1816 earned the nickname "Year Without a Summer" thanks to devastating volcanic eruptions that triggered crop failure, malnutrition, famine, and pestilence across the Northern Hemisphere. Some scholars call it the last great subsistence crisis of Western civilization. The 1815 Tambora eruption ranks as the 26th most severe in the last 11,600 years, meaning 25 worse eruptions occurred in just the past 11,000 years, a reminder these catastrophic events are more frequent than once assumed. 🌋
1816 'Year Without a Summer' and Tambora eruption context
Key facts
- 1816 is known as the "Year Without a Summer" caused by a series of volcanic eruptions
- The event caused widespread crop failure, malnutrition, famine, and pestilence in the Northern Hemisphere
- Called the "last great subsistence crisis of western civilization"
- The event also affected China and the Southern Hemisphere
- The Tambora eruption of 1815 was the 26th most severe volcanic eruption of the last 11,600 years
- 25 more severe volcanic eruptions occurred within the last 11,000 years, indicating these events are far more numerous than previously imagined
Sources
Gillen D'Arcy Wood, “1816, The Year without a Summer”branchcollective.org
The so-called “Year Without a Summer”—1816—belongs to a three-year period of severe climate deterioration of global scope caused by the eruption of Mt. Tambora ...
1816: the Year Without a Summer | Beehivemasshist.org
From May to August of 1816, weather across the globe was unseasonably cold. It regularly snowed in New England and London was pelted with hail.
Year Without a Summer (Poverty Year) | Historyebsco.com
The Year Without a Summer, also known as the Poverty Year, refers to the significant climatic anomaly that occurred in 1816, primarily affecting the Northern ...
1816 - The Year Without Summernps.gov
1816, also known as the 'Year Without Summer,' 'Poverty Year,' and 'Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.' The eruption of Mount Tambora in ...
The Year Without A Summer 1816 | Mount Tambora Eruptionalmanac.com
The largest eruption in recorded history—of Mount Tambora, in what is now Indonesia—caused so much ash in the atmosphere that global ...
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