Geografie 2017, 122, 147-168

https://doi.org/10.37040/geografie2017122020147

Climatic and other responses to the Lakagígar 1783 and Tambora 1815 volcanic eruptions in the Czech Lands

Rudolf Brázdil1,2, Ladislava Řezníčková1,2, Hubert Valášek2, Lukáš Dolák1,2, Oldřich Kotyza3

1Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia
2Masaryk University, Faculty of Sciences, Institute of Geography, Brno, Czechia
3Regional Museum, Litoměřice, Czechia

Received May 2016
Accepted October 2016

Using documentary data and long-term temperature and precipitation series for the years 1775–2007, climatic, weather and other phenomena in the Czech Lands following the 1783 Lakagígar eruption in Iceland and the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia are investigated. The Lakagígar eruption had clear post-volcanic effects on the weather in central Europe (dry fog, heavy thunderstorms, optical phenomena), with the occurrence of significant cold temperature anomalies in winter 1783/84, spring 1785 and the summer and autumn of 1786. The Tambora eruption was not accompanied by any particular weather phenomena, but was followed by an extremely cold summer in 1816. A comparison of the two eruptions shows that the effects of the Lakagígar eruption were climatologically stronger than those of the Tambora eruption.

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Czech Science Foundation for project no. 13-19831S. RB, LŘ and LD also received funding from The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Czech Republic within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I), grant number LO1415.

References

96 live references

Open full article