Geological / environmental event
The years only seemed to get colder, and on the first day of the worlds 3000th day, a slight rime seemed to cover the entirety of the worlds water bodies.
The world was getting colder, and nobody seemed able to understand exactly what it meant. Societies seemed to stay indoors for longer amounts of time, and firewood saw an excessive increase in the caves of species worldwide. Then, one day, a slight rime seemed to cover the grass as it grew - and the people of the world knew that something unnatural was certainly brewing.