What would actually happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted tomorrow?
We follow a supereruption hour by hour: the warning signs scientists would see, the first minute, the pyroclastic flows, an ash cloud so big it spreads against the wind, ash falling on Chicago and New York, and the invisible veil that cools the whole planet for years. And why the explosion itself is not the part that would hurt the most people.
⏱ Chapters
00:00 Yellowstone erupts
00:15 The volcano under the geysers
01:21 Would we see it coming?
01:56 Minute 1: the ground cracks open
02:45 Hour 1: a cloud that spreads against the wind
03:19 Hour 6: the ash falls
03:58 Hour 12: every plane grounded
04:14 Day 1: ash on Chicago
04:49 Day 3: the coasts
05:19 Week 1: the invisible danger
05:47 Pinatubo and the year without a summer
06:20 Month 1: red skies
06:41 Year 1: the cold
07:37 Humanity survived one before
08:15 10 years later
08:46 Could we stop it?
09:16 Should you worry?
10:06 What comes next
???? Sources
• USGS, Modeling ash fall distribution from a Yellowstone supereruption (Mastin, Van Eaton & Lowenstern, 2014): https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/modeling-ash-distribution-yellowstone-supereruption-2014
• USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Questions about supervolcanoes (1 in 730,000 per year): https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/questions-about-supervolcanoes
• Mount Pinatubo 1991 and global cooling (NASA Earth Observatory): https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1510
• 1816, the year without summer (National Park Service): https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/1816-the-year-without-summer.htm
• Humans thrived through the Toba supereruption (Smith et al., Nature 2018): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25967
• NASA JPL idea to cool Yellowstone by drilling (World Economic Forum, 2017): https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/08/nasa-has-a-3-46-billion-plan-to-prevent-the-yellowstone-supervolcano-erupting/
This is a scientific "what if" scenario. Yellowstone is not overdue and is not expected to erupt; timelines and climate effects are simplified and uncertain.
???? Music
"Echoes of Time v2", "Lightless Dawn" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
???? Subscribe for more impossible scenarios grounded in real science.
???? Watch next: What If Earth Stopped Spinning? https://youtu.be/TNnOTmNZjEY
#yellowstone #supervolcano #whatif #science #volcano
We follow a supereruption hour by hour: the warning signs scientists would see, the first minute, the pyroclastic flows, an ash cloud so big it spreads against the wind, ash falling on Chicago and New York, and the invisible veil that cools the whole planet for years. And why the explosion itself is not the part that would hurt the most people.
⏱ Chapters
00:00 Yellowstone erupts
00:15 The volcano under the geysers
01:21 Would we see it coming?
01:56 Minute 1: the ground cracks open
02:45 Hour 1: a cloud that spreads against the wind
03:19 Hour 6: the ash falls
03:58 Hour 12: every plane grounded
04:14 Day 1: ash on Chicago
04:49 Day 3: the coasts
05:19 Week 1: the invisible danger
05:47 Pinatubo and the year without a summer
06:20 Month 1: red skies
06:41 Year 1: the cold
07:37 Humanity survived one before
08:15 10 years later
08:46 Could we stop it?
09:16 Should you worry?
10:06 What comes next
???? Sources
• USGS, Modeling ash fall distribution from a Yellowstone supereruption (Mastin, Van Eaton & Lowenstern, 2014): https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/modeling-ash-distribution-yellowstone-supereruption-2014
• USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Questions about supervolcanoes (1 in 730,000 per year): https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/questions-about-supervolcanoes
• Mount Pinatubo 1991 and global cooling (NASA Earth Observatory): https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1510
• 1816, the year without summer (National Park Service): https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/1816-the-year-without-summer.htm
• Humans thrived through the Toba supereruption (Smith et al., Nature 2018): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25967
• NASA JPL idea to cool Yellowstone by drilling (World Economic Forum, 2017): https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/08/nasa-has-a-3-46-billion-plan-to-prevent-the-yellowstone-supervolcano-erupting/
This is a scientific "what if" scenario. Yellowstone is not overdue and is not expected to erupt; timelines and climate effects are simplified and uncertain.
???? Music
"Echoes of Time v2", "Lightless Dawn" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
???? Subscribe for more impossible scenarios grounded in real science.
???? Watch next: What If Earth Stopped Spinning? https://youtu.be/TNnOTmNZjEY
#yellowstone #supervolcano #whatif #science #volcano
- Category
- ICELAND
- Tags
- yellowstone, what if yellowstone erupted, yellowstone supervolcano
Commenting disabled.






