The great famine of 1846 was the first indication of the coming inundation, though none at the time had the insight to foresee what would come. Indeed, the subsequent changes were so far from common experience that one can hardly blame the collected learned establishments of the world for overlooking that warning. The years following the great famine were so marked by political tumult and social upheaval that further warning signs were likewise unheeded, at least for a while. By the stormy summer of 1854, the problem could no longer be ignored. The inundation of Venice and catastrophic failure of the Dutch seawall brought the issue to the clear attention of the European powers, while similar catastrophes worldwide, though most notably in the lowlands of India and the southeastern United States, gave a clear indication that this was not a problem limited by geography. Everywhere, the seas were rising.
Men of science were quick to find signs of change, and to offer explanations for it, though their suggestions of causality were so multifarious and backed by such dearth of evidence as to be little more than a challenge to the pet theories of their intellectual adversaries. Religious authorities were likewise ineffectual in bringing about any abatement to the ongoing flooding, concerned as they were with abating a flood of heresies and apocalyptic fervor. The merchants of the age fared somewhat better, as the inundation of port facilities only hampered shipping, and the thawing of the broad central reaches of Asia offset somewhat the loss of cropland elsewhere. The once-frozen heart of Siberia offered a new chance for the dispossessed, and a stream of pioneers fleeing their flooded former homes populated the fast-expanding Siberian frontier.