🌐IELTS Reading 2026

In April 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted with a force history had rarely recorded. The volcano ejected some fifty cubic kilometres of rock and ash, and the finest particles rose into the stratosphere, beyond the reach of rain. There, spread by high winds, they formed a veil that reflected a portion of incoming sunlight back into space. The following year, 1816, became known across Europe and North America as the 'Year Without a Summer': frosts struck in July, crops failed, and food prices tripled in some regions. The lesson modern climate scientists draw is double-edged. On one hand, Tambora demonstrates that small changes in the energy the Earth receives can have large, fast effects — the volcanic veil lowered global temperature by only about half a degree, yet harvests collapsed. On the other hand, it warns against proposals to cool today's warming climate by deliberately adding reflective particles to the sky: a volcanic veil is uncontrolled, uneven, and cannot be switched off once released. Why does the author call the lesson of Tambora 'double-edged'?

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