1816, the year without writing: causes and effects of extreme climate crisis

As someone who is baffled by the current global warming that is causing a number of significant impacts on the world, it is hard to believe that it was nearly 200 years ago. Another climatic event, in which temperatures dropped between 14°C and 17°C, made 1816 the “year without a summer”.. Since this anomaly occurred between June and August, the event mainly affected the northern hemisphere.

In countries such as the United States, where the distinction between seasons is very clear, the persistence of extremely cold weather throughout the spring, persistent frosts in the eastern states, and continued freezing in the months when the Sun should be rising, surprised the public. It was warming the country.

The situation was no different on the other side of the Atlantic; Heavy rains have flooded Ireland for eight consecutive weeks. In Britain, storms and freezing rain forced people to confine themselves to their homes. In Asia, traditional monsoon rains were delayed, droughts occurred and unprecedented drops in temperatures occurred.

What were the consequences of climate changes in 1816?

The abnormal drop in global temperature had an immediate impact on agriculture. Affected by spring frosts and incessant rains, fields were severely penalized, resulting in almost complete loss of harvest.

Food shortages have caused an unprecedented food crisis, with prices rising and hunger and malnutrition occurring in many regions. Frightened, many North American farmers migrated en masse from the East to the Midwest, where they remain today.

The effects of the agricultural crisis soon spread to other sectors of the economy. It did not take long for famine and rising food prices to directly affect trade and therefore industry. Quickly, Poverty and misery spread throughout the world, leading to riots, social instability and civil unrest..

What could be the reason for the year passing without summer?

Causes of climate change in the year known as “1800 and freezing to death” could not be identified immediately. The problem was addressed scientifically only in 1901, when two Swiss researchers suggested that dust created by volcanic eruptions could block the sun’s rays, causing ice ages.

Although such theories do not yet have physical evidence to support them, Some studies have begun to attribute the “summerless year” of 1816 to the explosive volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora.Reaching level 7 on the volcanic eruption index occurred on April 5, 1815 in Indonesia (where the largest volcanic eruption ever recorded reached level 8).

Definitive discovery of the reason for the year without the summer of 1816

It was only in 2019 that geoscientist Andrew Schurer of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and his colleagues used computer climate models to simulate what temperatures would have been like in 1816 if the volcano had not erupted.

In a statement, Schurer explains that “the eruption injected a large amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere, which would rapidly spread around the world and oxidize to form sulfate aerosols.”

According to the study, the immediate effect of these aerosols is a reduction in net shortwave radiation (the difference between incident and reflected solar radiation). The result is widespread and prolonged cooling of the Earth’s surface.

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