government does the opposite and this may one day work against our interests. By that I mean the government pays farmers to not produce. Not in the crazy way that first comes to mind but simply through organization and incentives controls how much wheat, corn, dairy, soy and other produce is grown and produced. If we were to simply allow the farmers, dairy and ranchers to produce as much as they could and then use the latest technology (freeze dried, canning, cold storage) to create a emergency food supply the cost may well be no greater then the subsidy we pay to turn corn into fuel, while the potential benefit would be exponentially greater then what ethanol has brought us.
We still purchase vast quantities of food stuffs. When they are getting close to expiration they are supposed to go to food banks. You should have seen the mountains of food that came out of FEMA during Katrina.
You can tour your local FEMA facilities and see what they have stored.
A source of trouble which we have not seen before and is never before recorded in history is the new phenomenon of NOCTILUCENT CLOUD. NASA have reported that in their opinion NLC are the result of the Earth collecting interstellar space dust. The NLC block out sunlight. Especially effectively because NLC are situated at approximately 75 kilometers altitude or more. Due to their extreme altitude these NLC are going to be around for a very long time. In my opinion these NLC are perhaps the real reason for the coming of major glaciation cycles ? One should at least factor NLC into the equation. Volcanic activity is affecting climate in a short term, because the ash and vapours quickly get washed out of the atmosphere by weather systems. But NLC is at such a high altitude that one can seriously expect the affects to be around for virtually eternity ! Since NLC is on the increase it is my opinion that this NLC phenomenon is only going to get worse. From the experts in how volcano eruptions affect climate I want to know how NLC compares with volcanic eruptions. Is the NLC phenomenon equal to or even worse than a super volcano eruption ?
Interesting point, but you said,
” … But NLC is at such a high altitude that one can seriously expect the affects to be around for virtually eternity … ”
I think strong solar radiation could disperse this high altitude cloud and affect its composition.
On the other hand, in times of low solar radiation as we are now the effects of the “albedo” of the NLC should intensify.
It’s impressive how many mechanisms seem to be acting now that are favorable to a colder climate, and even more impressive is how the “warmists” still try to deny it.
Ok for the moment I just deposited $2,500 in a CD, assuming that nothing catastrophic will happen the rest of this year in the U.S. I’m not sure about all the 2012 talk, but if I feel that a catastrophic volcanic eruption (like Katla, Yellowstone or other supervolcano) is imminent, I will remove that CD and invest that in a 5 month supply of food immediately.