Actually, something of that nature did happen... almost instantaneously... so to speak.
The year 1816 was known as the Year without a summer ( alternately known as the Year of Pverty). A qutoe from one historical document says "...The Year Without a Summer, a peculiar 19th century disaster, played out during 1816 when weather in Europe and North America took a bizarre turn that resulted in widespread crop failures and even famine.
The weather in 1816 was bizarre. Spring came but then everything seemed to turn backward, as cold temperatures returned. The sky seemed permanently overcast. The lack of sunlight became so severe that farmers lost their crops and food shortages were reported in Ireland, France, England, and the United States.
In Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, retired from the presidency and farming at Monticello, sustained crop failures that sent him further into debt.
It would be more than a century before anyone understood the reason for the bizarre weather disaster: the eruption of an enormous volcano on a remote island in the Indian Ocean a year earlier had thrown enormous amounts of volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere.
The dust from Mount Tambora, which had erupted in early April 1815, had shrouded the globe. And with sunlight blocked, 1816 did not have a normal summer..."
Crops failed over most of the northern hemisphere. The phenomena could be extrapolated on a wider, more severe scale if sevral of the known volcanos were to erupt in unison or over an extended period of time...