2023-09-04 04:00:00
Did you find summer 2023 gray and rainy? Take comfort! In 1816, parts of Western Europe as well as North America experienced a year dubbed “the year without a summer”. The months associated with the summer season have been so cold and gray that farmers in some regions of Quebec have even seen ice on the lakes. Imagine the consequences on agricultural production. What explains this climatic anomaly at the time?
Volcanic eruptions with dramatic consequences on the climate
The years before 1816 saw many volcanic eruptions, especially in the Philippines, Japan and the Caribbean. They were violent enough to throw a lot of ash and dust into the atmosphere, partially blocking the sun’s rays. The most important and above all the most dangerous of these eruptions, however, occurred in April 1815 on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, more precisely on Mount Tambora. It lasted several days and is considered one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions of which we have geological and historical records.
The crater of Mount Tambora, Indonesia. Wikimedia Commons, Pierre Markuse
This accumulation of eruptions and especially dust in the atmosphere has had disastrous consequences on the climate of part of Europe and North America. The dense dust in the sky blocked out the sun’s brightness to such an extent that average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped nearly 1 degree and even more at certain times of summer. If the most direct effects on the climate were observed in 1816, part of the world suffered the impact of this climate change for nearly three years.
Disrupted agricultural production
Although the consequences have been more serious and direct in northern Europe and North America, this general drop in temperatures even in summer has had a calamitous impact on a large part of the planet, especially with regard to agricultural yield. Monsoons have been disrupted in India and China and have caused monster floods that have inundated crops, postponed sowing by weeks or literally made some fields uncultivable. Snow has even been observed in Taiwan in the middle of summer! Chinese records indicate that agricultural performance has been so poor in some areas like Yunnan that people have been forced to suck and nibble on white clay to get enough food before the next harvest season.
Excerpt from the newspaper “The Republican Farmer” of June 12, 1816 which affirms that “all kinds of vegetation suffered, and certain plants were entirely destroyed by cold and frost. ” Public domain
In Europe, the Netherlands, England, Ireland and Switzerland experienced cold spells and frost in the middle of summer, a situation that was also observed in Quebec and in certain American states on the east coast, like Vermont, where people in some villages have come to eat porcupines and boiled nettles to get through the winter. During May and June, heavy frost also killed crops in New York and New Hampshire, where snow was also observed on the ground in the middle of June. In North America, the year 1816 thus bore the name of “the year of poverty” so much the agricultural productivity was affected by these cold spells and the lack of sunlight.
It is believed that this painting by William Turner (1771-1851), “Chichester Canal”, would represent the particular light of this year without summer. Public domain
A famine for the inhabitants of L’Islet
The inhabitants of many regions of Quebec also suffered greatly from this lack of heat and light, which prevented good harvests. The Quebec newspaper The Canadian Spectator also reports snow in mid-June and lack of greenery for livestock. Much of Lower Canada suffered from a lack of food from the winter of 1816-1817, to the point where on December 11, 1816, the inhabitants of L’Islet wrote and signed a petition to the attention of the governor, John Coape Sherbrooke, asking him for emergency food aid for their community. They explain that the harvests were miserable, the grains having been affected by the surprising and frequent frosts of this extraordinary summer.
John Coape Sherbrooke
Domaine public
If the summer of 1817 was warmer and less rainy, it was nevertheless necessary to wait until 1818 for the world food crisis caused by these volcanic eruptions to begin to subside…
1693813661
#summer #Quebec #experienced #worse #year
