When Yellowstone Erupts Today: A blow-by-blow catastrophe scenario
A thought-experiment outlines how a VEI-8 Yellowstone eruption could unfold from weeks of unrest to years of disaster: rapid magma intrusion triggers phreatomagmatic blasts, a towering ash cloud and deadly pyroclastic flows devastate parts of North America, crippling electricity, water, and transport, while sulphate aerosols cool the climate for years, triggering widespread agricultural collapse, health crises and a global recession. Immediate deaths could reach around 1,000 with far broader impacts, and long-term effects include hundreds of millions to about a billion premature deaths and a slow, uneven recovery, ending with a speculative look at humanity’s distant future observed by an alien perspective a million years hence.
