In 1816, called The Year Without a Summer (also known as the Poverty Year, Year There Was No Summer and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death, severe summer climate abnormalities destroy crops in Northern Europe, the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

China, the north especially, is affected as well by the severe cold.

Most consider the climate anomaly to have been caused by a combination of a historic low in solar activity and a volcanic winter event; the latter caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, the largest known eruption in over sixteen centuries.

The disruption in the monsoon cycle brings widespread flooding to China and torrential rains to India.