Possibly the worst year ever (among those documented). Temperatures drop by 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius on average, ushering in the coldest decade of the last 2,300 years. Snow falls in summer in China. Crops are compromised, leading to terrible famines. In 541, bubonic plague arrives in the port of Pelusium in Egypt, part of the Eastern Roman Empire. In 536, a mysterious fog also spreads across the northern part of the globe. In 2018, a University of Maine study of Swiss glaciers found the cause was a series of cataclysmic eruptions in Iceland. Two more will follow in 540 and 547. This series of shocks will lead to economic stagnation that will last until 640.
