The worldwide drought and record heat of 1876-1878 killed fifty million people.
A freak 1870s climate event caused drought across three continents | New Scientist
It has been clear since the 1980s that the 1877-78 El Niño was intense. “Now we have a lot more data,” says Singh. “This event was the strongest El Niño that has occurred since the 1850s.” Sea surface temperatures remained high for 16 months. That makes it bigger than the huge El Niños of 1997-98 and 2015-16. A nexus of impacts But that’s not all. In 1877 a second climate cycle, the Indian Ocean Dipole, was active – meaning the western Indian Ocean was warmer than the east. This typically weakens India’s monsoons. “It was the strongest Indian Ocean Dipole on record,” says Singh. The Atlantic Ocean was also unusually warm from 1877 to 1879. “Following the El Niño, it peaked to the most extreme temperatures on record,” says Singh.
A freak 1870s climate event caused drought across three continents | New Scientist
This came at the peak of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
Wood for Trees: Interactive Graphs
New South Wales’ all-time record temperature of 127F occurred on January 17, 1877.
There was no winter in Minnesota that year.
19 Mar 1878, Page 2 – Star Tribune at Newspapers.com
CRUTEM5 shows 1878 below average temperature.
Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets
But they only had coverage of a small percentage of the planet. They showed southeast Australia as being average,
Maximum temperatures at Bourke, NSW average 41.5C, which is 5C above average.
Average temperatures were 3.5C above average.
For the entire year, CRUTEM5 showed the region below average
For the entire year Bourke was about 2C above average