Editing Year Without a Summer (section)

===Europe===
As a result of the series of volcanic eruptions in the 1810s, crops had been poor for several years; the final blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Tambora. Europe, still recuperating from the [[Napoleonic Wars]], suffered from widespread food shortages, resulting in its worst famine of the century.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Fagan|first=Brian M.|url=http://archive.org/details/littleiceagehowc0000faga|title=The Little Ice Age : how climate made history, 1300–1850|date=2000|publisher=New York,: [[Basic Books]]|others=Oliver Wendell Holmes Library Phillips Academy}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Stommel|first=Henry|title=Volcano weather : the story of 1816, the year without a summer|publisher=Seven Seas Press|year=1983|isbn=0915160714}}</ref><ref name="Oppenheimer2003" /><ref>"The 'year without a summer' in 1816 produced massive famines and helped stimulate the emergence of the administrative state", observes [[Albert Gore]], ''Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the human spirit'', 2000: 79.</ref> Low temperatures and heavy rains resulted in failed harvests in Great Britain and Ireland. Famine was prevalent in north and southwest Ireland, following the failure of wheat, [[oat]], and potato harvests. [[Food prices]] rose sharply throughout Europe.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Warde |first1=Paul |last2=Fagan |first2=Brian |date=January 2002 |title=The Little Ice Age. How Climate Made History 1300–1850 |journal=Environmental History |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=133 |doi=10.2307/3985463 |issn=1084-5453 |jstor=3985463 |s2cid=129984285}}</ref> With the cause of the problems unknown, hungry people demonstrated in front of grain markets and bakeries. [[Food riot]]s took place in many European cities. Though riots were common during times of hunger, the food riots of 1816 and 1817 were the most violent period on the continent since the [[French Revolution]].<ref name=":1" />

Between 1816 and 1819, major [[typhus]] epidemics occurred in parts of Europe, including Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, and Scotland, precipitated by the famine. More than 65,000 people died as the disease spread out of Ireland.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

The long-running [[Central England temperature]] record reported the eleventh coldest year on record since 1659, as well as the third coldest summer and the coldest July on record.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html | title=Met Office Hadley Centre Central England Temperature Data Download | access-date=April 23, 2020 | archive-date=November 22, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201122065716/https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Widespread flooding of Europe's major rivers is attributed to the event, as is frost in August. Hungary experienced snowfall colored brown by volcanic ash; in northern Italy, red snow fell throughout the year.<ref name=":0" />

Flooding impeded navigation of major rivers like the [[Rhine]], including the transportation of grain. In German-speaking lands, (particularly inland), prices rose, and though only [[Wurttemberg]] saw deaths exceed births, emigration caused a greater population loss than excess mortality. [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] avoided famine.<ref name=Collet_Kramer_2017>{{cite book |last1=Collet |first1=Dominik |last2=Krämer |first2=Daniel |date=2017 |title=Famine in European History |chapter=5 - Germany, Switzerland and Austria |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/110D3AEE6E978DFE51BA66BE43116A22 |url= |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=109–111, 117 |isbn=9781107179936 |access-date=2025-04-05}}</ref>

In [[Switzerland]], famine was limited to the east, which was densely populated and more industrialized.<ref name=Collet_Kramer_2017/> In western Switzerland, the summers of 1816 and 1817 were so cold that an [[Proglacial lake|ice dam]] formed below a tongue of the [[Giétro Glacier]] in the [[Val de Bagnes]], creating a lake. Despite engineer [[Ignaz Venetz]]'s efforts to drain the growing lake, the ice dam collapsed catastrophically in June 1818, killing forty people in the resulting flood.<ref>The flood is fully described in Jean M. Grove, ''Little Ice Ages, Ancient and Modern'' (as ''The Little Ice Age'' 1988) revised edition. 2004: 161.</ref>

Harvests were not affected everywhere. In Scandinavia and the northern Baltic regions were almost normal, as they were in eastern Europe and western Russia. Indeed, the  Russian Emperor [[Alexander I of Russia|Alexander I]] was able to donate grain to western Europe.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Luterbacher |first=J. |last2=Pfister |first2=C. |date=2015 |title=The year without a summer |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2404 |journal=Nature Geoscience |language=en |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=246–248 |doi=10.1038/ngeo2404 |issn=1752-0894}}</ref>