1816, the Year Without Summer

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in winter. National Park Service.

The year 1816 has many names: the "Year Without Summer," the "Poverty Year" and "Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death."

A volcano on the other side of the world

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia changed the global climate. The heavier debris fell to the ground and the sea, but lighter particles reached the stratosphere and spread into an aerosol cloud the size of Australia. The cloud blocked sunlight and shifted the global climate by 2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, with devastating effects in what should have been the summer of 1816. Crops failed in Europe and the United States from cold and lack of sun, sending grain and oat prices soaring. Torrential rains flooded crops in Ireland, new strains of cholera killed millions in India, crime surged, and people starved in many countries.

Summer never came

Early European settlers were drawn to the temperate eastern United States, where spring rains and summer warmth made for productive farming and big harvests carried families through harsh winters. In 1816, summer never came to New England.

• May: frost killed most crops in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
• June: heavy snow covered the ground in Albany, New York, and Dennysville, Maine, and Cape May, New Jersey, had frost five nights in a row.
• July: lakes and rivers stayed frozen as far south as northwestern Pennsylvania.
• August: frost lingered in Virginia into late August, the harvest season.

Temperatures could plunge from above-normal summer warmth to near freezing within hours.

The Lincolns at Knob Creek

Abraham Lincoln's family was living on the Knob Creek Farm at the time, so they would have lived through it too. The lack of sun, freezing temperatures and frost would likely have damaged, if not destroyed, their crops, making for a very hungry winter.

The Knob Creek cabin. National Park Service.

A glimpse of the future?

The Park Service's article draws a lesson from 1816: those who lived through that cold spell saw how much damage a few degrees of change can do. It notes that average global temperature is expected to rise four degrees by 2050, and that unlike 1816's temporary change, this one will be lasting and caused by human activity. People around the world are already leaving their homes to escape the effects of climate change, and the United States is seeing more frequent and intense storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and droughts. Whether 1816 is a preview of what is to come, the article concludes, depends on us.

Sources

• National Park Service, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, "1816 - The Year Without Summer." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/1816-the-year-without-summer.htm
• NPS, climate change: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/index.htm