Word: krakatoas
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...such a complex mix of factors that it becomes impossibly difficult to isolate just one. For example, climatologists do not yet know the exact role of atmospheric dust. Dust can cool the earth by screening out warming sunlight, as has been noted after major volcanic eruptions like that of Krakatoa in 1883, yet also act as an atmospheric cap keeping in heat. Says Scripps' Charles Keeling: "Dust impedes radiation in both directions. We do not know if the net effect is heating or cooling." No less puzzling is the possible effect on world temperature of changes in the atmosphere...
Volcanically speaking, the eruption of Vesuvius on Aug. 24, A.D. 79, was a squib compared with the more recent explosions of Krakatoa or Mont Pelée. But no seismic event has ever had wider cultural repercussions. Buried under 12 ft. of deadly ash and scoriae, the city of Pompeii-a flourishing town on the Bay of Naples, filled with rich men's villas, tradesmen's houses and the workshops of the poor-was in the moment of its snuffing-out turned into the most complete social time capsule left by the Roman world. Since major excavations...
Thera, which erupted in 1500 B.C., blew the top off the Greek isle of that name and destroyed a civilization. Vesuvius, which came to life in A.D. 79, buried the town of Pompeii and its inhabitants under tons of lava and ash in hours. When Indonesia's Krakatoa exploded in 1883, it killed 35,000 people and released with a single blast the energy equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima bombs...
...Krakatoa's Activity. Even a single major volcanic outburst adds so much dust to the atmosphere that it reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface; the result can be a brief but noticeable cooling of global climate. After the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, for instance, unusually cool weather was reported in many parts of the world for several years. The evidence is still preserved in the annual growth rings of old trees. Only recently, scientists at the University of Arizona's tree-ring laboratory discovered disturbed rings in California trees, dating back...
Greenspan first won worldwide attention during the Depression (TIME, July 22, 1935) when he accurately forecast earthquakes in Chile, Peru, Japan and India, as well as a savage volcanic eruption in Krakatoa. He was more or less dismissed by the scientific community as a lucky crackpot. But he resurfaced within the past couple of years in Laguna Beach, and astounded Californians by predicting the time and date (Feb. 9, 1971 at 6 a.m.) of the San Fernando earthquake that killed 64 people and wrought more than $500 million worth of damage. Greenspan has missed the mark before; he has thrice...