Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Situating 1816, the ‘year without summer’, in the UK

Veale, Lucy; Endfield, Georgina H.

Situating 1816, the ‘year without summer’, in the UK Thumbnail


Authors

Lucy Veale

Georgina H. Endfield



Abstract

The immediate local impacts of the eruption of Mount Tambora, Sumbawa, Indonesia in April 1815 were devastating, resulting in the loss of an estimated 60 000 lives on this and neighbouring islands. However, the longer term effects of the largest known historical eruption on global weather and climate and the related consequences for human health and wellbeing have maintained the prominence of the eruption in public memory. Among the most notable effects were global weather anomalies the following year, which has come to be referred to as ‘the year without summer’. Scholars across the sciences and humanities continue to investigate the eruption, seeking insights into the likely meteorological and societal impacts of future volcanic eruptions. The bicentenary of the ‘year without summer’ in 2016 provides a timely moment to revisit this weather episode. In this paper, we draw on a range of archival materials and contemporary publications to reconstruct the weather year and explore how the summer of 1816 was experienced and recorded across the UK. We also wish to demonstrate the importance of historical contingency in understanding the potential implications of the event at the local level, and of situating events within their appropriate temporal context. We do this by considering the summer of 1816 as set against the wider weather and cultural contexts of the 1810s. Our findings illustrate that in a UK context, summer 1816 was characterised by unusual and extreme weather events. Importantly it also took place within a sequence of years that were similarly replete with anomalous and challenging weather conditions.

Citation

Veale, L., & Endfield, G. H. (2016). Situating 1816, the ‘year without summer’, in the UK. Geographical Journal, 182(4), 318-330. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12191

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 20, 2016
Online Publication Date Aug 10, 2016
Publication Date Dec 31, 2016
Deposit Date Aug 11, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Geographical Journal
Print ISSN 0016-7398
Electronic ISSN 1475-4959
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 182
Issue 4
Pages 318-330
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12191
Keywords UK; ‘year without summer’; documentary record; Tambora; extreme weather; 1816
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/831573
Publisher URL http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geoj.12191/full

Files





You might also like



Downloadable Citations