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The
Year Without a Summer, also known as the
Poverty Year or
Eighteen hundred and froze to death, was
1816, in which severe summer
climate abnormalities destroyed crops in
Northern Europe, the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada.http://new-brunswick.net/Saint_John/timedate.htmlhttp://dsp-psd.communication.gc.ca/Collection/En56-119-3-1997-1E.pdfHistorian John D. Post has called this "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world." http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2002/july/blast.php?page=2 It appears to have been caused by a volcanic winter.
Description
The unusual climatic aberrations of 1816 had the greatest effect on the Northeastern United States, New England, the
Canada Maritimes,
Newfoundland and Labrador, and Northern Europe
Europe. Typically, the late spring and summer of the northeastern U.S. are relatively stable: temperatures (average of both day and night) average about 68–77 °Fahrenheit (20–25 °Celsius), and rarely fall below 41 °F (5 °C). Summer snow is an
extreme rarity, though May flurries sometimes occur.
In May 1816,http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/1816.htm however, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. Nearly a foot of snow was observed in
Quebec City in early June. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95 °F (35 °C) to near-freezing within hours. Even though farmers south of New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity, maize (corn) and other cereal prices rose dramatically.
Oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a
bushel the previous year to 92¢ a bushel.
Causes
It is now generally thought that the aberrations occurred because of the
5 April –
15 April 1815 volcano eruptions of Mount Tamborahttp://www.indodigest.com/indonesia-special-article-19.htmlhttp://www.bellrock.org.uk/misc/misc_year.htm on the island of Sumbawa in the
Dutch East Indies (modern-day
Indonesia) which ejected immense amounts of volcanic dust into the upper atmosphere.
Other volcanoes were active during the same time frame:
- Soufrière (volcano) on Saint Vincent (island) in the Caribbean in 1812
- Mayon Volcano in the Philippines in 1814
These other eruptions had already built up a substantial amount of atmospheric dust. As is common following a massive volcanic eruption, temperatures fell worldwide because less sunlight passed through the atmosphere.
Effects
As a consequence of the series of volcanic eruptions, crops in the above cited areas had been poor for several years; the final blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Tambora. In America, many historians cite the "Year Without a Summer" as a primary motivation for the western movement and rapid settlement of what is now western and central New York and the
Midwestern United States. Many New Englanders were wiped out by the year, and tens of thousands struck out for the richer soil and better growing conditions of the Upper Midwest (then the Northwest Territory).
Europe, still recuperating from the
Napoleonic Wars, suffered from food shortages. Food riots broke out in
United Kingdom and
France and grain warehouses were looted. The violence was worst in landlocked
Switzerland, where
famine caused the government to declare a national emergency. Huge storms, abnormal rainfall with floodings of the major rivers of Europe (including the
Rhine) are attributed to the event, as was the
frost setting in during August 1816. A BBC documentary using figures compiled in Switzerland estimated that fatality rates in 1816 were twice that of average years, giving an approximate European fatality total of 200,000 deaths.
The eruption of Tambora also caused
Hungary to experience brown snow.
Italy experienced something similar, with red snow falling throughout the year. The cause of this is believed to have been volcanic ash in the atmosphere.
In
China, unusually low temperatures in summer and fall devastated rice production in Yunnan province in the southwest, resulting in widespread famine. Fort Shuangcheng, now in Heilongjiang province, reported fields disrupted by
frost and conscripts deserting as a result. Summer snowfall was reported in various locations in Jiangxi and
Anhui provinces, both in the south of the country. In
Taiwan, which has a tropical climate, snow was reported in Hsinchu and Miaoli, while frost was reported in Changhua.http://www.igsnrr.ac.cn/lwzzImg/1161151232919.pdf
Cultural effects
.High levels of ash in the atmosphere led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, a feature celebrated in the paintings of
J. M. W. Turner. It has been theorised that it was this that gave rise to the yellow tinge that is predominant in his paintings such as
Chichester Canal circa 1828. A similar phenomenon was observed after the
1883 Krakatoa eruption, and on the West Coast of the United States following the 1991 eruption of
Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
The lack of oats to feed horses may have inspired the German inventor
Karl Drais to research new ways of horseless transportation, which led to the invention of the Dandy horse or
velocipede. This was the ancestor of the modern
bicycle and a step towards mechanized personal transport.http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18524841.900.html
In July 1816 "incessant rainfall" during that "wet, ungenial summer" forced Mary Shelley, John William Polidori and their friends to stay indoors for much of their Swiss holiday. They decided to have a contest, seeing who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write
Frankenstein and Polidori to write
The Vampyre.
Comparable events
- Climate changes of 535–536 have been linked to the effects of a volcanic eruption, possibly at Krakatoa.
- Kuwae, a Pacific volcano, has been implicated in events surrounding the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
- Laki (volcano), in Iceland, caused major fatalities in Europe, 1783–84.
Footnotes
Additional Reading
- BBC Timewatch documentary: Year Without Summer, Cicada Films (BBC2, 27 May 2005)
- Henry & Elizabeth Stommel: Volcano Weather: The Story of 1816, the Year without a Summer, Seven Seas Press, Newport RI 1983 ISBN 0-915160-71-4
- Hans-Erhard Lessing: Automobilitaet: Karl Drais und die unglaublichen Anfaenge, Leipzig 2003
External links
- "Brimstone and Bicycles" by Mick Hamer of New Scientist, 29 Jan 2005
- Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death
The
Year Without a Summer, also known as the
Poverty Year or
Eighteen hundred and froze to death, was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities destroyed crops in
Northern Europe, the Northeastern United States and eastern
Canada.http://new-brunswick.net/Saint_John/timedate.htmlhttp://dsp-psd.communication.gc.ca/Collection/En56-119-3-1997-1E.pdfHistorian John D. Post has called this "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world." http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2002/july/blast.php?page=2 It appears to have been caused by a volcanic winter.
Description
The unusual climatic aberrations of 1816 had the greatest effect on the
Northeastern United States,
New England, the Canada
Maritimes,
Newfoundland and Labrador, and
Northern Europe Europe. Typically, the late spring and summer of the northeastern U.S. are relatively stable: temperatures (average of both day and night) average about 68–77 °
Fahrenheit (20–25 °Celsius), and rarely fall below 41 °F (5 °C). Summer snow is an
extreme rarity, though May flurries sometimes occur.
In May 1816,http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/1816.htm however,
frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large
snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. Nearly a foot of snow was observed in
Quebec City in early June. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as
Pennsylvania. Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95 °F (35 °C) to near-freezing within hours. Even though farmers south of
New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity,
maize (corn) and other cereal prices rose dramatically. Oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a bushel the previous year to 92¢ a bushel.
Causes
It is now generally thought that the aberrations occurred because of the
5 April –
15 April 1815 volcano eruptions of
Mount Tamborahttp://www.indodigest.com/indonesia-special-article-19.htmlhttp://www.bellrock.org.uk/misc/misc_year.htm on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day
Indonesia) which ejected immense amounts of volcanic dust into the upper atmosphere.
Other volcanoes were active during the same time frame:
These other eruptions had already built up a substantial amount of atmospheric dust. As is common following a massive volcanic eruption, temperatures fell worldwide because less sunlight passed through the atmosphere.
Effects
As a consequence of the series of volcanic eruptions, crops in the above cited areas had been poor for several years; the final blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Tambora. In America, many historians cite the "Year Without a Summer" as a primary motivation for the western movement and rapid settlement of what is now western and central New York and the
Midwestern United States. Many New Englanders were wiped out by the year, and tens of thousands struck out for the richer soil and better growing conditions of the
Upper Midwest (then the Northwest Territory).
Europe, still recuperating from the
Napoleonic Wars, suffered from food shortages. Food riots broke out in
United Kingdom and France and grain warehouses were looted. The violence was worst in
landlocked Switzerland, where famine caused the government to declare a national emergency. Huge storms, abnormal rainfall with floodings of the major
rivers of Europe (including the
Rhine) are attributed to the event, as was the frost setting in during August 1816. A
BBC documentary using figures compiled in Switzerland estimated that fatality rates in 1816 were twice that of average years, giving an approximate European fatality total of 200,000 deaths.
The eruption of Tambora also caused Hungary to experience brown snow.
Italy experienced something similar, with red snow falling throughout the year. The cause of this is believed to have been volcanic ash in the atmosphere.
In
China, unusually low temperatures in summer and fall devastated
rice production in
Yunnan province in the southwest, resulting in widespread famine. Fort
Shuangcheng, now in
Heilongjiang province, reported fields disrupted by
frost and conscripts deserting as a result. Summer snowfall was reported in various locations in Jiangxi and
Anhui provinces, both in the south of the country. In
Taiwan, which has a tropical climate, snow was reported in
Hsinchu and
Miaoli, while frost was reported in Changhua.http://www.igsnrr.ac.cn/lwzzImg/1161151232919.pdf
Cultural effects
.High levels of ash in the atmosphere led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, a feature celebrated in the paintings of J. M. W. Turner. It has been theorised that it was this that gave rise to the yellow tinge that is predominant in his paintings such as
Chichester Canal circa 1828. A similar phenomenon was observed after the 1883
Krakatoa eruption, and on the
West Coast of the United States following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
The lack of oats to feed horses may have inspired the German inventor
Karl Drais to research new ways of horseless transportation, which led to the invention of the Dandy horse or velocipede. This was the ancestor of the modern bicycle and a step towards mechanized personal transport.http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18524841.900.html
In July 1816 "incessant rainfall" during that "wet, ungenial summer" forced
Mary Shelley,
John William Polidori and their friends to stay indoors for much of their Swiss holiday. They decided to have a contest, seeing who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write
Frankenstein and Polidori to write
The Vampyre.
Comparable events
Footnotes
Additional Reading
- BBC Timewatch documentary: Year Without Summer, Cicada Films (BBC2, 27 May 2005)
- Henry & Elizabeth Stommel: Volcano Weather: The Story of 1816, the Year without a Summer, Seven Seas Press, Newport RI 1983 ISBN 0-915160-71-4
- Hans-Erhard Lessing: Automobilitaet: Karl Drais und die unglaublichen Anfaenge, Leipzig 2003
External links
- "Brimstone and Bicycles" by Mick Hamer of New Scientist, 29 Jan 2005
- Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death
Year Without a Summer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Year Without a Summer, also known as the Poverty Year, The Year There Was No Summer or Eighteen hundred and froze to death, was 1816, in which severe summer climate ...
Discovery Channel - Extreme Earth - Year Without Summer - Introduction
INTRODUCTION: During the summer of 1816, unexpected climate changes left countries in the Northern Hemisphere suffering from devastating famine and epidemic outbreaks.
ASP: Year Without a Summer
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is an international nonprofit scientific and educational organization founded in 1889 that works to increase understanding and appreciation ...
The summer of '16
1816 - The Year without a Summer. Introduction The period 1812-1817 was one of exceptional volcanic activity, and the sheer volume of volcanic dust pumped into the atmosphere by ...
Facts - Year Without Summer - Extreme Earth - Discovery Channel
Facts: During the summer of 1816, unexpected climate changes left countries in the Northern Hemisphere suffering from devastating famine and epidemic outbreaks.
YouTube - Rasputina - 1816 The Year Without A Summer
Rate: 7 ratings. Sign in to rate. Views: 1,831. Share: Favorite: Playlists: Flag: MySpace. Facebook. Digg (more share options) (fewer share options) This video will appear on your ...
Vermont Only: 1816 - A Year Without A Summer
Snapshot from 1996 David M. Ludham The Vermont Weather Book.
The Year Without a Summer
Because the Year Without a Summer (1816) was a tough year to grow crops, the oats used to feed horses were in short supply and were very expensive.
Mount Tambora - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
... the often-cited figure of 92,000 people killed is believed to be an overestimate. [5] The eruption created global climate anomalies; 1816 became known as the Year Without a Summer ...
A year without summer left a hunger for the sun - Times Online
This summer’s weather is bad, but 1816 was dreadful. ... Win 18 holes of golf and a two course meal at the world famous Celtic Manor Resort
