A climate-scale eruption ahead for Indonesia’s Mt. Agung?

We don’t often use volcanoes and climate in the same sentence. But big eruptions affect climate worldwide.

Example? Indonesia’s Mt. Tambora explodes in 1815. The next summer, frost kills crops in New England. Famine kills hundreds of thousands in Europe. Tambora's cooling effect means 1816 earns the tag "year without a summer."

So, this week’s eruptions in Indonesia and Mexico are getting climate scientists’ attention. You can follow the Mt. Agung live cam here.

Mount_Agung,_November_2017_eruption_-_27_Nov_2017_03
Mount Agung erupts this month. Image: Michael W. Ishak via Wikimedia.

I asked Rutgers University environmental sciences professor Alan Robock if this week’s eruptions are big enough to impact climate?

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Also this week, Bloomberg reports that the credit rating agency Moody’s is telling cities to prepare for climate change, or risk losing access to cheap credit.

The report evaluates cities economic risk to hurricanes and extreme-weather damage, and the number of homes in flood zones.The riskiest states for our 21

st

century climate? You guessed it. Texas and Florida.

The growing cost of climate change, coming to a city near you.