Krakatoa Erupts in the Sunda Strait
August 27, 1883 · 19th Century
On August 27, 1883, the volcanic island of Krakatoa in Indonesia's Sunda Strait exploded with a force equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT. The blast, audible 4,800 kilometers away in Mauritius, produced tsunamis up to 37 meters high that killed over 36,000 people across Java and Sumatra. Ejected sulfur dioxide aerosols lowered global temperatures by approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius for five years. Atmospheric ash produced vivid red sunsets worldwide, inspiring artists and prompting early scientific study of volcanic climate forcing.
Key Figures
Rogier Verbeek
Locations
Krakatoa, Sunda Strait
Topics
volcanic eruptionstsunamisclimate forcingatmospheric sciencenatural disastersglobal cooling
Connected Events — 3 Connections
Pinatubo replicated Krakatoa's sulfur-aerosol cooling mechanism, enabling modern validation of volcanic climate models Mount Pinatubo Eruption Cools Global Climate
Post-Krakatoa temperature data contributed to Arrhenius's understanding of atmospheric effects on global temperature Arrhenius Calculates CO2-Driven Warming
Krakatoa joined Vesuvius as a reference point for understanding catastrophic volcanic events Eruption of Vesuvius Buries Pompeii and Herculaneum
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