Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Year Without A Summer

Episode Date: August 28, 2021

In 1816, the world experienced something that it had never seen before. All over the Northern Hemisphere in Europe, Asia, and North America, summer never came. ...or at least it didn’t in any way which it did before. It caused chaos and misery all around the world. Learn more about 1816, the year without a summer, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the year 1816, the world experienced something that it had never seen before. All over the northern hemisphere in Europe, Asia, and North America, summer never came. Or at least it didn't in any way which it had before. It caused chaos and misery all over the world. Learn more about 1816, the year without a summer, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow. That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens.

Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing.

You can listen to nothing much happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by the Travel Photography Academy. If you've listened to enough episodes of this podcast, you'll notice that I often interject places that I've visited. That's because I spent over 10 years of my life traveling around the world almost nonstop. During that time, I went from being a complete novice in photography. to winning almost every major travel photography prize in North America.

When I learned how to do travel photography, I did do it the hard way. It took years of time and lots of travel. That's why I created the Travel Photography Academy, so you can learn from me in much less time, spending much less money. It's an online video course which I shot on location in France, Spain, and the United States, and I cover everything you need to improve your travel photography. So, if you want to take your photography to the next level and get better, photos on your next trip, visit

Travel Photographyacademy.com, or click on the link in the show notes. When I say the year 1816 had no summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it obviously was summer as far as the tilt of the earth and the length of the day goes. So if the Earth was doing its normal thing, why was this particular season in this particular year so different? It had to do with two unfortunate coincidences which happened to occur at the same time. One of them was major and one was minor. The minor event was known as the Dalton Solar Minimum.

I've talked before about Milankovych cycles and how the orbit and tilt of the Earth have several different cycles that it goes through. The other thing which has cycles is the sun. It goes through periods of solar activity called solar maximums and solar minimums. During a solar maximum period, which we are just leaving as I'm recording this, there are more solar flares and sunspots. During a solar minimum, there's very little solar activity. These periods tend to go in 11-year cycles and can influence the Earth's climate, higher temperatures during solar maximums, and lower temperatures during solar minimums. The effect isn't huge, but it's real. In 1816, it was a solar minimum.

The really big thing which happened on top of this was the eruption of Indonesia's Mount Tambora in April of 1815. I've done a previous episode on the Mount Tambora eruption, but the short version is that Mount Tambora was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history. and it was so by a wide margin. The eruption threw millions of tons of ash, sulfur, and particulate matter into the atmosphere where it stayed suspended for over a year and eventually spread around the globe. This was in addition to the residual particulate matter in the atmosphere from the 1814 eruption of Mount Mayon in the Philippines and several other volcanoes that erupted in 1812 and 1813. What is the significance of particulate matter in the atmosphere?

It blocks sunlight and lowers temperatures. In the spring of 1816, there were already reports of a haze in the sky and unusually red sunsets. These red sunsets were actually reflected in paintings which were painted during this time. The haze was so thick that people were able to look directly at the sun and observe sunspots. The report from people all over the world this year told the same story. The problem wasn't the ability of people to adapt to lower temperatures. The people who suffered the most from this also tended to have serious winters anyhow. The real damage was what happened to crops.

When temperatures dip below freezing, most plants, especially plants that normally only grow in the summer, die. Temperatures don't have to dip below freezing very long for an entire crop to be destroyed. In New England, it was reported that temperatures in May of 1816 dipped below freezing every single day that month and that all crops planted in May had died. In June 6, the town of Albany, New York was covered in snow. frozen birds were reported dead in farm fields in June. Birds that normally would have migrated south for the winter were stuck somewhere they shouldn't have been. One town in New Jersey reported five consecutive days in June with frost.

There were frosts that occurred in July and August in several northern states and in Canada. Ice was reported on rivers and lakes in northern Pennsylvania in July and August. It's no surprise that people in New England dubbed the year 1800 and froze to death. Dendocrinologist who study tree rings can easily spot the year 1816 because there was basically no growth in trees. And it wasn't that temperatures didn't reach normal summer levels. They occasionally did. On June 22nd, it reached 101 degrees Fahrenheit in Salem, Massachusetts. But the next week, temperatures dropped into the 40s with dips below freezing.

The net effect of these constant frosts was an agricultural disaster. Many places had absolutely no crops to harvest whatsoever. Places that did manage to harvest something only grew a fraction of what they used to. On top of the cold temperatures, precipitation patterns changed, and much of the northern United States experienced a drought, which resulted in wildfires, which meant even more smoke and more particulate matter. People resorted to scavenging whatever they could eat. There were reports of people eating raccoons and pigeons.

Some crops such as rye and wheat did manage to grow as they were more frost-res. but they were still stunted. One man named Ruben Witten of Ashland, New Hampshire, had the fortune of having a farm on the southern-facing slope of a hill that was kept relatively warm. He managed to ecot a crop of 40 bushels of wheat, which kept his family and his neighbors alive through the winter. When he died in 1847, his neighbors erected a tombstone form which documented his

erroics in keeping famine at bay that summer. Food prices skyrocketed. In 1815, the price of a bushel of oats was 12. cents. In 1816, it rose to 92 cents. Moreover, food that was available in southern states couldn't easily be brought to the north because everything was still transported by horse at this time. Many people in New England abandoned their farms and began to migrate westward into what we today call the Midwest. This was one of the reasons for a mass westward expansion in the United States. This westward movement of people was in large part responsible for Indiana and Illinois

becoming states in 1818. However, I've only talked about North America so far. This problem was global. In Europe, they were still reeling from years of Napoleonic wars when the summer of 1816 occurred. In Europe, they didn't just experience the cold weather that North America suffered. They also had to deal with heavy rains and flooding. Harvests were destroyed all over Northern Europe, with famine setting in most countries, including Ireland, England, and Germany. In many respects, Europe may have had it worse than North America because of the higher population density.

In sparsely populated America, people could still hunt and fish to get food. That was difficult to impossible to do in Europe. As in North America, food prices rose, and there was a mass migration. This time, Europeans moved to the Americas and Russia. This was to be the last ever famine in continental Europe. In Switzerland, one glacier developed a glacial dam holding back a deluge of water. Eventually, the dam broke, and it killed 40 people. Because of the famine, a typhus epidemic broke out, which spread.

spread throughout Europe for the next three years. Riots were ride spread in England, France, and Germany as people demanded food. Asia also suffered in 1816. As in Europe, China experienced extremely heavy rainfalls which caused the Yangtze River to flood, killing thousands. Northern provinces experienced the same late frost and snowfalls as elsewhere. Rice paddies froze and water buffalo died in the fields. In the southwestern province of Yunnan, farmers shifted their crops to a more robust plant, poppies, which resulted in an enormous increase in the supply of opium.

In India, the problem wasn't freezing temperatures so much as it was the delay in the monsoon season. When the rains came, they were torrential and caused flooding and an outbreak of cholera. Despite the global nature of this calamity, no one had a clue what was causing it. While there were supernatural explanations, this wasn't the Middle Ages. Many rational people thought it might have had something to do with cutting down forests and burning wood and coal. information traveled so slowly at this time that most people had no idea that the world's largest volcanic eruption had occurred on the other side of the world. It wasn't actually until the 1960s that scientists learned enough about the effects of volcanic eruptions that they were able to piece together what happened in 1816. Total global temperatures on land that summer were estimated to have dropped a full three degrees Celsius, and that is a lot.

While the eruption of Mount Tambora was the largest such event in recorded history, there have been other volcanic events with similar results, albeit not as severe. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, causing temperatures to drop below normal that year, and it also caused changes to precipitation patterns. Likewise, the 1883 eruption of Cracotoa caused temperatures to drop globally and also changed precipitation. However, none of these events have come anywhere close to what happened in 1816. The summer of 1816 isn't given much attention in history books. Yet the conditions of that year set off a series of events that shaped the 19th century and that we still live with today.

The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-star review, I'll read your review on the show.