Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Jewish Business News

History & Archeology

Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo caused in part by Indonesian volcanic eruption

Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo caused in part by Indonesian volcanic eruption

A new research confirms the link between the eruption of Indonesian Mount Tambora and the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 18015.

Dr Matthew Genge from Imperial College London discovered that electrified volcanic ash from eruptions can ‘short-circuit’ the electrical current of the ionosphere – the upper level of the atmosphere that is responsible for cloud formation.
This brought heavy rain across Europe that contributed to Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat.

Please help us out :
Will you offer us a hand? Every gift, regardless of size, fuels our future.
Your critical contribution enables us to maintain our independence from shareholders or wealthy owners, allowing us to keep up reporting without bias. It means we can continue to make Jewish Business News available to everyone.
You can support us for as little as $1 via PayPal at office@jewishbusinessnews.com.
Thank you.

The eruption happened two months prior, in April. Mount Tambora volcano erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, killing 100,000 people and forcing the Earth into a ‘year without a summer’.

The findings published in Geology shows that eruptions can hurl ash much higher than previously thought into the atmosphere – up to 100 kilometers above ground.

Dr Genge said: “Previously, geologists thought that volcanic ash gets trapped in the lower atmosphere, because volcanic plumes rise buoyantly. My research, however, shows that ash can be shot into the upper atmosphere by electrical forces.”

A series of experiments showed that that electrostatic forces could lift ash far higher than by buoyancy alone. Dr. Genge created a model to calculate how far charged volcanic ash could levitate, and found that particles smaller than 0.2 millionths of a metre in diameter could reach the ionosphere during large eruptions.

He said: “Volcanic plumes and ash both can have negative electrical charges and thus the plume repels the ash, propelling it high in the atmosphere. The effect works very much like the way two magnets are pushed away from each other if their poles match.”

The experimental results are consistent with historical records from other eruptions.

Weather records are sparse for 1815, so to test his theory, Dr Genge examined weather records following the 1883 eruption of another Indonesian volcano, Krakatau.

The data showed lower average temperatures and reduced rainfall almost immediately after the eruption began, and global rainfall was lower during the eruption than either period before or after.

He also found reports of ionosphere disturbance after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, which could have been caused by charged ash in the ionosphere from the volcano plume.

In addition, a special cloud type appeared more frequently than usual following the Krakatau eruption. Noctilucent clouds are rare and luminous, and form in the ionosphere. Dr Genge suggests these clouds therefore provide evidence for the electrostatic levitation of ash from large volcanic eruptions.

Dr Genge said: “Vigo Hugo in the novel Les Miserables said of the Battle of Waterloo: ‘an unseasonably clouded sky sufficed to bring about the collapse of a World.’ Now we are a step closer to understanding Tambora’s part in the Battle from half a world away.”

Newsletter



Advertisement

You May Also Like

World News

In the 15th Nov 2015 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:   ·         A new Israeli treatment brings hope to relapsed leukemia...

Entertainment

The Movie The Professional is what made Natalie Portman a Lolita.

Travel

After two decades without a rating system in Israel, at the end of 2012 an international tender for hotel rating was published.  Invited to place bids...

VC, Investments

You may not become a millionaire, but there is a lot to learn from George Soros.