The Eruption of the Tambora in 1815 was pretty impressive too. It is reckoned to be the largest explosion in recorded history and ejected around 200 cubic kilometres of volcanic dust into the atmosphere. It caused worldwide climate change for years and resulted in the worst famine of the century.

These types of scientists like this guy who painstakingly studied and entered all that tree ring info into a computer program over decades is invaluable information. It amazes me.

A key question to ask is how these mega volcanos erupting at known points in history (535, 1815 & 1883) affected world climate patterns not only in terms of sunlight & temperature, but also in terms of precipitation & ice accumulation.

I'm always amazed what our ancestors came through. Wars, famines, diseases like the Bubonic Plague and others plagues.

Hats off to all the human beings that endured such a horrific time in our earths history!

Some added details from Wikipedia: The storms and unseasonably cold weather resulted in 1816 being referred to as the Year Without a Summer. It is now known that the exceptional global weather conditions that year were caused by the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The Villa Diodati is a mansion in the village of Cologny near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, notable because Lord Byron rented it and stayed there with Dr. John Polidori in the summer of 1816. Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, who had rented a house nearby, were frequent visitors. Because of poor weather, in June 1816 the group famously spent three days together inside the house creating stories to tell each other, two of which were developed into landmark works of the Gothic horror genre: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre, the first modern vampire story, by Polidori.

I love all these science based documentaries by Timeline. Some of the last quality left on TRshow for this genre.

Its amazing what a Volcano has the capability of doing. Remember the one in Iceland back in 2010? That thing wasn't that huge, yet it screwed up the air so bad that European travel was on lock down for weeks. Plus the area was under black clouds for such a long time that crops died. Imagine what a volcano eruption the size of the one they are talking about would look like.

I love how all the reactions/comments/experiences inspire me to research more. The comments pointed me to eruptions I never heard of before, human history I never knew of. This is a very inspirational documentary which shows science at its best.

Amazing how a person would spend many years of their life deeply investigating a mystery just out of curiosity, that most people would find completely trivial, the hallmark of a good scientist.

Thank you to all the scientists who put the pieces together. Y'all rock.

This is one of the most exciting and informative documentary I've seen. Very interesting and extremely impressive how this event was decoded. Hats off to everyone.

About a third of the way through, I said to myself: "If they don't mention Krakatoa, I will be sorely disappointed." A fabulous film, this is the best documentary I've seen. Really beautifully done, both in information and style. Years with no sun! Sparked the Dark Ages, I believe. See my analogy! is both on and off the money. "Sparking" something so dark is oxymoronic. But volcanoes are the biggest sparks around.

I will never forget the summer of 1984, in Germany. After having lived in Germany for 20 years, I suddenly experienced a year with no summer at all, with heavy clouds, and overcast; no sun at all! The spring rains just continued right through June, and July. In fact, the rain continued every day, until mid September, when we had about 10 days without rain, and then it started to rain again. The whole year had been cold, and miserable. That autumn, I stood watching as the rain kept falling until, on 3 November, the rain drops suddenly turned into snowflakes! The following winter had heavy snows, right up into April. We saw the first real sunshine in May of 1985. 1984 had been preceded by several significant volcanic eruptions, in Kilauea, and in Alaska, Europe, and Asia, which continued into the early weeks of 1984.

The oldest recorded living tree on record is a Great Bristlecone pine, believed to have a lifespan of over 5,000 years. Located in the White Mountains of California, this unnamed tree is considered the oldest living tree in the world.

Crazy how it takes all these various disciplines to come together to solve a simple question …what happened to make the trees not grow so well in mid 500 AD. I love science cause none of this would have been possible without other scientist researching their own curiosities. Who knows how or when this slice of knowledge will be useful to some other scientist some where.

From trees in Europe to the tropics. Everything about this documentary was outstanding.

This is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a while. I’m in awe of the scientists that have collected all this data and painstakingly put it together. They are the some of the best of humanity. I hope we as a species continue our focus in science and our endless curiosity to know more about the world around us.

Excellent documentary! The island blowing itself apart at the end was extremely well done. Whoever was in charge of the SFX on this deserves an award.

Going back in time, we see large climatic rhythms. A deep temp trough with the worst being the 1600s. Where floe ice so tightly surrounded Iceland, one year, that fishing fleets couldn't leave Reykjavik that year. Long-term cooling had already been underway for centuries. But a recent study suggests an exacerbating factor: the 1500s-early 1600s death of many Amerindians, their farm land reverting to forests, creating a giant carbon sink, chilling the atmosphere. Farther back in time is a long warm spell. Vikings lived in Greenland--in land-based agriculture, with enough grass for their herds--for 4 centuries. They even had trees. Going back roughly a 1000 more years is Hadrian's Wall, with nearby vineyards.That was the peak of Roman Empire power, in a several-centuries warm spell. In between--related to this documentary--was a long-term cold spell. That was under way well before 536AD. Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals invaded Western Europe, because of cooling-related lost grazing land, a century earlier. Starting the dark ages, back then. But the 536AD event, making a cold era even colder, would have exacerbated the cold trend. Making the dark ages even darker. Very catastrophic, to already infrastructure-weakened European peoples.

Our species would've went extinct if not for the short time frame and the resilience we as a species have developed. Worst part about this, there would be literally nothing you could do to prevent something like this from happening again. Nature is a wild beast and we are simply holding on for dear life.

I have had Keys' book since it was published in 1999 and have read it several times. It always seemed a fairly important idea and his research seems detailed indeed. What puzzles me most is that despite looking for it over 20 years, I have never seen any serious follow up to either challenge or confirm it. I find that a big negative for historians of the time.

Immanuel Velikovskis book entitled "Worlds in Collision" Is one of the most amazing books I have read on this topic. It was written in the 50's and it covers a world wide disaster from many of the major nations all over the world.

Very interesting report. Explained the process very well and suggests the probable answer to the question. Well done.

Amazing documentary. Not only did they film THE royal archivist of Java reading ancient texts in some of the most beautiful footage I have seen, but then they went and funded a Finnish researcher to help him prove his theory on what happened! Outstanding and highly recommendable documentary.

There were people on the beach just before Krakatoa exploded who described what it was like to have those bombs hurled at them. Apparently they got far enough away to survive the big explosion.

I can't even imagine how destructive that eruption must have been to have such far reaching consequences.

What a glowing testament to painstaking scientific research! The work of these researchers has made it easy for us to understand historic events in half an hour or so of a globally accessible documentary thanks to the other scientists and engineers who gave birth to the technology powering the internet - and the internet itself.

now this is a good documentary. it walks you through how you know, instead of just claiming the theory. most documentaries do a slow paced narration like this, but have so little substance. This one actually has substance.

if i remeber correctly, Professor Mike Rampino did some deep research about mass extinction, global warming or cooling caused by volcanic eruptions. we need more scientists like these. its fascinating and interesting to see their results and how (for everyone plausible and understandable) things happened long long ago.

Yes, the sound of a volcano can travel even further. “A loud bang” is pretty accurate. I heard the Tonga volcano a week ago. There was a loud noise, followed by a lot of smaller noises. I guess it woke me up, because I was awake before I heard it, but I think the loudest noise happened before and that’s what woke me. It was like 4:00 AM, and somehow I knew the sound was significant and that I would find out later what had made it.

A large asteroid impact can trigger volcanic eruptions at its antipode. The theory goes that many of the flood basalt eruptions were initially triggered by impact events at their antipodes. Especially the Deccan Traps. The hotspot that formed the traps has its antipode on the Yucatan Peninsula, which has an impact crater from an event believed to have triggered something akin to an atomic winter. Many scientists now accept that the two events happened in very close proximity to one another on the timeline, and are thus related. The sound of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai erupting was heard literally all around the world. People reported it as far away as Yukon, Canada. The eruption was a high end VEI 4, but it was loud because it was partially submerged, meaning some of that noise was water flashing to steam. The VEI 6 eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 was at least equally as loud, because it too was partially submerged. There's something about flashing seawater to steam that helps amplify the sound of a volcano's explosive eruptions. So the volcano they're looking for is probably its own island. Or was, until the eruption. In order to have the meteorological impact that it did, it would have to be a mid-level VEI 7. And yes, Krakatoa is known to be capable of VEI 7 eruptions.

This is a marvelous example of how the scientific process is to work. Unlike the "examples" we have experienced recently.

It's scary that this can happen again at any number of high populated places on earth at any given second. But, for some reason we've programmed ourselves that they only happened in the past.

When Krakatoa exploded in 1883, the sound was heard about 2,000 miles away in Perth, Australia. So for the Chinese to hear this explosion in 536, it had to be a major eruption of Krakatoa. As I said earlier the eruption had to be a high VEI 7 or 8 and I wouldn't want to be anywhere around it when it exploded. Excuse my English, I'm deaf and normally don't post because of critics complaining about deaf people.

Cống hiến hơn nữa trong sự nghiệp của mình. Một lần nữa cảm ơn Đức Phúc và chương trình đã mang đến những giây phút thư giãn này. Mãi yêu!!!❤❤❤

This was so informative, explaining many things I didn't quite understand or tying together all the different ways we date cataclysmic world events(which allow us to understand history in a new light-or is it new darkness?). It is fascinating, thank you!

Excellent article, and can lend insights to the many historical changes that occurred than and after.

Researchers have discovered that there were two huge eruptions, one in 536 (7 on the scale ) and one in 540 being firstly in north America or Iceland and later in El Salvador ( Ilopango Volcana - 8 on the scale ).

The scary thing is that if a super volcanic eruption happened in modern times probably would be more devastating because of overpopulation, countless millions would die and probably would lead to war over the simplest of resources, being food, fresh water and medicine.

Dendrochronology has been an accepted science in forestry since at least 1870. Yes, making a computer record of the dendrochronology developed dramatically in the 1980s with access to desktop computers and data storage. In the mid-1980s, 35 years ago, we were doing much of this in my Forestry degree. We could do all of this except not so computer automated. This is a very interesting subject, but the thoughts that this is new is very wrong. Dendrochronology is a well established science.

I accidentally pushed the Bedankt button and put my reaction over there,congratulating the people who made this solid scientific video with their years of work.Thank you,working together will solve these important riddles and get us on track to where we should go to get ahead.

I remember watching a series on this research back in 1999 and then in 2001 on SBS. I was so fascinated, I bought the book and read it cover to cover. The book describes the mass migration of people around the globe. Absolutely fascinating.

I am amazed at the disregard we have for nature, and this shows it in all its glory. It must have been felt half way round the globe at the time it took place and have created a buge amount of fear as people understood next to nothing about such matters. The fact that it has sat quietly simmering since tben, only says that it could come to life at any time, along with other volcanoes which also have a build up time before letting go.I recall the icelantic eruption and the problems that created. Goo d video and very enlightening.

This documentary is really well done . It demonstrates the evidence , then what is missing in those sources to help bring a conclusion. Let us hope WWIII does not progress. Wishing you Peace from USA .

Growing up in rural Ohio the only fun thing to do was to play in the woods and build forts from tree branches- when it was raining the only fun thing to do was reading the encyclopedia set we had- had read about the little ice age since then, and most people I’ve talked to don’t even believe it happened. So many people haven’t even heard of it.

The atmosphere is terrifying. Exquisitely produced documentary

The question I have is what was the alignment of the planets during these events? Gravitational pull of the planets has been connected with earthquakes. Is it possible that it is also connected with volcanic eruptions? Could it also predict the magnitude of eruptions? They talk about when eruptions have occurred, but they don't seem concerned about the cause of the eruptions.

I love how we get to come along on the whole journey to find out what happened. Quality documentary!

The event sounds much like a super volcano event in which the eruption was so enormous that the ash spewed into the atmosphere blocked the sun’s rays from heating the planet, causing plummeting temperatures for a couple of years as the ash slowly fell from the sky, allowing the sun’s rays to emerge to reheat the planet. Depending on the ash that came out of the volcano, if it was acidic, could have caused any kind of rainfall to be detrimental in terms of causing drought, which would explain the very thin tree rings. What else other than a possible shifting of the global winds could have caused such a drought? If the global winds shifted so that the weather patterns would then have to rise up and over mountainous terrain it hadn’t previously, then the leeward side of the mountain would experience very little rain, leading to drought. Maybe events such as El Niño or La Niña were present back then when an extreme event took place, affecting the region for a period of a couple of years.

Great science looking at evidence from all over the world. Unfortunately, as often happens with these stories they seem to neglect the Southern Hemisphere where it is known that there is only a low level of intermixing of the atmosphere.

Thank you for sharing this insight and for the work you’ve done

It's past overdue that the work of Immanuel Velikovsky needs to be re-appraised. he was a visionary well ahead of his time and ahead of the new discoveries that vindicate him.

The explosion of Pinatubo in the early 1990s had a dramatic effect for at least two summers, it was cold and very rainy to start. The winters had more snow and seemed longer, more like the 1950s and 1960s, so no big news. During those winters, there was snow and ice in every contiguous US state; something that had not happened before. The North American Great Lakes were nearly all frozen, not since the 1940s had that happened.

Who filmed this? I don't expect documentaries to be so exquisitely filmed that scenes make me catch my breath. Wonderful! Well -written, too. Thank you.

We worry more about the Phlegrean fields at Naples than about Yellowstone, the time being...Thank you for an excellent documentary!

Once I visited the active volcano Etna, I realized how small humanity is while nature is huge and so powerful.

Wow! I was on the edge of my seat through this whole presentation-masterfully done!

In the last year, 2021 up to today, 06/22, the volcano activity is increasing tremendously. We haven't seen a "big one" yet, but it could happen at any time.

I live in the city of Bandung on the island of Java, now this city is like a basin surrounded by mountains. This basin exists because of the very powerful eruption of the ancient Sunda volcano. before it could be occupied as it is now, after the devastating eruption it was believed that Bandung was an ancient lake which was very wide because it was surrounded by mountains. But eventually the water disappeared because of an earthquake that changed the structure of the mountains. The islands in Indonesia are indeed full of mysteries, even though when compared to other continents or islands in the world, the islands here are still relatively new. I think it's simple enough to understand how much volcanic activity there is because these new islands can be lifted from the ocean floor.

"Every little eruption adds more and more rock to the island. Eventually it gets so large it blows itself apart." (40:27) This doco certainly called that right! That's exactly what happened the year after this was posted, in December 2018. The island's still there but a third its old height, with Anak Krakatoa's 338 metre cone having blown itself to bits in what amounted to the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 21st Century so far.

I remember my mother said in 1930 they didn't have a summer the only things they could grow were cold hardy plants and what really upset her was the chickens didn't lay PS she lived in the Mississippi Valley near Memphis

Great to learn how natural events can affect the climate! Awesome!

I would be interested in any correlation of tree rings, to sun spots or sun storms or irruptions.

Gotta say, those researchers on Krakatoa featured towards the latter segments of the video are pretty dang intrepid - thing blowing up hours after they were on site, knarly steep rock climbing, pick-axing dense stone croppings - impressive! :-)

I was 18 when I took a trip with my mother to Saint Licia. Whilst on the beach I heard a load explosion. Mt Saint Vincent had erupted. So I actually witnessed a Volcanic eruption. It came up out of the sky like a mushroom cloud. Enormous, not sure what to think of at first, world war three came to mind. I thought I'm going to become the mother of black babies it is. The front desk would not tell us what it was. We were covered in ash at the beach. I don't know how m as my people have seen an actual volcanic eruption but it was pretty facinating.

This process has everything I am really interested in. I just love how Mike Bailey thinks and how he worked this out using tree rings - it’s all of it, it’s so cool. I mean 7,500 years!! How amazing is that?

These guys seem to be more honest with their dating than most. I hear so many claims of X millions of years ago with no verification. These guys are doing actual research.

I love this documentary! The only non-factual segment is regarding annual rings in glacial ice cores. These rings have been observed forming weekly in polar regions. They are not an accurate measurement of yearly events. If ice can be studied from 535AD thats great. But annual rings are not yearly as a constant.

Lake Taupo in New Zealand has a huge caldera under it,twice the size of Yellowstone Lake..1800 years ago there was an eruption comparable to Tambora,and25,000 years ago there was a massive explosion, called Oruanui.

Great documentary. Fascinating conclusion this huge volcanic explosion made the world get much colder, not warmer.

536 AD is the estimated timeframe that the Krakatoa volcano experienced an extremely massive eruption that caused a column of smoke, ash, and debris 13 miles high. So much material was ejected into the atmosphere that it shrouded the Earth causing temperature drops and ensuing human suffering. Krakatoa would erupt massively again around 1200 and the most recent climate-changing eruption was in the 1880s. The 1880s eruption was estimated to be equivalent to 160 megatons, the Tsar Bomba was a measly 57 megatons in comparison.

Since the chemical composition of the ash is different for each volcano and each eruption, I find it odd that they only looked at the sulfur spike in the ice cores and not the composition of the dust, which must have been present as well. It is perfectly possible to get samples at the volcano and from the ice cores and compare the chemistry. You might have to drill into the deposits around the eruption site for your cores, but if there were 2 or more large eruptions within a few years of each other and Carbon dating has a margin of error of + or - tens of years, chemical matching would give you much more definitive results. Perhaps that has been done since this documentary was made. If not, perhaps it ought to be done.

Great content. Informative and enlightening. Thank you!

I'm an American married to an Indonesian wife and live in Solo Indonesia 🇮🇩. I've driven thru the beautiful mountains and seen Kracatau simmering like a teapot. The land is so rich in Indonesia and our paradise.

Shout out to camera man for surviving this disaster.

This is amazing, and an ideally well-done video!

I’m surprised that there are so few sources describing this calamity.

If you’re reading this thank your ancestors who survived this- absolute ballers.

I read the book "The Year Without a Summer" Thought that was bad enough but 10 years! oh my. The Sycamore Gap Tree on Hadrian's Wall was felled 28th September this year, can you make use of it's story within it's rings? Love your work.

The rock that eventually settled reduced in size but substantially in tact was that which we now know as Uluru (Ayers Rock), striking the shallow inland sea and totally vaporising it, and in doing so softened the impact. Although without a written history, aural story telling tells of the creation of features where there were none. The rock has been dated back to well before impact and remains an amazing example of a geographic feature totally barren of any other earth based life or geographic features.

No wonder 535 AD is often called one of the worst times in human history. This event was global and terrifying and had enormous repercussions on many empires and civilizations struggling at the time.

It would be interesting to see what the earthquake activity did after that eruption. Peace and safe blessings, everyone.

Really astonishing research work. Congratulations.

The Plague of Justinian which hit the European world has been dated 541-549 AD. That would correspond almost exactly with this volcanic eruption. Obviously, if food and nutrition is globally interrupted by a massive volcanic eruption then weakened immune systems would result and make plagues a lot easier to happen. Just a thought.

I went to HHRC school we were taught about the little ice age as well as the volcano that caused it.

I'm curious about how much pressure release in the last 110ish years from drilling and fracking may have affected the vulcanism of the world.

I live in New Zealand and as a kid I remember a story that I think was around the same time they are talking when Lake Taupo (a supervolcano) erupted and caused all these same effects idk if the story I heard as a kid was right or not

Quite interesting! Brings new meaning to The Dark Ages...years of cold would have wiped out thousands.

The two consecutive years is completely believable, but what about the one 5 years later? What caused that one, and why wasn't there bad weather for those years between?

I was doing quite a bit of photography the year Mt St Helen had its debut and it was the best year for sunsets ever, this was in the south of England, it wasn't a huge eruption by comparison and I was half a world away. I wonder how prepared we are today for something similar, our technology would help but millions would die before it was over.

One of my favorite tales regarding disaster in written history is the quote " before there was a Moon" . Second is the Native American tale that the Grande Tetons grew in a week. And then the thoroughly out dated notion the something big has to hit the ground for these occurrences to happen when plasma and electrical discharges can cause equal if not more havoc

Thank you. Just found this. It corroborates my research (and suspicions of this returning "issue").

I’m 83 years old and find these programmes informative and fascinating.

I live next to a national park where the government, in their infinite wisdom, cut down some rather large cedar trees. They were basically trees that grew up out of solid rock so. There have been similar trees found to be 2200 years old in the general area.

Awesome work! Very impressive!

Medieval historian Micahel McCormick, a Harvard archaeologist and chair of the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past, explained to Science: "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year," McCormick speaks of the ill-fated year of 536.(2018)

A very good factual documentary. True science is sometime done after all.

Hearing sounds at distances is so strange. When I heard the Tonga volcano eruption from American Samoa I didn't know what it was. It sounded like distant, ongoing artillery. I didn't think about it much, but then Facebook Messenger advised us that there was an eruption and there was a danger of tsunami we evacuated. It still seems strange to me that I heard something from hundreds of miles away.

you guys need to do a sulfur density plotting map - the sulfur density in the soil will increase the closer you get to the ground zero eruption point. Start in China where they said yellow stuff (likely sulfur) was falling from the sky.