The Year Without a Summer: When the Atmosphere Changed An The Skies Turned Green

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, dear listeners. In the early nineteenth century, people often

0:04 Speaker 1: believed the sky itself could deliver warnings. Strange weather patterns,

0:09 Speaker 1: unusual colors in the clouds, and unexpected atmospheric events were

0:14 Speaker 1: interpreted as signs that something profound was happening in the world.

0:18 Speaker 1: In March of eighteen sixteen, residents of London began witnessing

0:23 Speaker 1: a phenomenon that left many deeply unsettled. During a powerful storm,

0:28 Speaker 1: the sky appeared to take on a strange greenish hue,

0:32 Speaker 1: spreading across the clouds and casting the city beneath an eerie,

0:36 Speaker 1: unnatural light. Witnesses described the color as something entirely unfamiliar,

0:42 Speaker 1: neither the normal gray of rain clouds nor the golden

0:45 Speaker 1: glow of sunset, but a deep green that seemed to

0:48 Speaker 1: transform the atmosphere above the city. For people living in

0:52 Speaker 1: the early nineteenth century, the site was frightening because there

0:56 Speaker 1: was no scientific explanation readily available. Meteorology as a formal

1:01 Speaker 1: science barely existed, and many individuals still interpreted unusual weather

1:06 Speaker 1: through religious or superstitious ideas. Some residents believed the green

1:11 Speaker 1: sky was a divine warning of disaster. Others speculated that

1:15 Speaker 1: strange gases had entered the atmosphere, or that a cosmic

1:19 Speaker 1: event had altered the heavens. The phenomenon was reported in

1:23 Speaker 1: newspapers and journals as something mysterious and potentially ominous. What

1:28 Speaker 1: observers did not realize was that the strange sky was

1:32 Speaker 1: connected to a catastrophic event that had taken place thousands

1:36 Speaker 1: of miles away the previous year. In April of eighteen fifteen,

1:41 Speaker 1: the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora erupted with extraordinary force. The

1:46 Speaker 1: explosion was one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in

1:50 Speaker 1: recorded history, sending enormous amounts of ash and sulfur particles

1:55 Speaker 1: high into the atmosphere. These particles traveled around the globe

2:00 Speaker 1: a thin layer in the upper atmosphere that altered the

2:03 Speaker 1: way sunlight passed through the air. As sunlight filtered through

2:07 Speaker 1: this haze, the colors of the sky changed dramatically. Sunsets

2:12 Speaker 1: appeared unusually vivid, sometimes glowing red or purple, and storms

2:17 Speaker 1: occasionally produced strange green tones as lights scattered through the

2:22 Speaker 1: particles suspended in the air. These atmospheric distortions were not

2:26 Speaker 1: limited to London. Similar reports emerged across Europe and North

2:30 Speaker 1: America as the volcanic cloud continued to circle the planet.

2:35 Speaker 1: The following year would become known as one of the

2:38 Speaker 1: strangest climatic periods in modern history. The year eighteen sixteen

2:43 Speaker 1: earned the haunting nickname the Year Without a Summer. Temperatures

2:48 Speaker 1: dropped unexpectedly across large parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Snow

2:52 Speaker 1: fell in June in parts of the United States and Canada.

2:56 Speaker 1: Crop failures spread through Europe as cold weather destroyed harvests,

3:00 Speaker 1: leading to food shortages and rising prices. In some regions.

3:04 Speaker 1: Riots broke out as communities struggled with hunger and economic hardship.

3:09 Speaker 1: The sky itself seemed unstable, producing strange colors and unusual

3:14 Speaker 1: weather patterns that people struggled to understand. The atmospheric darkness

3:19 Speaker 1: of that year had an unexpected cultural consequence as well.

3:23 Speaker 1: During the cold, gloomy summer of eighteen sixteen, a group

3:28 Speaker 1: of writers gathered at Lake Geneva while storms kept them

3:31 Speaker 1: indoors for days at a time. Among them was Mary Shelley,

3:36 Speaker 1: who began writing a story about a scientist obsessed with

3:39 Speaker 1: creating life from dead matter. That story would eventually become Frankenstein,

3:45 Speaker 1: one of the most famous horror novels ever written in

3:50 Speaker 1: a strange way. The volcanic ash that darkened the sky

3:53 Speaker 1: and frightened observers around the world also helped inspire one

3:57 Speaker 1: of literature's most enduring story. For the people of London

4:02 Speaker 1: watching the sky turn green in eighteen sixteen, however, the

4:05 Speaker 1: experience was simply unsettling. They had no way of knowing

4:09 Speaker 1: that a volcanic eruption on the other side of the

4:11 Speaker 1: world had altered the atmosphere in ways that would ripple

4:15 Speaker 1: across the planet for years. All they could see was

4:18 Speaker 1: the sky behaving in a way it never had before.

4:21 Speaker 1: And now a word from our sponsor.

4:23 Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Early Weather Forecasting.

4:27 Speaker 2: Our prediction methods are simple. If the sky turns green,

4:31 Speaker 2: the crops fail and the sun looks like a copper

4:33 Speaker 2: coin hanging in the sky, something somewhere has probably exploded.

4:38 Speaker 2: Early Weather Forecasting. We may not know exactly why the

4:42 Speaker 2: weather is behaving strangely, but we're very confident that it's

4:45 Speaker 2: not a good sign.

4:46 Speaker 1: For the people of London watching the sky turn green

4:49 Speaker 1: in eighteen sixteen, the moment must have felt deeply unsettling.

4:54 Speaker 1: The sky was supposed to be predictable, familiar, something that

4:58 Speaker 1: changed gradually with the season. But on that stormy day,

5:02 Speaker 1: the heavens themselves seemed altered, as if the world had

5:05 Speaker 1: shifted slightly off its normal course. Without satellites, global weather models,

5:11 Speaker 1: or knowledge of distant volcanic eruptions, the cause remained invisible.

5:16 Speaker 1: All anyone could do was look upward and wonder what

5:20 Speaker 1: force could possibly paint the sky such a strange and

5:23 Speaker 1: unnatural color. Today we know that the answer lay thousands

5:28 Speaker 1: of miles away in the eruption of Mount Tambora, whose

5:32 Speaker 1: ash cloud traveled silently around the globe and reshaped the

5:36 Speaker 1: atmosphere itself. But for the people who lived through that year,

5:40 Speaker 1: the strange skies, cold summers, and failed harvests felt like

5:45 Speaker 1: signs that something far larger was unfolding beyond human control.

5:52 Speaker 1: Moments like this remind us that history is not only

5:55 Speaker 1: shaped by wars, inventions, and famous figures. Sometimes it is

6:01 Speaker 1: shaped by the quiet power of the natural world, forces

6:04 Speaker 1: so vast that their effects can change the color of

6:07 Speaker 1: the sky above an entire continent, and sometimes long before

6:13 Speaker 1: science explains what happened, people simply look up and realize

6:17 Speaker 1: that the world has become a little stranger than it

6:20 Speaker 1: was yesterday. Dear listeners, don't forget to subscribe, and most

6:24 Speaker 1: of all, stay curious.

7:03 Speaker 2: Bold blo