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The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).

Summer temperatures in Europe that year were the coldest of any on record between 1766 and 2000, resulting in crop failures and major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) in April 1815. This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536); its effect on the climate may have been exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines. The significant amount of volcanic ash and gases released into the atmosphere blocked sunlight, leading to global cooling. Countries such as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Bourbon Restoration France experienced significant hardship, with food riots and famine becoming common. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Europe was still recovering from the Napoleonic Wars, adding to the socio-economic stress. In the eastern United States, a persistent "dry fog" dimmed the sunlight, causing unusual cold and frost throughout the summer months. Crops failed in regions such as New England, leading to food shortages and economic distress. These conditions forced many families to leave their homes in search of better farming opportunities, contributing to westward expansion.

The Year Without a Summer was an agricultural disaster; historian John D. The climatic aberrations of 1816 had their greatest effect on New England (US), Atlantic Canada, and Western Europe. The main cause of the Year Without a Summer is generally held to be a volcanic winter created by the April 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa.

The long-running Central England temperature record reported the eleventh coldest year on record since 1659, as well as the third coldest summer and the coldest July on record. Hungary experienced snowfall colored brown by volcanic ash; in northern Italy, red snow fell throughout the year.

In the spring and summer of 1816, a persistent "dry fog" was observed in parts of the eastern United States. In May 1816, frost killed off most crops in the higher elevations of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and upstate New York. Icicles 12 inches long in the shade of noon day." After a lull, by August 17, Holyoke noted an abrupt change from summer to winter by August 21, when a meager bean and corn crop were killed.

Similar phenomena were observed after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, and on the West Coast of the United States following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The crop failures of the "Year without a Summer" may have shaped the settlement of the Midwestern United States, as many thousands of people left New England for western New York and the Northwest Territory in search of a more hospitable climate, richer soil, and better growing conditions. In June 1816, "incessant rainfall" during the "wet, ungenial summer" forced Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and their friends to stay indoors at Villa Diodati for much of their Swiss holiday. The imagery in the poem is starkly similar to the conditions of the Year Without a Summer:

An eruption of Huaynaputina, in Peru, caused 1601 to be the coldest year in the Northern Hemisphere for six centuries (see Russian famine of 1601–1603); 1601 consisted of a bitterly cold winter, a cold, frosty, nonexistent spring, and a cool, cloudy, wet summer The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa caused average Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures to fall by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F). The American Midwest experienced more rain and major flooding during the spring and summer of 1993.

Quick Facts

• Summer temperatures in Europe that year were the coldest of any on record between 1766 and 2000, resulting in crop failures and major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.
• The main cause of the Year Without a Summer is generally held to be a volcanic winter created by the April 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa.
• The Year Without a Summer was an agricultural disaster; historian John D.
• In the eastern United States, a persistent "dry fog" dimmed the sunlight, causing unusual cold and frost throughout the summer months.
• This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536); its effect on the climate may have been exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Year Without a Summer". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.