BOOK REVIEWS 73

brief to adequately account for the fascinating range of topics that they offer. And the final chapter about estimating the rheological prop- erties of lavas from morphology seems out of place at the end of the book and would have been better served as an addition to the first one-third of the book.

Despite these encumbrances, it is hard to fault a book like this. Indeed, the simple fact is that although this is not an exhaustive discus- sion on the subject, it is still an excellent sum- mary of planetary volcanism, and includes ref- erences listed by chapter so that the interested

reader can pursue subtopics in particular areas of interest. It should be on the shelves of every volcanologist.

Reference Cited

Basaltic Volcanism Stud? Project / BVSP ). 19~ 1. Ba.sa/m' I'(dcuni,xm oH lh~" 7i'rrc~tr/~d l>/atlcl~ Pergamon Pn'ss. Inc.. New York. 1286 pp,

I.S. CRUMPL IZR / / 'mvcd~'m< RI. [ ",'.l)

The Year without a Summer? World Climate in 1816, edited by C.R. Harrington, Canadian Mu- seum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada, 1992. Soil cover; 576 pp., Price (about $45 US 1. ISBN 0-660- 13063-7.

The year of 1816, "The Year Without a Summer", is probably the best known example of a volcanically induced climate cooling event. It is generally though to have been caused by the eruption of Tambora, Indonesia, on April 11-12 of the previous year, which erupted 50 km 3 of magma and yielded 100 megatons ( 10 ~4 g) of sulfuric acid aerosols in what is one of the largest known eruptions of the past few thou- sand years. The aerosol veil caused cooling by up to I°C regionally, and probably more lo- cally, with effects lasting until the end of 1816 and extending to both hemispheres. It snowed and was unusually cool for long periods that summer in eastern North America. Abnor- mally cold temperatures in western Europe contrasted with warmer than average condi- tions in eastern Europe. The unusual weather led to widespread famine and misery, although the connection to volcanic aerosols was not re- alized at the time. Interestingly, the Tambora eruption occurred during the time of the Maunder sunspot minimum, and available temperature records show a cooling trend be- ginning in the late 1790's.

The aftermath of the Tambora eruption has been the subject of several articles and the

books Volcano Weather by H. and E. Stommel (Seven Seas Press, Newport, 1983) and The Last Subsistence Crisis in the 14"estern World by J.D. Post (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1977). The latter title gives some idea of how serious conditions really were. Now here is a new monograph on the topic, an ed- ited volume by C.R. Harrington of the papers presented at the International Meeting on "The Year Without a Summer? Climale in 181~." held in Ottawa in June 1988. Whereas the pre- vious books concentrated on the socio-eco- nomic aspects and contemporary accounts of the hardships, this new book presents a bal- anced scientific account of the cause and ef- fects of that infamous year. In forty papers, most fairly short and to the point, the proceed- ings first cover general aspects of the volcan- ology of Tambora's eruption and climate at that time. It then treats the climatic impact from temperature records, meteorological recon- structions, and proxy records in four major geographically arranged sections, North Amer- ica, Europe, Asia, and Southern Hemisphere. Proxy record analysis, including dendrochron- ology, ice-core studies, sea ice-coverage rec- ords, and ecological changes, form the largest

i 74 Bo~ )K R[ VIEW5

portion of the book. The emphasis is definitely on historical climate but the information is valuable to anyone interested in the effects of volcanism on the environment. Perhaps the greatest value of the book is that it collects in- formation from several disciplines, and from diverse sources, into one volume.

The relatively small amount of volcanology in the book is contained in the chapters by H. Sigurdsson and S. Carey on the eruption dy- namics, aerosols, and environmental effects of the Tambora event, and in the only chapter that is not specifically about the 1815-17 period by C.A. Wood on the "Climatic effects of the 1783 Laki eruption". The latter is a very welcome expansion on Wood's much quoted Eos (Transactions of the American Geophysical Union), 1982, article on the "Amazing and Portentous Summer of 1783". Again, as with Tambora and 1816, it is still not known how much of the severe weather of 1783-4 was due to the Laki aerosols but some startling pieces

of information are given, such as freezing of the Mississippi at New Orleans and ice floes in the Gulf of Mexico in February 1784.

The book contains many papers by well-es- tablished people in the field of climate change, including H.H. Lamb. The quality of papers and information presented is high, and most of the material has not, I believe, been published elsewhere (except that some has been avail- able in reports or non-mainstream journals). At the end is a very useful summary by Cyn- thia Wilson of material presented at the meet-

ing in Ottawa and in the book, in which the overall picture of climate and weather in 1816 is given on a world map.

The book presents the picture of climate in 1816 very fairly. There was a great deal of strange and unseasonable weather, but how much of it is attributable to the Tambora erup- tion, which occurred at about the nadir of a temperature decline lasting for many years, is still undecided. Thus the terrible weather of 1816 was probably a case of accentuation of cooling by the greatest volcanic aerosol event of,recent historic times, when the weather sys- tem was pushed beyond its usual fluctuations to produce exceptional effects worldwide, but especially in the Northern Hemisphere. The accounts of the effects makes sobering reading; are we prepared for a similar occurrence?

"The Year Without a Summer" is a first rate addition to the literature on volcanism and cli- mate. There is only one negative aspect to the book and that is its size. With 8.5× 1 i inch pages, wide margins, and a single column for- mat, it runs to 576 pages; this is a big book to lug around! A format more economical of space might have been adopted. However, with the excellent treatment of the topic, its value as a source of rare information and reference ma- terial, and the current high visibility of post- Pinatubo atmospheric effects, this is a highly recommendable book.

S T E P H E N S E L F (ttomdulu, IlL ~ .Kq)