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Concept
Year Without a Summer
Summary
The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by . Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest of any on record between the years of 1766 and 2000. This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.
Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536); its effect in the climate may have been exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
The Year Without a Summer was an agricultural disaster. Historian John D. Post has called this "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world". The climatic aberrations of 1816 had their greatest effect on most of New England, Atlantic Canada, and parts of western Europe.
The aberrations are now generally thought to have occurred because of the April 5–15, 1815, Mount Tambora volcanic eruption on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia. The eruption had a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) ranking of 7, a colossal event that ejected at least of material. It was the world's largest volcanic eruption during historic times, comparable with the Minoan eruption in the 2nd millennium BC, the Hatepe eruption of Lake Taupō at around 180 AD, the eruption of Paektu Mountain in 946 AD, and the 1257 eruption of Mount Samalas.
Other large volcanic eruptions (with VEIs of at least 4) around this time were:
1808, the 1808 mystery eruption (VEI 6) in the southwestern Pacific Ocean
1812, La Soufrière on Saint Vincent in the Caribbean
1812, Awu in the Sangihe Islands, Dutch East Indies
1813, Suwanosejima in the Ryukyu Islands, Japan
1814, Mayon in the Philippines
These eruptions had built up a substantial amount of atmospheric dust. As is common after a massive volcanic eruption, temperatures fell worldwide because less sunlight passed through the stratosphere.
Official source
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