 The many deaths contributed to social disruption and helped bring about the downfall of Tsar Boris Godunov (), who had been elected tsar in 1598.The famine resulted from a series of worldwide record cold winters and crop disruption, which geologists in 2008 linked to the 1600 volcanic eruption of Huaynaputina in Peru.A 2008 study by Kenneth L. Verosub and Jake Lippman documents worldwide famine after the eruption of a volcano in Peru in 1600.