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17th-Century England Had Some Seriously Horrible Weather
Illustration: Wikimedia Commons (Fair Use)
Recent years have brought record-breaking wildfires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters supercharged by climate change. But even to our jaded modern eyes, the weather that befell Bristol in Western England at the turn of 17th century is pretty shocking.
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The meteorological situation in Bristol occurred during a short timespan within the Little Ice Age called the Grindelwald Fluctuation, so named for the expansion of a Swiss glacier by the same name. A team of researchers from the University of Bristol and University College London recently inspected Tudor-era chronicles describing the weather phenomena, which included huge floods, snowstorms, frigid temperatures, and storms. Their findings are published in the Royal Meteorological Society journal Weather.
Abstract
This essay gives a brief overview of the events of 26-27 August 1883, when the volcanic island of Krakatoa in Indonesia exploded; it generated tsunamis which killed over 36,000 people, was heard 3,000 miles away, and produced measurable changes in sea level and air pressure across the world. The essay then discusses the findings of the Royal Society’s Report on Krakatoa, and the reports in the periodical press of lurid sunsets resulting from Krakatoa’s dust moving through the atmosphere. It closes by examining literature inspired by Krakatoa, including a letter by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poem by Alfred Tennyson, and novels by R. M. Ballantyne and M. P. Shiel.