The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History

Sam White
Christian Pfister • Franz Mauelshagen
Editors

The Palgrave
Handbook of Climate
History
Editors
Sam White Christian Pfister
Ohio State University Institute of History
Columbus, OH, USA Oeschger Centre for Climate Change
Bern, Switzerland
Franz Mauelshagen
Institute for Advanced Sustainability
Studies, University of Potsdam
Potsdam, Germany

ISBN 978-1-137-43019-9    ISBN 978-1-137-43020-5 (eBook)

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 Contents

1 General Introduction: Weather, Climate, and Human History   1

Christian Pfister, Sam White, and Franz Mauelshagen
1.1 Climate History and Historical Climatology  2
1.2 Methodological and Conceptual Challenges  3
1.3 Background  6
1.4 New Influences: Environmental History, Globalization,
and Global Warming 10
1.5 Prospects 11
1.6 A Guide to this Handbook 13
Bibliography  15

Part I Reconstruction  19

2 The Global Climate System  21

Eduardo Zorita, Sebastian Wagner, and Fredrik Schenk
References  26

3 Archives of Nature and Archives of Societies  27

Stefan Brönnimann, Christian Pfister, and Sam White
3.1 Introduction 27
3.2 The Archives of Nature 28
3.3 The Archives of Societies 30
3.4 Reconstructing Past Climate from Proxies 30
3.5 Conclusion: Combining the Archives of Nature and Society 35
References  35

v
vi CONTENTS

4 Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Documentary

Evidence—Overview  37
Christian Pfister
4.1 Introduction 37
4.2 Institutional Sources 38
4.3 Personal Sources 39
4.4 Dating 42
References  45

5 Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Personal

Documentary Sources  49
Christian Pfister and Sam White
5.1 Introduction 49
5.2 The Objectivity of Weather Narratives 50
5.3 (Weather) Chronicles 51
5.4 (Weather-Related) Pamphlets and Broadsides 51
5.5 (Weather) Diaries 53
5.6 (Personal) Plant-Phenological Observations 58
5.7 (Personal) Ice-Phenological Data 59
References  62

6 Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Institutional Sources  67

Christian Pfister
6.1 Introduction 67
6.2 Agricultural Phenological Series 68
6.3 Municipal Accounts 72
6.4 Hydrological and Ice-Phenological Series 72
6.5 Rogation Ceremonies 75
6.6 Ships’ Logbooks 75
6.7 Mandatory Reporting 76
References  79

7 Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Early Instrumental

Observations  83
Dario Camuffo
7.1 Introduction 83
7.2 Early Temperature Observations 84
7.3 Early Pressure Observations 85
7.4 Early Precipitation Observations 86
7.5 Early Meteorological Networks 88
7.6 Conclusion 89
References  90
 CONTENTS
   vii

8 Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Historical Sources

in Glaciology  93
Samuel U. Nussbaumer and Heinz J. Zumbühl
References  96

9 Analysis and Interpretation: Homogenization of Instrumental

Data  99
Ingeborg Auer
9.1 Why Do We Need to Homogenize Instrumental Data? 99
9.2 The Practice of Homogenization100
9.3 An Example from the European Alpine Region103
9.4 Conclusion105
References 105

10 Analysis and Interpretation: Calibration-­Verification 107

Petr Dobrovolný
10.1 Introduction107
10.2 Establishing Documentary-Based Series107
10.3 The Practice of Calibration109
References 112

11 Analysis and Interpretation: Temperature and Precipitation

Indices 115
Christian Pfister, Chantal Camenisch, and Petr Dobrovolný
11.1 Introduction115
11.2 History of the Index Approach116
11.3 The Structure of Documentary-Based Temperature
and Precipitation Indices117
11.4 Guidelines for Generating Indices120
11.5 Shortcomings and Uncertainties122
11.6 Evaluations and Results123
11.7 Applications124
References 128

12 Analysis and Interpretation: Spatial Climate Field

Reconstructions 131
Jürg Luterbacher and Eduardo Zorita
12.1 Introduction131
12.2 Concepts131
12.3 Applications132
12.4 Uncertainties135
12.5 CFR Methods and Climate Models135
References 136
viii CONTENTS

13 Analysis and Interpretation: Modeling of Past Climates 141

Eduardo Zorita and Sebastian Wagner
13.1 Introduction141
13.2 How Models Work141
13.3 Examples and Regional Simulations144
13.4 Conclusion147
References 148

14 The Denial of Global Warming 149

Naomi Oreskes, Erik Conway, David J. Karoly, Joelle Gergis,
Urs Neu, and Christian Pfister
14.1 Introduction149
14.2 The USA (adapted from Merchants of Doubt) 150
14.3 The George C. Marshall Institute150
14.4 Discrediting Ben Santer, Derailing Rio152
14.5 How Disinformation Took Hold159
14.6 The Debate in Europe161
14.7 The Debate in Australia164
14.8 Conclusion165
References 168

Part II Historical Climatology: Periods and Regions 173

15 The Holocene 175
John L. Brooke
15.1 Introduction175
15.2 The Early Holocene175
15.3 Middle Holocene178
15.4 Late Holocene178
Bibliography 181

16 Mediterranean Antiquity 183
Peregrine Horden
16.1 Introduction183
16.2 Narrative183
16.3 Problems and Conclusion185
References 187

17 China: 2000 Years of Climate Reconstruction from Historical

Documents 189
Quansheng Ge, Zhixin Hao, Jingyun Zheng, and Yang Liu
17.1 Introduction189
 CONTENTS
   ix

17.2 Sources of Documentary Evidence190

17.3 Types of Documentary Evidence193
17.4 Temperature Reconstructions194
17.5 Precipitation Reconstructions196
17.6 Extreme Events197
17.7 Climate Change Impacts199
References 200

18 Climate History of Asia (Excluding China) 203

George C. D. Adamson and David J. Nash
18.1 Introduction203
18.2 Arabia and West Asia204
18.3 The Indian Subcontinent205
18.4 Japan and Korea205
18.5 Southeast Asia and Indonesia207
18.6 Siberia and Central Asia208
18.7 Conclusion208
References 209

19 Climate History in Latin America 213

María del Rosario Prieto and Facundo Rojas
19.1 Pre-Colonial Records213
19.2 Colonial and Modern Records214
19.3 The Development of Climate History in Latin America217
19.4 Studies of Climate Forcings218
19.4.1 El Niño Southern Oscillation, Droughts, and Floods218
19.4.2 Caribbean Cyclones218
19.4.3 Ship Logs, Maritime Climate, and Southern Glaciers218
19.4.4 Hydroclimatic Variability in South America219
19.5 Conclusion220
References 221

20 A Multi-Century History of Drought and Wetter Conditions

in Africa 225
Sharon E. Nicholson
20.1 Introduction225
20.2 Multi-Century Drought Chronologies226
20.2.1 Equatorial Regions226
20.2.2 Sahelian West Africa229
20.2.3 Southern Africa229
20.2.4 Extratropical Margins229
20.3 The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries230
20.4 Summary231
References 234
x CONTENTS

21 Recent Developments in Australian Climate History 237

Joëlle Gergis, Linden Ashcroft, and Don Garden
21.1 Introduction237
21.2 The South Eastern Australian Recent Climate History Project239
21.3 Australian Droughts, 1788–1899241
21.4 Australian Wet Periods, 1788–1899241
21.5 Conclusion242
References 243

22 European Middle Ages 247

Christian Rohr, Chantal Camenisch, and Kathleen Pribyl
22.1 Introduction247
22.2 The State of the Field248
22.3 Evidence250
22.3.1 Narrative Sources251
22.3.2 Administrative Sources252
22.4 Methods252
22.4.1 Dating252
22.4.2 Indices253
22.4.3 Phenological Series253
22.5 Results254
22.5.1 Before the Medieval Warm Period, or 500–1000254
22.5.2 The Medieval Warm Period, or 1000–1300254
22.5.3 After the Medieval Warm Period, or 1300–1500255
22.6 Conclusion255
Bibliography 258

23 Early Modern Europe 265

Christian Pfister, Rudolf Brázdil, Jürg Luterbacher, Astrid E. J.
Ogilvie, and Sam White
23.1 Introduction265
23.2 Geography266
23.3 History and Periodization267
23.4 Evidence269
23.5 Climatic Variations and Extremes273
23.5.1 European Temperature273
23.5.2 Northern Europe275
23.5.3 Western and Central Europe276
23.5.4 The Mediterranean and Eastern Europe281
23.6 Conclusion283
References 287
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   xi

24 North American Climate History (1500–1800) 297

Sam White
24.1 Introduction297
24.2 Geography, Climate, and Context297
24.3 Sources299
24.4 Climatic Trends and Events301
24.5 Early Colonial Weather302
24.6 The Maunder Minimum303
24.7 Revolutionary Weather: The 1770s–90s303
24.8 Conclusion304
References 305

25 Climate from 1800 to 1970 in North America and Europe 309

Stefan Brönnimann, Sam White, and Victoria Slonosky
25.1 Introduction309
25.2 Data309
25.3 Climate Trends312
25.4 Climate Events313
25.4.1 The Tambora Eruption and the “Year Without a
Summer” of 1816313
25.4.2 The 1830s Climate Cooling and Glacier Advances
around 1850313
25.4.3 The Early Twentieth-Century Warming315
25.4.4 The “Dust Bowl” Droughts in North America
in the 1930s315
25.4.5 Climatic Anomalies in 1940–2316
25.4.6 Retraction of the Northern Tropical Edge after 1945317
References 318

26 Global Warming (1970–Present) 321

Stefan Brönnimann
26.1 Climate Data321
26.2 Climate Trends322
26.3 Atmospheric Composition Change325
26.4 Climatic Events325
26.4.1 The Sahel Droughts of the 1970s and 1980s325
26.4.2 Change of European Winters around 1990326
26.4.3 The 1991 Pinatubo Eruption326
26.4.4 The El Niño Events of 1982–3 and 1997327
26.4.5 Subtropical Droughts and Mid-Latitude Heatwaves
in the New Millennium327
References 328
xii CONTENTS

Part III Climate and Society 329

27 Climate, Weather, Agriculture, and Food 331

Sam White, John Brooke, and Christian Pfister
27.1 Introduction331
27.2 The Role of Climate and Weather in Food Production332
27.3 Climate Change and the Origins of Agriculture334
27.4 Climate, Food, and Crisis in the Ancient and Medieval World335
27.5 The Little Ice Age (LIA)338
27.6 Beyond the Little Ice Age344
27.7 Conclusion: Patterns and Lessons346
References 348

28 Climate, Ecology, and Infectious Human Disease 355

James L. A. Webb
28.1 Introduction355
28.2 Climate Forces and the Ecological Parameters of
Disease History356
28.3 New Pathogens and Centers of Transmission357
28.4 Processes of Epidemiological Integration359
28.5 Biomedicine, Emerging Diseases, and Climate Change361
28.6 Conclusion362
References 363

29 Climate Change and Conflict 367

Dagomar Degroot
29.1 Introduction367
29.2 Climate Change and the Origins of War:
Qualitative Approaches368
29.3 Climate Change and the Origins of War:
Quantitative Approaches372
29.4 Climate Change and the Conduct of War377
29.5 War and the Causes of Climate Change379
29.6 Conclusion380
References 382

30 Narrating Indigenous Histories of Climate Change

in the Americas and Pacific 387
Thomas Wickman
30.1 Introduction387
30.2 Scope388
30.3 The Arctic and Subarctic389
30.4 Temperate North America390
 CONTENTS
   xiii

30.5 Mexico395
30.6 South America397
30.7 Pacific Islands399
30.8 Indigenous Knowledge and Contemporary Research401
30.9 Conclusion402
References 405

31 Migration and Climate in World History 413

Franz Mauelshagen
31.1 Introduction413
31.2 Climatic Changes and the Peopling of the Earth414
31.3 Climate and Migration in Early Agrarian Societies418
31.4 Little Ice Age (LIA) Climate Change and European
Emigration to the Americas421
31.5 Acclimatization, Forced (Labor) Migration, and Resettlement426
31.6 Global Warming, Displacement, and Climate Refugees429
31.7 Conclusions433
References 438

Part IV Case Studies in Climate Reconstruction and Impacts 445

32 The Climate Downturn of 536–50 447

Timothy P. Newfield
32.1 Introduction447
32.2 Texts449
32.3 Tree Rings452
32.4 Other Proxies459
32.5 Ice Cores462
32.6 Origins463
32.7 Collapse and Resilience467
32.8 Conclusion474
References 483

33 The 1310s Event 495

Philip Slavin
33.1 Introduction495
33.2 The Wider Climatic Context: Transition from the MCA
to the LIA495
33.3 The Weather Anomaly of 1314–16497
33.4 Agricultural Production Destroyed498
33.5 From Shortage to Famine501
33.6 Malnourishment and Mortality: Humans503
xiv CONTENTS

33.7 Malnourishment and Mortality: Animals504

33.8 Long-Term Impacts507
33.9 Conclusion508
References 511

34 The 1780s: Global Climate Anomalies, Floods, Droughts,

and Famines 517
Vinita Damodaran, Rob Allan, Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, Gaston R.
Demarée, Joëlle Gergis, Takehiko Mikami, Alan Mikhail,
Sharon E. Nicholson, Stefan Norrgård, and James Hamilton
34.1 Introduction517
34.2 Reconstructing Global Climate in the 1780s518
34.3 The Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783520
34.4 Protracted Episodes: El Niño 1782–84 and La Niña 1785–90521
34.5 Case Study 1: Famines in India, 1780–1812523
34.6 Case Study 2: The Influence of Climate on the First European
Settlement of Australia, 1788–93531
34.7 Case Study 3: Regional Events and Impacts during the 1780s
in Japan534
34.8 Case Study 4: Africa (Including Egypt)536
34.9 Conclusions540
References 545

35 A Year Without a Summer, 1816 551

Christian Pfister and Sam White
References 559

Part V The History of Climate Ideas and Climate Science 563

36 Climate as a Scientific Paradigm—Early History

of Climatology to 1800 565
Franz Mauelshagen
36.1 Introduction565
36.2 The Geographic Tradition of Climates566
36.3 Mapping Climates570
36.4 Paradigm Shift573
36.5 Climate Change and History578
36.6 Conclusions581
References 584
 Contents 
   xv

37 Climate and Empire in the Nineteenth Century 589

Ruth A. Morgan
37.1 Recording the Colonial Climate590
37.2 Pathologising the Colonial Climate591
37.3 Changing Colonial Climates593
37.4 The Archive of Colonial Climates594
37.5 Climates of Disaster596
37.6 Conclusion597
References 599

38 From Climatology to Climate Science in the Twentieth

Century 605
Matthias Heymann and Dania Achermann
38.1 Introduction605
38.2 “Classical Climatology” and its Expansion606
38.3 The “Conquest of the Third Dimension”607
38.4 Investigation of Climatic Changes609
38.5 Making Climatology a Physical Science: The Physical
Understanding of the Atmosphere610
38.6 The Rise of Atmospheric and Climate Modeling612
38.7 Data Networks and Satellites: The Observational Revolution615
38.8 Earth System Analysis617
38.9 Ice Core Research and Paleoclimatology619
38.10 Conclusion620
References 626

Epilogue 633

Glossary 641

Index 645
 List of Contributors

Dania Achermann Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus,

Denmark
George C. D. Adamson Department of Geography, King’s College London,
London, UK
Rob Allan Met Office, Exeter, UK
Linden Ashcroft Centre for Climate Change, University Rovira i Virgili,
Tortosa, Spain
Ingeborg Auer Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik, Vienna,
Austria
Rudolf Brázdil Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech
Republic
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech
Republic
Stefan Brönnimann Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute
of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
John L. Brooke Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus,
OH, USA
Chantal Camenisch Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute
of History, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Dario Camuffo Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National
Research Council (CNR), Padua, Italy
Erik Conway Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Vinita Damodaran University of Sussex, Sussex, UK

xvii
xviii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dagomar Degroot Department of History, Georgetown University,

Washington, DC, USA
Gaston R. Demarée Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Brussels,
Belgium
Petr Dobrovolný Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech
Republic
Don Garden School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
VIC, Australia
Quansheng Ge Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources
Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Joëlle Gergis School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
VIC, Australia
James Hamilton University of Sussex, Sussex, UK
Zhixin Hao Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Matthias Heymann Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus,
Denmark
Peregrine Horden Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK
David J. Karoly School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Yang Liu Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Jürg Luterbacher Department of Geography, Climatology, Climate Dynamics
and Climate Change, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany
Centre of International Development and Environmental Research, Justus
Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany
Franz Mauelshagen Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University
of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Takehiko Mikami Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan
Alan Mikhail Department of History, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Ruth A. Morgan School of Philosophical, Historical and International
Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
David J. Nash School of Environment and Technology, University of
Brighton, Brighton, UK
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
   xix

School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of

the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Urs Neu Swiss Academy of Sciences, Bern, Switzerland
Timothy P. Newfield Departments of History and Biology, Georgetown
University, Washington, DC, USA
Sharon E. Nicholson Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric
Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Stefan Norrgård Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
Samuel U. Nussbaumer Department of Geography, University of Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Astrid E. J. Ogilvie Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri, Iceland
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado,
Boulder, CO, USA
Naomi Oreskes History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA,
USA
Christian Pfister Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute of
History, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Kathleen Pribyl Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich,
UK
María del Rosario Prieto IANIGLA/CONICET Universidad Nacional de
Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
Christian Rohr Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute of
History, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Facundo Rojas IANIGLA/CONICET Universidad Nacional de Cuyo,
Mendoza, Argentina
Fredrik Schenk Department of Geological Sciences, Bolin Centre for Climate
Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Phil Slavin School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Victoria Slonosky McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Sebastian Wagner Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum
Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany
James L. A. Webb Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA
Sam White Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH,
USA
xx LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Thomas Wickman Department of History, Trinity College, Hartford, CT,

USA
Jingyun Zheng Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources
Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Eduardo Zorita Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum
Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany
Heinz J. Zumbühl Institute of Geography, Oeschger Centre for Climate
Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Schema of evidence and approaches in paleoclimatology and

historical climatology 4
Fig. 1.2 A schematic linear model of climate–society interactions 5
Fig. 1.3 The main methodological steps in the development of climate history 9
Fig. 2.1 Net radiation balance (incoming solar radiation minus outgoing
thermal radiation) of the Earth’s climate 23
Fig. 3.1 Examples of time series over the past 2000 years drawn from the
archives of nature, along with the authors’ interpretation 29
Fig. 4.1 A comparison between a grape harvest date series that has not
corrected its dating for the switch from the Julian to Gregorian
calendar and a series that has corrected for this change in dating 43
Fig. 5.1 Assemblage of 24 water marks on the wall of a private house
situated at the Tauber River in Wertheim (Germany) 52
Fig. 5.2 Almanac for the year 1600. The calendrical part for January (left)
compares the “New” with the “Old” calendar alongside three
icons representing the astronomical constellation and
recommended activities 55
Fig. 5.3 Places where comprehensive weather diaries were kept in sixteenth-­
century Central Europe 56
Fig. 6.1 April to July mean temperatures estimated from a new series of
Swiss grape harvest dates in 1540 were significantly higher than
those in 2003 70
Fig. 6.2 The Omiwatari feature, an unusual form of ice cracking on the
frozen Lake Suwa in Japan, has been recorded since the fifteenth
century73
Fig. 6.3 An assemblage of high-water marks, initially attached to the “Old
Bridge” over the River Main in Frankfurt, Germany, and today
placed at a pedestrian bridge over the river 74
Fig. 6.4 Logbook of the William Hamilton of New Bedford, mastered by
Humphrey Allen Shockley, on a voyage from June 1850 to
November 1852 77
Fig. 7.1 The little Florentine thermometer 84

xxi
xxii List of Figures

Fig. 7.2 (a) Early barometer, Torricelli type, consisting of a glass tube filled
with mercury and a vessel acting as a cistern. (b) Wheel barometer
invented by Hooke 86
Fig. 7.3 Rain gauge of the mid-nineteenth century, composed of a collecting
funnel (F), a storage can (B), and an external graduated glass tube
(D) to measure the amount of precipitated water 87
Fig. 8.1 The Mer de Glace seen from the viewpoint of La Flégère,
overlooking the valley of Chamonix (Mont Blanc). Left: Drawing
by Samuel Birmann from 1823. Middle: Photograph taken by
Henri Plaut in the 1850s. Right: Current view with reconstructed
glacier extents in 1644 (grey, largest extension), 1821 (black), and
1895 (white) 95
Fig. 9.1 Differences between automatically and manually measured
temperatures with respect to automatically measured daily
maximum and minimum temperatures at the Kremsmünster station
from June 1988 to December 2008 102
Fig. 9.2 HOMER plots visualizing the homogenization of the temperature
series at the mountain station Patscherkofel in Austria 104
Fig. 10.1 The main steps in quantitative climate reconstruction based on
temperature or precipitation indices derived from documentary
evidence108
Fig. 10.2 An example of measured (red) and reconstructed (blue) mean
annual precipitation anomalies (departures from the 1961–90
reference period)  110
Fig. 11.1 Biophysical Climate Impact Factors computed from documentary-­
based indices for Switzerland and for the Czech lands over the
period 1750–1800 125
Fig. 11.2 Little Ice Age-type impacts in South-Central Europe 1560–1670 126
Fig. 12.1 Schematic diagram for climate field reconstructions 133
Fig. 12.2 Bayesian hierarchical-based temperature CFR for a cold and warm
European summer in the 1430s 134
Fig. 13.1 Time series of winter (December-to-February) air temperature
averaged over Central Europe (0°E–20°E; 45°N–55°N) as
simulated in three simulations with the global climate model
MPI-ESM-P145
Fig. 13.2 Maps of the winter air temperature differences between the Late
Maunder Minimum (1680–1710 ce) and the Medieval Climate
Anomaly (1000–1200 ce) over Europe 146
Fig. 14.1 Front cover of the magazine Der Spiegel 33/August 11, 1986 162
Fig. 15.1 Climate in the Holocene 177
Fig. 15.2 Solar forcing in the middle to late Holocene 180
Fig. 17.1 The number of records in Chinese documents containing climate
information for each decade (30 bce–1470 ce)191
Fig. 17.2 An example of climatic information recorded in a local gazette (from
Gazettes of Yangzhou Prefecture, published in 1874) 192
Fig. 17.3 An example from the Records on Rainfall Infiltration and Snowfall
(Yu Xue Fen Cun) containing the first and last pages (right to left)
of an original twelve-page memo prepared by Gao Bin, Governor of
Zhili Province 193
 List of Figures 
   xxiii

Fig. 17.4 An ensemble of temperature reconstructions based on partial least

squares (red lines) and principal components regression (blue lines)
methods at decadal (thin lines) and centennial timescales (solid
lines)196
Fig. 17.5 Spatial patterns of precipitation anomalies over eastern China
(with reference to the average values of the past 2000 years)
during the four warm (“W”) and cold (“C”) periods, on a
centennial timescale 198
Fig. 18.1 Reconstructed date of monsoon onset over Bombay for 1781–1878
(with error bars) 206
Fig. 19.1 Cities and places mentioned in the text 215
Fig. 19.2 Iceberg sightings from the Diamante during the voyage from
Lima, Peru to Cádiz, Spain 219
Fig. 20.1 Climatic chronologies for select regions of Africa 227
Fig. 20.2 Location of regions in Fig. 20.1 228
Fig. 20.3 Map of ninety regions depicted in Fig. 20.4 231
Fig. 20.4 Semi-quantitative dataset including several categories, indicating a
range of conditions from extreme drought (−3) to very wet (+3) 232
Fig. 20.5 Select regional time series based on the data in Fig. 20.4 233
Fig. 21.1 (a) A map of Australia showing the south-eastern Australia (SEA)
study region. (b) Wet and dry years for eastern NSW 238
Fig. 25.1 Coverage of meteorological stations with daily pressure readings
for the years 1800, 1850, 1900, and 1950 in the International
Surface Pressure Databank (ISBD) Version 4 311
Fig. 25.2 Time series of annual mean temperature anomalies (with respect to
1700–1890) for Europe 314
Fig. 25.3 Reconstructed fields of (left) temperature, sea-level pressure, and
(right) precipitation during Jun.–Aug. 1816, relative to 1700–1890 315
Fig. 25.4 Precipitation and sea-surface temperature anomalies in 1931–39
relative to 1920–50 316
Fig. 26.1 Annual time series of lower stratospheric temperature (TLS/MSU
Data, from RSS), upper tropospheric temperature (300 hPa,
RICHv1.5, Leo Haimberger, Univ. Vienna), land and ocean surface
air temperature 323
Fig. 26.2 Trend of (top) temperature (NASA/GISS) from 1970 to 2016 and
(bottom) precipitation (NCDC) from 1970 to 2015 in boreal
winter (left) and summer (right) 324
Fig. 27.1 Schematic illustration of climatic change, frequency of extreme
weather, and agricultural vulnerability 333
Fig. 27.2 The crisis of the 1570s across Europe 341
Fig. 31.1 A map of the peopling of the earth by Homo sapiens sapiens,
showing major haplogroups of mitochondrial DNA (red letters),
approximate dating for the peopling of specific continents or
regions (black numbers), and geoclimatic clues (indicated by
arrows)415
Fig. 31.2 Radiative forcing, 1000–2000 ce, and several reconstructions for
solar forcing, greenhouse gases (CO2), aerosols, and volcanic
forcing424
xxiv List of Figures

Fig. 31.3 Migration and LIA Climate, 1780–1820: (a) Immigration to the
United States, 1783–1820; (b) ENSO reconstruction, 1780–1820;
(c) Global Radiative Forcing, 1780–1820; (d) Timeline of events
mentioned in the text, 1780–1820, including volcanic eruptions,
ENSO, and historical events 425
Fig. 32.1 European June–August temperature anomalies with respect to
1860–2004460
Fig. 32.2 European June–August temperature anomalies with respect to
1860–2004 (detail of 500s ce)461
Fig. 34.1 Instrumental weather observations in the meteorological journal
of William Dawes (14 September 1788 to 6 December 1791)
from Sydney Cove, New South Wales, Australia 519
Fig. 34.2 Time series of the reconstructed South Asian Summer Monsoon
Index (SASMI) (red line), the decadal (cyan line) and annual (blue
line) inverse of dust concentrations in [an] ice-core record from
Dasuopo, Tibet, the inverse of the δ18O speleothem record (green
line), and the tree-ring chronologies from Mae Hong Son (MHS)
(black line) and Bidoup Nui Ba National Park (BDNP) (orange
line) before 1670 ce (a) and after 1671 ce (b) 524
Fig. 34.3 Map of famine areas in India from 1770–1812 528
Fig. 34.4 Time series of reconstructed (blue lines) and observed (black/grey
lines) July temperatures in Tokyo for 1721–2000 535
Fig. 35.1 Switzerland as a mosaic of climate- and weather-related impacts
following the 1816 “year without a summer” 554
Fig. 36.1 Left: Traditional cartographic division of climates showing half-hour
differences of the longest day during summer solstice to the polar
circle and monthly climates from the polar circle. Right: Classical
division of the globe into five meteorological zones 567
Fig. 36.2 Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica Ac Hydrographica
Tabula, 1635 571
Fig. 36.3 Buy de Mornas, Climats d’Heures et de Mois, Paris 1762,
38.5 × 54.0 cm 572
Fig. 38.1 Bjerknes’ so-called primitive equations in modern mathematical
notation612
Fig. 38.2 GCM family tree 614
Fig. 38.3 Kellogg’s climate projection 615
Fig. 38.4 Climate projections to the year 2100 616
Fig. 38.5 The Bretherton Diagram of the Earth system 619
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Examples of evidence from archives of nature and archives of

societies31
Table 4.1 Major categories of climate and weather sources from the archives
of societies discussed in this handbook 38
Table 5.1 Mean monthly precipitation in Cracow 1502–38 and Eichstätt
1514–31 against instrumental measurements 57
Table 7.1 Long regular meteorological observations in Europe 89
Table 11.1 The seven-point temperature and precipitation index 117
Table 11.2 Criteria for generating seven-point temperature indices of +/2
and +/−3 for Switzerland 118
Table 11.3 Criteria for generating seasonal temperature and precipitation
indices (seven-point index scale) for the Low Countries 119
Table 11.4 The seven-point precipitation index based on duodecile statistics 120
Table 11.5 Reconstruction of seasonal temperature and precipitation in the
Low Countries, 1400–99 (percentage of reconstructed seasons) 124
Table 17.1 The dynasties of imperial China 190
Table 19.1 Starting dates for instrumental data in Latin American countries 216
Table 21.1 Dry and wet years for eastern New South Wales identified from
documentary and instrumental rainfall records 240
Table 23.1 Early modern temperature anomalies in Central Europe,
Paris and central England from long-term twentieth-century
means (°C) 277
Table 31.1 Evidence for Homo sapiens migrations out of Africa 416
Table 32.1 Twenty-eight dendroclimatological studies (1990–2015) relevant
to the 536–50 downturn 454
Table 36.1 Ptolemy’s full system of climes, and the reduced system of seven
climates568
Table 36.2 Halley’s calculations of the distribution of incoming solar
radiation as a function of latitude at the equinox 574

xxv
 CHAPTER 1

General Introduction: Weather, Climate,

and Human History

Christian Pfister, Sam White, and Franz Mauelshagen

In the twenty-first century, man-made global warming has emerged as one of

the most pressing issues for the future of humanity and the environment.
However, climate variability and climate change are not new. To put anthropo-
genic warming in perspective, we need to understand natural climate varia-
tions, extremes, and forcings, as well as the history of climate science. To
appreciate how humans can (or cannot) deal with climate change, we need to
consider how past climates influenced societies and how those societies
responded and adapted to their challenges. Moreover, to fully understand
events and developments in human history, we need to recognize the roles that
climate and weather have (and have not) played in our past.
This handbook introduces students and scholars to the vital field of climate
history: the interdisciplinary study of past weather and climate variations, and
their place in human history. Drawing together dozens of experts from multi-
ple disciplines, it presents the state of the field, including:

• methods of climate and weather reconstruction from human sources,

such as written records and early weather instruments;
• techniques of indexing, mapping, and modeling climate data;

C. Pfister (*)
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change,
Bern, Switzerland
S. White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
F. Mauelshagen
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University of Potsdam,
Potsdam, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 1

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_1
2 C. PFISTER ET AL.

• the history of weather and climate variations for each region and period
of human history since the last ice age;
• the impacts of climate variations on agriculture, conflict, health, and
migration in history;
• case studies of exceptional decades of climatic variability and their human
impacts;
• the history of climate ideas and climate science.

This introductory chapter explains the basics of how climate history works, out-
lines the core issues in climate history, provides essential background to the field
(in Europe and the USA), and concludes with a guide to using this volume.

1.1   Climate History and Historical Climatology

Climate history remains a diverse field. Its scholars come from many disciplines
and academic departments, and they approach their work in different ways.
Some deal primarily in quantitative methods and others in qualitative. Some
would identify themselves as environmental historians and others as economic
historians, geographers, or even climate scientists. Nevertheless, state-of-the-­
art research in climate history typically follows certain core principles.
First, climate history makes use of one or both of two approaches of climate
reconstruction: paleoclimatology and historical climatology. Paleoclimatology here
refers to the statistical reconstruction of past climates from physical sources left by
natural processes, or what this volume will call “the archives of nature.” Historical
climatology here refers to the reconstruction of past climates and weather from
physical and written sources left by humans, or what this volume will call “the
archives of societies” (see Fig. 1.1 and Chap. 3). Because paleoclimatology has
become a large and specialized area of research with its own textbooks, this vol-
ume will focus on the methods and results of historical climatology. It is particu-
larly from this that climate historians derive much of the precise, local information
needed to understand climate and weather impacts on the human world. The
case studies provided in Chaps. 32–35 illustrate how climate historians combine
paleoclimatology and historical climatology in state-of-the-art research.
Second, climate history draws on the methods and standards of historical
research. These include training in languages, paleography, and the critical analy-
sis of historical sources. Climate historians—just like other scholars of history—
should be intimately familiar with the texts and contexts of their region and
period of study in order to judge the reliability and meaning of their source
materials (see Chap. 4). Many, but not all, also develop the same practices of nar-
ration and qualitative analysis practiced in conventional branches of history.
Third, climate history is concerned with understanding the role of climate
and weather variations in events and developments of the human past. This
concern distinguishes climate history from other fields. Unlike conventional
history, climate history does not treat climate and weather as something exog-
enous to the human experience, nor does it assume that human history can be
explained only by examining human factors. Unlike (paleo)climatology, climate
history focuses on human experiences. Its researchers are interested in learning
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY 3

about specific past events for their own sake, and not only as they relate to
larger climatic patterns or trends.
The term “climate history” has a complicated background. For climatolo-
gists, it means simply the history of the earth’s climate, its long- and short-term
variability from the beginnings of the atmosphere to the present.
Paleoclimatology, as the study of climate prior to the period of instrumental
measurements, constitutes a well-established field within climatology.1 By con-
trast, historians began using the term “climate history” some fifty years ago to
label a novel field of historical study: how weather and climate changed during
the recorded past and how those variations affected human history. These two
versions of “climate history” overlap in important respects. Both involve recon-
struction of climates in the period before instrumental measurements. Each
may contribute data and insights to the other. On the other hand, paleoclima-
tology has a scope of billions of years, uses physical rather than descriptive
records, and is not concerned with the historical impacts of climate.
The term “historical climatology” is similarly complicated. Its usage was
established by a seminal 1978 article in Nature, which outlined the techniques
of reconstructing past climates from human records.2 Researchers in the field
used the term in part to help their research gain acceptance as a valid method
of climate reconstruction within the larger discipline of climatology. Gaining
that acceptance among climate scientists constituted a major achievement of
the field. However, researchers trained in the humanist historical tradition have
never felt entirely comfortable with the label “historical climatology.” Most
historians simply do not think of themselves as climatologists, even when
involved in reconstructing climates of the past. At the same time, the practice
of historical climatology has been inherently interdisciplinary, combining
expertise from the humanities and natural sciences (meteorology, climatology,
and physical geography). To understand their source material and carry out
climate reconstruction, historical climatologists have also worked on issues of
historical climate impacts, perceptions, vulnerabilities, and adaptations. Thus
they have often used the term “historical climatology” in the same sense as
historians have used the term “climate history.”
In this volume we try to establish a clear and simple terminology. We use
“climate history” in the historians’ sense only; and we identify paleoclimatol-
ogy and historical climatology as two different fields of climate reconstruction,
the former using the archives of nature, and the latter using the archives of
societies. Nevertheless, the reader should be aware of the inconsistent and
overlapping use of these terms elsewhere.

1.2   Methodological and Conceptual Challenges

Methodologically and conceptually, climate history grapples with two sets of
core issues. Many of the methods, themes, and case studies in this volume
reflect these issues and the techniques employed to address them.
First, climate history must integrate data and perspectives from history and
the humanities with those from the natural sciences and sometimes social
­sciences. This integration poses several challenges. Climate historians need to
4 C. PFISTER ET AL.

bridge qualitative and quantitative information and methods, particularly in

the analysis of past climates reconstructed from written records. Moreover, the
analysis of human history often operates on different scales from the analysis of
climate science. Atmospheric events taking place over weeks, days, or even
hours may have a decisive influence on human societies, while for the clima-
tologist these may represent little more than statistical “noise.” Historically,
individuals rarely observed long-term climate change directly. They usually
experienced climatic change in terms of the frequency and severity of extreme
weather events or environmental challenges. Finally, the natural and social sci-
ences tend to emphasize long-term patterns and probabilities, whereas history
tends to focus on particularity and contingency. Historians, unlike scientists,
“tend to eschew broad generalizations, partly because it is the detail, the differ-
ences from one case to another, which is central to historical research.”3
Figure 1.1 provides an overview of evidence and approaches used in paleo-
climatology and historical climatology, and how these relate to each other.
Both disciplines have developed methods to reconstruct climate elements such
as temperature and precipitation from proxies, or indirect representations of
past climate. Examples from the archives of nature would include the width of
tree rings, and from the archives of society the dates of grape harvests (see
Chap. 3). Historical climatologists subsequently developed their own approach
to climate reconstruction, climate indices, which combine the interpretation of
historical weather narratives and proxy data (see Chap. 11). It often helps to
compare the results of historical climatology with high-resolution evidence
from the archives of nature, especially where written sources are not abundant.
Human perceptions and interpretations of weather and its impacts on the
human world constitute another focus of climate history, closely tied to cul-
tural and economic history. Weather constitutes the physical and psychological
nexus between people and the atmosphere.
The second set of methodological and conceptual issues in climate history
concerns causality. In general, research in climate history seeks to demonstrate
causation and not merely correlation between climatic and human develop-

Fig. 1.1 Schema of evidence and approaches in paleoclimatology and historical

climatology
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY 5

ments. Even where circumstantial evidence strongly suggests some influence of

climate change or variability on past societies, direct causal links can be difficult
to prove. Figure 1.2 illustrates this problem schematically.
As shown in Fig. 1.2, at each step—from biophysical impacts to economic
impacts to political and culture change—the role of weather variations becomes

Fig. 1.2 A schematic linear model of climate–society interactions (from Krämer 2015).
This simplified model of climate and society illustrates how extreme weather and climate
can have a range of consequences, starting with immediate first-order effects on biomass
production, which in turn may cause second-order effects on economic growth, water
availability, and human and animal health. Third-order effects include demographic and
social changes, and resource conflicts. Fourth-order (cultural) effects may range from
the persecution of marginal people to the adoption of new adaptation strategies. The
diminishing width of the arrows represents how causality becomes less direct moving
from climate through biophysical, economic, social, and cultural effects, and back again.
6 C. PFISTER ET AL.

less certain. Climate and weather reconstruction, therefore, is often just the
first stage in climate history research. Much of the work in the field is involved
in demonstrating actual series of events connecting climate change with human
impacts; in exploring additional historical factors and explanations; and above
all in understanding societal vulnerabilities, responses, and adaptation in the
face of climatic and meteorological challenges.
For decades, climate historians have been anxious to establish the role of
weather and climate in the past while avoiding the problem of climate deter-
minism, or the fallacy that climatic factors control the development of societies.
On the one hand, most historians and many sociologists “have chosen to
ignore the possible importance of climate on the development of society,” or
have explicitly rejected the role of environmental factors altogether.4 On the
other hand, many science articles and popular science books that claim to iden-
tify some climate-driven crisis or collapse continue to confound correlation
with causation. Sociologist Nico Stehr and climate physicist Hans von Storch
argue that “a large proportion of today’s climate impact research is genuine
climate determinism.”5 The challenge for climate history lies in giving climate
and weather their proper place in human affairs without obfuscation or
exaggeration.

1.3   Background
The idea that climates and climate change could influence societies and history
can be traced as far back as ancient authors such as Herodotus, or the works of
Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Gibbon (who
understood the term “climate” in a very different sense: see Chap. 36).
Systematic efforts to compile evidence on past weather and climate date back
only to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (at least in Europe and
the USA).6 A few scholars, notably German geographer Eduard Brückner
(1852–1927) and English meteorologist C.E.P. Brooks (1888–1957), gath-
ered evidence of climate events and variability from European historical sources
from the Middle Ages onwards, making the case for their economic and politi-
cal consequences.
Starting in the mid-twentieth century, two scholars in particular helped
establish climate history as a significant field of research. Celebrated French
historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (b. 1929), who had a passion for studying
past weather and climate, pioneered the integration of phenological data such
as grape harvest dates with human records in order to reconstruct seasonal
temperature during past centuries. His 1967 monograph Histoire du climat
depuis l’an mil (Times of Feast, Times of Famine) spread his influence beyond
the French-speaking world and drew public attention to historical climatology.
This influential book also included an important chapter about glacier varia-
tions in the French and Swiss Alps, which helped popularize the concept of an
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY 7

early modern “Little Ice Age” (see Chap. 23). Nevertheless, Le Roy Ladurie
concluded his book by stating that “in the long term the human consequences
of climate seem to be slight, perhaps negligible, and certainly difficult to
detect.”7 Although well aware of the human significance of short-term climate
effects, he was concerned about problems of interpretation, and later admitted
he feared being discredited as a climate determinist.8 At the turn of the millen-
nium, once global warming was drawing public and scholarly attention back to
climate in human affairs, Le Roy Ladurie came out with a stronger case for
short-term climate impacts in his three-volume Human and Comparative
History of Climate.9
Hubert Horace Lamb (1913–97) was a meteorologist and climatologist
with a passion for human history. Working in the UK Meteorological Office,
he discovered “an immense archive of virtually untapped historical weather
data,” from which he was able to reconstruct “meaningful circulation patterns
for past climatic periods.”10 During the 1960s, Lamb established the first mod-
ern synthesis of European climate over the last millennium, which formed the
basis for his 1972 Climate: Past, Present, and Future and his later popular
works. In particular, he drew a comprehensive picture of the “Medieval Warm
Period,” as he called it, based on archaeological, botanical, and documentary
evidence. Moreover, Lamb was the first researcher to attempt a conclusive in-­
depth investigation of the global impacts of large tropical volcanic eruptions,
for which he developed the well-known volcanic Dust Veil Index. He, too,
took pains to eschew climate determinism: “Human history is not acted out in
a vacuum but against the background of an environment in which many sorts
of change are always going on besides the changes imposed by man,” he wrote.
Elsewhere he stated:

“In sum, the impact of climatic fluctuations and change on history, and on human
affairs today […] can best be seen as a destabilizing influence and catalyst of
change. At the worst, we see reactions by human society which have amounted to
shifting or concentrating the burdens of suffering onto the weakest members of
the national and international community.”11

Lamb also served as founding director of the Climate Research Unit

(CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. Still one of the
world’s leading centers of climate change research, it played a vital role in
fostering the development of climate history, providing a center for histori-
ans to work alongside climatologists. Scholars at the CRU, including
W.T. Bell and Astrid Ogilvie, developed standards for deriving reliable cli-
mate data from historical sources.12 In 1979 the unit hosted the first major
conference in historical climatology, providing an interdisciplinary umbrella
for more than 250 historians, geographers, climatologists, and archaeolo-
gists from more than thirty countries, who had been working more or less
8 C. PFISTER ET AL.

in isolation.13 Several participants, such as Maria del Rosario Prieto (see

Chap. 21), helped bring historical climatology research to new countries
and continents.
The conference resulted in seminal publications, establishing some key
methodologies in climate history (see Fig. 1.3). For example, Christian Pfister
introduced his innovative seven-point monthly temperature and precipitation
index (see Chap. 11).14 American economic historian Jan de Vries presented
statistical models of climate impacts on food prices in the early modern Low
Countries.15 Swiss geographer Heinz J. Zumbühl provided the methodological
tools for dealing with pictorial evidence of glacier movements (see Chap. 8).16
In line with public discussion about the food and energy crises of the 1970s, a
number of attendants presented papers on the role of weather and climate in
past subsistence crises, which became an important subject of climate history
research (see Chap. 27). Economic historian John Post examined the key fac-
tors in mortality peaks during subsistence crises using case studies of the 1740s
and 1810s in Europe, demonstrating that the poor sanitary conditions of fam-
ine refugees promoted deadly outbreaks of diseases such as typhus and
typhoid.17 Figure 1.3 outlines the main methodological steps in the develop-
ment of climate history starting with the approaches of Le Roy Ladurie and
Lamb.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, climate history lost some ground,
especially among the new generation of historians in the USA and Western
Europe. During these years, sometimes known as the “cultural turn,” main-
stream historians shied away from quantitative approaches and “positivistic”
facts of material life. Instead of further investigating socioeconomic implica-
tions of past weather and climate, historical climatologists became involved in
national and international research programs directed at reconstructing past
climate, primarily temperatures. For instance, the 1989 European Science
Foundation project entitled European Palaeoclimate and Man since the Last
Glaciation involved spatial reconstructions of monthly weather in Europe for
the Late Maunder Minimum (1675–1715), mostly based on documentary evi-
dence in the framework of a database named Euro-Climhist.18 In this context,
Joel Guiot conducted some of the first ever research to assess temperatures
through a combination of biophysical and written records; and climatologists
Heinz Wanner and Jürg Luterbacher developed statistical approaches for spa-
tial field reconstruction (see Chap. 12).19 The CRU broadened its work into
paleoclimatology and climate modeling, while continuing to support research
into historical climatology.
 The climatological approach The meteorological approach
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie Hubert H. Lamb

Objecves: Objecves:
Reconstruc on of "Lile Ice Age" climate Reconstruc on of past atmospheric circula on
Impact of climate and longer term economic development Explana on of climate variability (forcing factors)
No analysis of human impacts of climate Assessing impacts of severe weather on people

Evidence: Evidence:
Long series of proxy data (e.g. Grape Harvest Dates temperature es mates) Narra ve weather observa ons
Narra ve data on cold winters Early temperature measurements
Wrien and pictorial glacier evidence on Alpine Glaciers Evidence of large volcanic erup ons

Results and conclusions: Results and conclusions:

Cold summers (late grape harvests) and glacier advances Significant volcanic forcing
Prospect of a cold "Lile Ice Age" Methods: "Medieval Warm Period"
No significant human impacts of climate Cri cal source analysis (Bell, Olgivie 1978) Significant human impacts of extreme weather

Methods: Methods:
Cri que of anectodial evidence (short term events) 7-point monthly temperature and precipita on indices (Pfister, 1981) Meteorological analysis of past weather paerns
Analysis of past Alpine glacier fluctua ons Spa al reconstruc on of atmospheric circula on paerns
Analysisis of Grape Harvest Dates 3-point seasonal temperature and precipita on indices

Cri cal analysis of pictorial glacier data 1990–1994 ESF Project; Spa al Reconstruc on of monthly weather in Europe 1675–1715 Reconstruc on of monthly atmospheric circula on in
(Zumbühl, 1980) 1st Euro-Climhist-Data Base (Pfister et al., 1994) circula on in Europe (Wanner et al. 1995)

Monthly temperature data 1501-present 2nd Euro-Climhist-Data Base Sta s cal Method of Spa al Field Reconstruc on
(Dobrovolný et al. 2010) (Pfister, Rohr, 2015) (Luterbacher et al., mul ple publica ons)

Fig. 1.3 The main methodological steps in the development of climate history
GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY
9
10 C. PFISTER ET AL.

1.4   New Influences: Environmental History,

Globalization, and Global Warming
By the 2000s, several developments restored interest in historical climatology
and reshaped the field of climate history. First was the rise of environmental
history as a major scholarly field in the USA and then Europe. Although cli-
mate and weather were not leading themes in environmental history until the
2010s, the rise of environmental history nevertheless opened up new possibili-
ties for the study of environmental factors in the human past, as well as the use
of natural sciences and interdisciplinary insights in historical research. Climate
history has also fitted into other major research areas of environmental history,
particularly natural disasters. Even as historical climatologists and climate his-
torians organized fewer independent conferences and publications, more
researchers became involved in environmental history, historical geography,
and geophysical science societies and meetings. In 2011, talks at the American
Society for Environmental History led to the creation of the Climate History
Network, an informal organization to share news and publications and to coor-
dinate meetings in the field.20
By the late 1990s, both environmental and climate history were also gain-
ing ground beyond Europe and North America. As discussed in Chaps. 17–21,
scholars had begun to undertake more systematic work in documentary-based
climate reconstruction in Africa, Australia, Latin America, Japan, and to a
lesser extent South Asia and the Middle East. In China, where work in
­historical climatology was already advanced, a few scholars began to publish in
­international journals and to address issues of historical climate impacts and
adaptation as well as reconstruction. This globalization of the discipline came
at a time of rising interest in global history, particularly in US universities.
In the meantime, increasing public concern about global warming and
related environmental disasters brought more scholarly attention to historical
climate variability and impacts. The sudden growth in climatological research
generated vast new sources of high-resolution paleoclimate data relevant to
human history. Efforts to project future climate variability and extreme
weather generated new interest in past climate variations and their impacts as
well.
Within the field of history, scholars personally concerned about the impacts
of warming could no longer reject the study of historical climates as mere
determinism. In some cases, historians with little or no previous background in
historical climatology turned to climatic and other environmental factors as
explanations for major historical developments, such as the Late Bronze Age
crisis and the seventeeth-century “general crisis” in Europe and Asia.21 The
trend has been most pronounced in the “new world history” focused on large-­
scale connections and patterns rather than individual events and nations. For
example, Victor Lieberman’s Strange Parallels, a vast comparative history of
the early modern world, appealed to climatic changes as a principal factor tying
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY 11

together political and economic cycles across Eurasia.22 A 2012 article in the
American Historical Review proposed that a “new materialism” was already
replacing the “cultural turn” of the early 1990s.23 In the following years,
forums or special issues devoted to climate history appeared in leading history
journals, including the American Historical Review, the Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, Environmental History, and the William and Mary
Quarterly.
As the field has grown and diversified, so have its topics, approaches, meth-
ods, and conceptual frames. In a number of reviews of historical climatology
and climate history, Rudolf Brázdil and co-authors have defined the major
findings and topics in the field as:

• reconstructing temporal and spatial patterns of weather and climate as well

as climate-related natural disasters for the period prior to the creation of
national meteorological networks (mainly for the last millennium);
• investigating the vulnerability of past societies and economies to climate
variations, climate extremes, and natural disasters;
• exploring past discourses and social representations of weather and
climate.24

In a 2012 review, American historian Mark Carey argued that climate history
would benefit from including race, class, and gender as well. Moreover, he sug-
gested focusing on the social or cultural aspects of global warming research
instead of just reporting the narratives of scientists.25

1.5   Prospects
Climate history emerged as a new research field prior to widespread concern
about global warming and its causes, and so its purpose and methods devel-
oped independently of those issues. Starting in the 1980s, however, climate
historians became involved in and have made significant contributions to the
understanding of climate change in historical periods, which has helped to
place global warming in the context of Holocene climate history. For instance,
historical climatologists have informed sections of Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change Working Group I reports. On the other hand, Working Group
II reports on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability make only occasional refer-
ences to historical experience and even less to climate history research.
Economists, political scientists, and sociologists who lead discussions on
impacts, adaptation, and vulnerabilities need first to open up to historical stud-
ies, while historians must better connect their findings to present and future
challenges.
One way to achieve this goal could be more in-depth research on climate–
society interactions during recent periods. The nineteenth and twentieth
centuries remain relatively neglected by climate historians. Most individuals
12 C. PFISTER ET AL.

have worked on earlier eras, in large part because their work has specialized
in climate reconstruction for periods before standardized instrumental data,
rather than in applying that data to the human history of recent times.
Conversely, very few historians of modernity—including environmental his-
torians—have been interested in working with climate data or analyzing cli-
mate–society relations. Precipitation is another field of research calling for
more effort by climate historians. Since precipitation patterns are highly
localized, historical instrumental records cannot adequately cover any large
part of the globe. On the other hand, documentary records often include
descriptions of precipitation because it was (and still is) crucial for agricul-
tural work (see Chap. 27).
The emergence of climate science during the second half of the twentieth
century was accompanied by a paradigmatic shift from descriptive climatology
to causal explanations of climatic changes (see Chap. 38). Descriptive climatol-
ogy, rooted in nineteenth-century positivism, was, as Hubert H. Lamb put it
so aptly, “the book-keeping branch of meteorology—no more and no less.”26
It focused on the statistics of new reams of weather data from standardized
instrumental networks. The picture began to change during the twentieth cen-
tury with the development of new fields, including paleoclimatology, atmo-
spheric chemistry, and eventually modeling. The need to understand the causes
of climate change, now as well as in history, has been the driving force behind
that paradigm shift. However, as historical climatology emerged, historians and
geographers still worked from traditional, purely descriptive concepts of cli-
mate; and historical climatologists are still working out how to modernize their
definitions of climate and thus adapt to the new causal approach. It remains a
future challenge for climate and environmental historians to provide valuable
information drawn from historical records in order to better explain and model
past climatic changes. That applies, for example, to deforestation, which influ-
ences the carbon cycle and changes planetary albedo.27 Measures of deforesta-
tion have been recorded worldwide and throughout documented history.
Though incomplete, this evidence might have the potential to improve model-
ing of deforestation prior to 1800, which until now has been based on very
general assumptions.
Until the 1990s, this descriptive paradigm led historical climatologists to
focus on reconstructing just a few meteorological features—temperature, pre-
cipitation, and air pressure—to contribute datasets to paleoclimate reconstruc-
tions. Important extreme events (e.g., wind storms, hail storms, and snow
cover) were often neglected, leaving gaps in existing databases.28 This informa-
tion about extremes is key to understanding impacts of climate variability on
societies past and present. A recent World Bank study has projected that low-­
probability, high-impact events—notably heatwaves, droughts, and floods—
will occur more frequently. Few sources from the archives of nature can provide
information about these extremes, especially information with the specificity
found in records from the archives of societies.29
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY 13

Even as climate historians have learned to better integrate research on past

climate reconstruction and impacts, the third branch of research—past dis-
courses and social representations of weather and climate—remains frag-
mented. The prevailing cultural practices of a time and place are deeply
interwoven with the study of climate–society relations. “For intellectual and
cultural historians, weather reports are a relatively unexamined territory, a trea-
sure trove of human thinking about what it meant to live in particular worlds
at particular times.”30 Culture has been neglected in studies applying mechanis-
tic, and potentially deterministic, models of climatic impacts, but that is no
option for historians. The cultural and intellectual history of weather and cli-
mate, although a vital field of study in its own right, has been spread across
multiple disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, religious
studies, geography, and anthropology. Integrated multidisciplinary surveys will
require more research and collaboration.
A final trend in the field—and challenge for researchers—is the globalization
of climate history. So far, few academic (as opposed to popular) works have
undertaken global climate histories. Theory and practice in global history have
favored cultural interactions and societal or economic networks as the domi-
nant forces of social and political transformation. Global climatic change and
its effects, whether short term or long term, remains a new topic in the field.
Recently, Geoffrey Parker’s account of “global crisis” during the seventeenth
century has drawn attention to the impacts of this phase of the Little Ice Age,31
and recent books by Gillen D’Arcy Wood and Wolfgang Behringer have
explored the global effects of the 1815 Tambora eruption and ensuing “year
without a summer” (see Chap. 35).32

1.6   A Guide to this Handbook

This volume was designed to combine the advantages of a textbook and an
edited volume. It offers an integrated and consistent overview of the field of
climate history in language that is accessible to non-specialists, while bringing
together the expertise and perspectives of specialists in many regions, periods,
and methods. It may be used as a work of teaching or reference, or as an intro-
duction to the field for scholars seeking to acquire the methods and insights of
climate history.
There is no expectation that readers will work from the beginning to the end
of the volume. Each chapter represents an independent work of synthesis or
original research. The chapters include numerous citations and cross-references
for readers in search of more information and examples. The editors have
allowed for some overlap among the chapters rather than forcing the reader to
repeatedly look up information.
The volume is organized into six parts. Following this introduction, Chaps.
2–14 lay out the methods and sources of the field. Chapters 15–26 review the
results of climate history research by era and region. Rather than force each of
14 C. PFISTER ET AL.

these chapters into the same format, the editors allowed their length and peri-
odization to reflect the unevenness of evidence and research. Chapters 27–31
examine several themes in climate impact, vulnerability, and adaptation
research, focusing on reviews of the current literature. Chapters 32–35 offer
case studies of decades with exceptional climate anomalies, including the
530s–540s, 1310s, 1780s–1790s, and 1810s. Finally, Chaps. 36–38 cover the
emergence of modern climate science. Given the state of the field, and a deci-
sion to focus on the antecedents of the modern discipline of climatology, these
chapters emphasize the work of European and American scientists. However,
the editors do not wish to imply that ideas about climate were exclusively the
work of white men. Colonial exchanges of knowledge and encounters with
indigenous peoples played an important role (see Chap. 37), and we expect
further modifications to this story as research on the history of climate science
expands into new parts of the world.
This handbook reflects the state of the field at a moment when climate his-
tory has achieved established methods and validated results. Nevertheless, the
fast pace of research means that important new publications appear continu-
ously, forever raising new ideas and revising old ones. Readers looking for up-­
to-­date news and publications in the field are advised to consult the bibliography,
links, and databases at http://www.climatehistory.net/.

Notes
1. Bradley, 2015.
2. Ingram et al., 1978.
3. Wigley et al., 1985, 558.
4. Wigley et al., 1985, 558.
5. Stehr and Storch, 2000, 187.
6. Fleming, 1998.
7. Le Roy Ladurie, 1971, 119.
8. Pfister, 2011, 303.
9. Le Roy Ladurie, 2004.
10. Kington, 2007. See also Martin-Nielsen, 2015.
11. Lamb, 1995, 6 and 318.
12. Bell and Ogilvie, 1978.
13. Lamb and Ingram, 1980, 137.
14. Pfister, 1980.
15. De Vries, 1980.
16. Zumbühl, 1980.
17. Post, 1985.
18. Pfister et al., 1994.
19. Frenzel et al., 1992; Wanner et al., 1995; Guiot, 1992.
20. http://climatehistory.net.
21. Cline, 2014; Parker, 2013.
22. Lieberman, 2009.
23. Thomas, 2012.
24. Brázdil et al., 2005.
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION: WEATHER, CLIMATE, AND HUMAN HISTORY 15

25. Carey, 2012.

26. Lamb, 1995, 11.
27. Mauelshagen, 2014.
28. Exceptions include Pfister, 1985; Mann et al., 2009; Pfister et al., 2010; and
Rohland, 2017.
29. World Bank, 2014.
30. Dutton, 2008, 169.
31. Parker, 2013.
32. Wood, 2014; Behringer, 2015.

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Krise stürzte. Munich: C.H.Beck, 2015.
Bell, Wendy T., and Astrid E.J. Ogilvie. “Weather Compilations as a Source of Data for
the Reconstruction of European Climate during the Medieval Period.” Climatic
Change 1 (1978): 331–48.
Bradley, Raymond S. Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary.
Third edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2015.
Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “Historical Climatology in Europe—The State of the Art.”
Climatic Change 70 (2005): 363–430.
Carey, Mark. “Climate and History: A Critical Review of Historical Climatology and
Climate Change Historiography.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
3 (2012): 233–49.
Cline, Eric H. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2014.
De Vries, Jan. “Measuring the Impact of Climate on History: The Search for Appropriate
Methodologies.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (1980): 599–630.
Dutton, Paul Edward. “Observations on Early Medieval Weather in General, Bloody
Rain in Particular.” In The Long Morning of Medieval Europe, edited by Jennifer
Davis and Michael McCormick, 167–80. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
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1753.
Fleming, James. Historical Perspectives on Climate Change. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998.
Frenzel, Burkhard et al., eds. Paleoclimate Research. Vol. 7. ESF Project “European
Paleoclimate and Man”. Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1992.
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Frenzel, Birgit Gläser, and Christian Pfister, 93–105. Stuttgart: Fischer, 1992.
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Krämer, Daniel. “Menschen grasten nun mit dem Vieh”: die letzte grosse Hungerkrise der
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rische Hungerforschung. Basel: Schwabe, 2015.
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the Year 1000. Translated by Barbara Bray. New York: Noonday Press, 1971.
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Vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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Reconstructions of Past Climate from Direct Meteorological Observations and
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Christian Pfister, 329–76. Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1994.
Pfister, Christian et al. “The Meteorological Framework and the Cultural Memory of
Three Severe Winter-Storms in Early Eighteenth-Century Europe.” Climatic
Change 101 (2010): 281–310.
Post, John. Food Shortage, Climatic Variability, and Epidemic Disease in Preindustrial
Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Rohland, Eleonora. “Adapting to Hurricanes. A Historical Perspective on New Orleans
from Its Foundation to Hurricane Katrina, 1718–2005.” Wiley Interdisciplinary
Reviews: Climate Change 9 (2017): e488.
Stehr, Nico, and Hans von Storch. “Von der Macht des Klimas: Ist der Klimadeterminismus
nur noch Ideengeschichte oder relevanter Faktor gegenwärtiger Klimapolitik?” Gaia
9 (2000): 187–95.
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Thomas, Julia Adeney. “Historiographic ‘Turns’ in Critical Perspective (Comment).”

The American Historical Review 117 (2012): 794–803.
Wanner, Heinz et al. “Wintertime European Circulation Patterns during the Late
Maunder Minimum Cooling Period (1675–1704).” Theoretical and Applied
Climatology 51 (1995): 167–75.
Wigley, Tom M.L. et al. “Historical Climate Impact Assessments.” In SCOPE 27
Climate Impact Assessment: Studies of the Interaction of Climate and Society, edited
by Robert W. Kates, Jessie H. Ausubel, and Mimi Berberian. Chichester, UK: Wiley,
1985.
Wood, Gillen D’Arcy. Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2014.
World Bank. Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal. Washington,
DC: World Bank, 2014.
Zumbühl, Heinz J. Die Schwankungen der Grindelwaldgletscher in den historischen Bild-
und Schriftquellen des 12. bis 19. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Gletschergeschichte
und Erforschung des Alpenraumes. Basel: Birkhaüser, 1980.
 PART I

Reconstruction
 CHAPTER 2

The Global Climate System

Eduardo Zorita, Sebastian Wagner, and Fredrik Schenk

What we call the Earth’s climate system consists of several subsystems. These
interact with each other on very different timescales: the atmosphere over sev-
eral thousands of kilometers can change substantially on daily and subdaily
scales; the ocean currents vary over timescales of months to millennia; and the
huge ice sheets change significantly on millennial timescales. Over even longer
periods, other parts of the Earth’s system also come into play, such as plate
tectonics, which modify the Earth’s surface by generating new ocean basins
and mountain ranges and by moving the geographical position of continents.
This characteristic of multiple systems and timescales renders the climate sys-
tem hard to predict because myriad different physical processes have to be
included to provide any realistic description of the whole.
The subsystems of the climate system—atmosphere, ocean, land ice, land
vegetation cover, and so on—all with their variations on different timescales,
interact through the exchange of energy and matter. In particular, green-
house gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane are constantly
being exchanged; and when set free in the atmosphere, they significantly
influence the balance between absorbed and emitted energy at the Earth’s
surface. In this regard, water vapor, liquid water, and ice in the atmosphere
deserve special consideration since they lead to the formation of several types
of clouds each with different properties regarding the reflection and absorp-
tion of radiation.1

E. Zorita (*) • S. Wagner

Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany
F. Schenk
Department of Geological Sciences, Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm
University, Stockholm, Sweden

© The Author(s) 2018 21

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_2
22 E. ZORITA ET AL.

The interplay among these climate subsystems is strongly non-linear, so that

some perturbations can be rapidly amplified once they arise. The Earth’s climate
is an open system, absorbing shortwave radiation from the sun, which is then
distributed among its subsystems until it is finally radiated back to space in the
form of longwave (thermal) radiation. These non-linear interactions and the
continuous flow of energy result in internal climate variability on all timescales.
This variability would occur even if the orbit of the Earth and the output of the
sun were constant, providing exactly the same external source of energy to the
Earth’s climate: each year, each decade, each century would be different, each
being but one sample of that probabilistic distribution that we call “climate.”
Most of the incoming solar energy is transformed at the surface, with some
smaller portions absorbed in the troposphere (the lowest level of the atmo-
sphere) and in the stratosphere (just above the troposphere). Therefore the
lower portion of the atmosphere is a system that is mainly heated from below
(heat radiating up from the land or sea surface), whereas the ocean is mainly
heated from above (incoming solar radiation). Warm air is lighter than cold
air and warm seawater is lighter than cold seawater. Since warmer air usually
underlies cold air in the atmosphere, but warmer surface ocean water rests on
top of colder subsurface water, we tend to find unstable and turbulent atmo-
spheric dynamics, but generally stratified and stable oceans, especially in tropi-
cal and subtropical regions with high upper-ocean temperatures.
An additional important factor that determines the state of the climate is the
unequal distribution of energy between the equator and the poles. Over equa-
torial areas, the net input of energy (incoming solar energy minus outgoing
infrared emission to space) is positive (net gain), whereas at mid and high lati-
tudes it is negative (net loss). This imbalance drives a continuous flow of energy
from low to high latitudes and from the surface to the top of the atmosphere,
from where it can leave the Earth (Fig. 2.1). This transport is accomplished by
atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
Moreover, the tilt of Earth’s axis (currently 23.5°) means that the zone of
maximum solar insolation shifts from the northern tropics (in the Northern
Hemisphere summer) to the southern tropics (in the southern summer). This
alternation generates the annual cycle of thermal (hot and cold) and hydrologi-
cal (wet and dry) seasons over most of the globe. In general, lower latitudes
typically show hydrological seasons, whereas mid to high latitudes are charac-
terized by a more or less pronounced seasonality in temperatures.
The poleward transport of heat by the atmosphere is framed by three circu-
lation cells.3 The first is the Hadley Cell. Over low-latitude tropical areas, warm
air rises. Once it reaches the upper troposphere (around 16 km above sea level)
it is deflected towards the poles. As it moves towards the mid latitudes, the air
descends into lower tropospheric levels creating large subtropical high-pressure
cells. From these zones of high pressure, air flows back towards the equatorial
regions in the form of more or less constant southeasterly trade winds, which
blow into the low-pressure Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. (Note that
winds are named after the direction from which they flow, so an “easterly”
blows from east to west.)
 THE GLOBAL CLIMATE SYSTEM 23

Fig. 2.1 Net radiation balance (incoming solar radiation minus outgoing thermal
radiation) of the Earth’s climate as simulated by the Earth System Model of the Max
Planck Institute for Meteorology over the period 1850–2005.2 The large amount of
solar energy entering the tropical regions is distributed by the ocean and the atmo-
sphere towards mid and high latitudes. At high latitudes (more than 40°N or S), more
thermal energy is lost to space than is gained from the sun. The continents disturb the
otherwise symmetrical distribution of the energy balance, with the Indonesian subcon-
tinent absorbing more net energy than other tropical areas. The Sahara and Arabian
deserts, with their high surface reflectivity, are in radiation deficit and import energy
from the surrounding areas through atmospheric advection. Taken globally, the net
energy balance, about 0.8 watts/m2, is not zero because the climate system is currently
not in equilibrium: the continuous increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane
hinders the release of thermal energy and continuously increases the energy content of
the climate system. This apparently small global imbalance is, however, systematic; it
slowly and continuously drives up surface temperatures and sea level, as observed

Second, at its poleward branches the Hadley Cell interferes with the Ferrel
Cell. This cell, located mainly over the mid latitudes, is characterized by
­prevailing westerly winds. These come mainly from the deflection of the upper
tropospheric air particles towards the east in the presence of the Coriolis
force—that is, because the (west to east) rotation velocity of the Earth’s surface
decreases from the equator to the poles. In addition, atmospheric turbulence
causes the familiar transient low- and high-pressure systems of the mid lati-
tudes. The Ferrel Cell accounts for a considerable poleward heat transport.
Third, over high latitudes the air cools further and descends, forming large
high-pressure cells over the polar regions. This movement creates the Polar
Cell, with prevailing easterly winds.
24 E. ZORITA ET AL.

The oceanic part of the energy transport is more strongly determined by the
shape of the ocean basins. One important mechanism is the narrow western
boundary currents flowing along the eastern side of major continents at mid
latitudes, such as in North America (the Gulf Stream) and eastern Eurasia (the
Kuroshio). These currents result from the interplay of three factors: the wind
force provided by the semipermanent subtropical high air-pressure cells, the
rotation of the Earth, and the generally longitudinal orientation of the coast-
lines. These narrow currents transport warm tropical waters polewards. The
waters then generally flow back towards the equator along the eastern side of the
ocean basin, forming much broader current systems, such as the Canary Current.
The Atlantic Ocean deviates from the Pacific Ocean in one important
respect: in the North and South Atlantic at high latitudes, the surface waters
are colder and more saline, and therefore denser. This density leads to “deep
water formation”: deep convection that transports high-latitude cold water
masses from the surface to the ocean interior, leaving them to be replaced by
warmer water masses from lower latitudes. This poleward flow at the surface,
known as thermohaline circulation, not only is another driver of poleward heat
transport but also represents an important way in which warm surface waters
and cold deep waters are mixed in the oceans, which are generally stratified—
that is, layered between waters of different temperature.4 In this way, heat
stored in the upper oceanic layers can penetrate down into the deep ocean, a
mechanism that is important for controlling and mediating climatic changes on
millennial timescales.
The geographical arrangement of the continents also results in particular
regional climates in specific bands of latitude. One example is the Indian mon-
soon system, largely a result of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau being
located close to the tropical Indian Ocean. A monsoonal climate is defined by
a seasonal change in prevailing wind direction of at least 120°. With some sim-
plification, the monsoon can be thought of as a sort of land–sea breeze but on
a continental and seasonal scale. During winter, the Tibetan plateau cools
down, giving rise to descending air masses and hence producing a pronounced
high-pressure system and easterly winds. As the winds flow from continental
areas, they carry little moisture, and precipitation is low (with the exception of
the areas facing towards the Bay of Bengal). The summer monsoon, on the
other hand, is driven by a strong low-pressure system developing over the
Asian land masses owing to the higher heating rates over land during the
(northern) summer season. This results in very humid southwesterly winds
flowing from the Indian Ocean across the Indian subcontinent, bringing heavy
seasonal rains and orographic amplified precipitation (i.e., precipitation
enhanced by the rising of moist air as it passes over mountains) along the
coastal ranges of the Ghats. Similar monsoon systems can be found in other
parts of the tropics, including Africa, Southeast Asia, and North America.
Mean climate, as described above, represents only an average picture, not
what is actually observed. At any particular point in time, we find configura-
tions of the atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere that are constantly varying
 THE GLOBAL CLIMATE SYSTEM 25

within certain ranges around the mean climate state. In a stable climate, this
variability is the result of numerous interactions within each subsystem and
among the climate subsystems.
A paramount example of this internal variability is the El Niño-Southern
Oscillation phenomenon.5 Usually, the easterly trade winds in the Tropical
Pacific drive warm surface waters towards the west, triggering an upwelling of
colder subsurface waters off Peru. This phenomenon maintains a temperature
and surface pressure gradient across the whole Tropical Pacific, which in turn
reinforces the trade winds. That is, the colder waters and higher air pressure in
the Eastern Tropical Pacific and the warmer waters and lower air pressure in the
Western Tropical Pacific help sustain the usual east-to-west winds. If for any
reason the trade winds slacken, the temperature and pressure gradient also
weaken, thus further weakening the trade winds. For a few months, about
every five years or so, the whole Tropical Pacific shifts to this different “state,”
called “El Niño,” when trade winds slacken and the Eastern Tropical Pacific
becomes unusually warm. El Niños change surface temperatures, ocean vertical
mixing, and surface heat fluxes so strongly that they may affect the atmosphere
not only in the Tropical Pacific but also globally, via so-called “teleconnec-
tions.” Strong El Niño years are therefore associated with climatic effects as
diverse as heavy rainfall in Peru and droughts in East Africa, India, and Australia
(see Chap. 34).
The term “climate change” (as opposed to “climate variability”) denotes a
modification in the statistics of the weather in the atmosphere—and, expand-
ing the meaning of the concept of “weather,” also of the ocean and other
subsystems. These changes can be brought about by various “forcings.” The
term “forcing” denotes a driving factor that is considered to be external to the
climate system. It may be embedded in the Earth’s system, as in the case of
volcanoes, or be truly extraterrestrial, as in the case of the sun. Examples of
external forcings include shifts in the configuration of the continents by plate
tectonics (on geological timescales), variations in the output of the sun, volca-
nic eruptions, and anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, such as car-
bon dioxide and methane.
All of these forcings at least temporarily disturb the balance of energy that is
absorbed and released by the Earth. For example, continental masses at high
latitudes allow the formation of permanent ice sheets. These increase the
albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth’s surface, and a higher albedo means that
more solar radiation is reflected back to space before it even enters the energy
cycle of the climate system. Another example is the increase in atmospheric
greenhouse gases. These gases hinder the release of longwave radiation from
the Earth’s surface back to space, so that more energy becomes trapped within
the climate system.
The climate system will adjust to such perturbations until a new energy bal-
ance is reached. In the first example, the surface temperatures will tend to cool,
thereby emitting less longwave radiation to space and reducing energy losses.
In the second example—the situation which we are currently in
26 E. ZORITA ET AL.

(see Chap. 26)—surface temperatures will tend to increase, thus radiating

more thermal ­radiation upwards, compensating for the “trapping” effect of
atmospheric greenhouse gases. These readjustments are accompanied by
changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation, cloud cover, atmospheric water
vapor, and many other factors that in turn also affect surface temperatures.6
The theoretical term “climate sensitivity” summarizes all of these complex pro-
cesses in a single number, which states the amount of surface warming that is
required to achieve a new state of energy balance.

Notes
1. Stevens and Schwartz, 2012.
2. Stevens et al., 2013.
3. Schneider, 2006.
4. Wunsch, 2002.
5. Holton and Dmowska, 1990.
6. Bony et al., 2006.

References
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Processes?” Journal of Climate 19 (2006): 3445–82.
Holton, J.R., and R. Dmowska. El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation. Edited
by S.G. Philander. San Diego: Academic Press, 1990.
Schneider, T. “The General Circulation of the Atmosphere.” Annual Review of Earth
& Planetary Sciences 34 (2006): 655–88.
Stevens, B., and S.E. Schwartz. “Observing and Modeling Earth’s Energy Flows.”
Survey in Geophysics 33 (2012): 779–816.
Stevens, B. et al. “The Atmospheric Component of the MPI-M Earth System Model.”
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 5 (2013): 146–72.
Wunsch, C. “What Is the Thermohaline Circulation?” Science 298 (2002): 1179.
 CHAPTER 3

Archives of Nature and Archives of Societies

Stefan Brönnimann, Christian Pfister, and Sam White

3.1   Introduction
Paleoclimatology and historical climatology share the common goal of recon-
structing climates before regular instrumental records. However, these two
disciplines work with two different sets of evidence. Paleoclimatologists work
to reconstruct the past from physical traces in the cryosphere, hydrosphere,
biosphere, and lithosphere that record the influence of climates centuries and
millennia ago.1 By contrast, historical climatologists reconstruct the past from
written records and human artifacts, which may range from direct descriptions
of weather to indirect indicators of climatic and meteorological impacts.
This volume distinguishes between these two sets of evidence as the archives
of nature and the archives of societies. Both archives require some of the same
techniques and pose some similar methodological and conceptual challenges.
Their periods of coverage and of spatial and temporal resolution overlap. As
described below, both often involve working with “proxies” rather than direct
representations of past weather and climate.
Nevertheless, these two archives also present distinct issues. The archives
of nature tend to be more homogeneous, continuous, and precisely located,
and in some cases can reach very far back into the past. The archives of soci-
eties, on the other hand, tend to be more heterogeneous, and their data is

S. Brönnimann (*)
Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute of Geography,
University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
C. Pfister
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change,
Bern, Switzerland
S. White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 27

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_3
28 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

often scattered over time and space. Yet they can often provide more precise
information, reaching back centuries or even millennia, revealing those cli-
matic and meteorological events most relevant to human history. Moreover,
as explained in this volume, diligent research and appropriate methods can
overcome some of their apparent shortcomings for climate reconstruction.
Climate history necessarily requires research in both kinds of archives.
This chapter first provides a brief introduction to the archives of nature and
the archives of societies, and then outlines some of the common techniques and
challenges in working with proxies from each. The chapters in Part I of this vol-
ume explain in more detail the use of evidence and the creation of climate recon-
structions from the archives of societies. For further information about climate
reconstruction from the archives of nature, we refer readers to Raymond Bradley,
Paleoclimatology. Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary (3rd ed., 2015) and
to Neil Roberts, The Holocene: An Environmental History (3rd ed., 2014).

3.2   The Archives of Nature

The Earth’s climate influences physical, chemical, and biological processes tak-
ing place over the planet’s land, water, and ice, and in its living creatures.
Variations in temperature and precipitation (and sometimes in sunshine, sea
ice, and other such variables) produce corresponding variations in all sorts of
natural developments: the build-up of snow and ice over glaciers, the accumu-
lation of lake deposits, the ratios of stable oxygen isotopes in precipitating
water, the blooming of certain species of algae and plankton, the growth of
shells in marine life or the rings of tree trunks, and so on. In some cases these
processes leave behind physical remnants that preserve these variations in such
a way that scientists can study them in order to reconstruct past climates. The
storage mediums of these processes, such as ice, peat bogs, stalagmites, or tree
trunks, are named archives of nature.
Researchers extract information from these archives through different meth-
ods of sampling, such as coring ice or drilling trees. Depending on the sensitiv-
ity to local conditions, they create time series of measurements from either a
single sample or by averaging several samples (often called “composite”
records). The analysis of each archive requires specific scientific skills related to
the underlying physics, chemistry, or biology of the process captured in the
archive and how it relates to past climates.
The archives of nature now include a remarkable variety of records, as research-
ers have developed ingenious ways of extracting ever more climate information
from different physical remains. The most useful records are those where some
process that is highly sensitive to a specific climate variable has left some very
regular and well-preserved sequence. Some of the best-known and most widely
used examples include growth rings in trees, variations in oxygen isotopes in
ice cores, and pollen types in sedimentation layers (“varves”) at the bottom
of lakes and estuaries. However, new techniques have been continuously
developed in order to extract more climate data from more parts of the world.
Keeping up with those techniques and that data remains an essential task of
 ARCHIVES OF NATURE AND ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES 29

climate history. Examples of different proxies (ring width, oxygen isotope ratios,
varve thickness, and sulfate and lead concentrations) from different archives (tree
rings, ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and peat bogs) are shown in Fig. 3.1.2

Fig. 3.1 Examples of time series over the past 2000 years drawn from the archives of
nature, along with the authors’ interpretation (from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration paleoclimatology website)
30 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

3.3   The Archives of Societies

The term “archives of societies” is used here in a broad sense to refer to both
written records and evidence preserved in the built environment that can help
researchers reconstruct past climate and weather. The former includes docu-
ments such as personal manuscripts and official records, as well as printed
materials, artworks, and now electronic data. The latter includes physical indi-
cators of events ranging from relevant archaeological artifacts to high-water
marks.3 This diversity of records in the archives of societies poses particular
problems of homogenization (i.e., of making them all commensurable).4 What
all these sources have in common is that they present data coded by humans
that can be used to reconstruct past weather and climate.
Aside from instrumental records, the archives of societies present two kinds
of information. On the one hand, there are sources such as chronicles and dia-
ries that include descriptions and narratives of weather patterns—that is, of
short-term processes in the atmosphere and their effects on the hydrosphere,
cryosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere (see Table 3.1). These descriptive
and narrative sources present particular problems of interpretation that are dis-
cussed in the chapters of Part I. On the other hand, there are records of recur-
ring physical and biological processes, ranging from the flowering of plants and
the ripening of grains to the freezing of lakes and rivers. These records provide
sorts of “proxy” climate information. As discussed in the following section,
climate reconstruction from proxies requires some similar methods and poses
some similar challenges whether the proxies are drawn from the archives of
nature or the archives of societies.

3.4   Reconstructing Past Climate from Proxies

“Proxies,” as their name suggests, are indirect representations of past climate.
Measurements of these proxies provide indirect measurements of the underly-
ing climate variable that researchers are trying to reconstruct. For instance, tree
trunks are not rain gauges, but where tree growth is limited by rainfall, measur-
ing annual tree-ring growth can provide an indirect measurement of growing-­
season precipitation. Lakes are not thermometers, but in the right circumstances
the duration of a lake’s winter freeze can be an indirect measurement of sea-
sonal temperature. No proxy offers a perfect measurement of past climate. Its
use requires careful attention to method and context.
Proxies are often subdivided into the biological and non-biological. The
former preserve biological and biophysical processes—at the level of individual
species or the ecosystem—that respond to one or more climate variables.
Examples from the archives of nature include rates of plant growth (e.g., tree-­
ring width and density), variations in species abundance and distribution (e.g.,
pollen assemblages), and changes in biochemistry (e.g., the composition of
Table 3.1 Examples of evidence from archives of nature and archives of societies (T = temperature; P = precipitation; p = air pressure)
Archives of nature (nature-generated data) Archives of societies (anthropogenic data)

Archive Proxy Climate Time Temporal Climate variables Time resolution Temporal
variables resolution range range

Weather Narrative
(Weather) chronicles Weather, impacts Hours to >5 centuries
seasons
Weather diaries Weather, impacts Hours to 5 centuries
seasons
Ships’ logbooks Wind, weather Hours to days 3 centuries
Weather reports Weather, impacts Days to months >5 centuries
Art
Paintings, literature, Weather, impacts Days to weeks Centuries
poems, etc.
Instrumental
Instrumental T, P, p, etc. Secs to days 1–3 centuries
measurements
Climate Biological proxies Biological proxies
Tree rings Ring width T, P Seasons Centuries Plant observations T >1 month Centuries
Maximum late wood T Time of agricultural T >1 month Centuries
density work
Oxygen isotopes T Agricultural T, P >1 month Centuries
production
Lake Pollen assemblages T, P Annual Millennia
sediments
Chironomids T
Corals Oxygen isotopes, Sr/ T, Salinity Seasons Centuries
Ca ratio
ARCHIVES OF NATURE AND ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES

Peat bogs Trace chemicals Pollutants

(continued)
31
 32

Table 3.1 (continued)

Archives of nature (nature-generated data) Archives of societies (anthropogenic data)
S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

Archive Proxy Climate Time Temporal Climate variables Time resolution Temporal
variables resolution range range

Non-biological proxies Non-biological proxies

Ice cores Oxygen isotopes T >100 Freezing of water T >1 month Centuries
kiloyears bodies
Accumulation P Snow cover T, P Days to months Centuries
Air bubbles Trace gases Floods P, T Days to weeks Centuries
Snow chemistry Aerosols
Lake Grain size T, Floods,
sediments Wind
Speleothems Thickness, oxygen P, T
(stalagmites) isotopes
Glaciers T, P Years Millennia
 ARCHIVES OF NATURE AND ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES 33

shells from marine creatures such as foraminifera). Examples from the archives
of societies include grape harvest dates and data on the time of cultural activi-
ties such as the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan.5 Since various life forms in
diverse environments react to changes in climate, biological proxies cover a
range of regions.
Non-biological proxies preserve physical processes in the environment that
respond to climate variables. Examples from the archives of nature in this case
include precipitation chemistry (e.g., the snow composition of firn), the sedi-
mentation process (e.g., grain size or abundance of sediments at the bottom of
lakes), and isotope fractionation (e.g., the stable oxygen isotope ratio δ18O of
water ice in ice cores). Examples from the archives of societies include written
and visual records of glacier movements and records of ingoing and outgoing
ships in ports, revealing the length of the winter freeze.6
The first challenge of proxy-based climate reconstruction, whether from the
archives of nature or the archives of societies, comes in establishing properly
dated measurements. With respect to the archives of nature, the most precise
and reliable dating often comes from stratigraphy—that is, the counting of lay-
ers, as in the growth rings of old trees or the visible layers in some ice cores.
However, most natural records do not preserve dates so clearly. In these cases,
paleoclimatologists may make use of specific markers in the record (e.g., sulfur
from volcanic eruptions, or radioactive fallout from nuclear tests) and/or by
using radiocarbon dating, which dates buried materials according to the decay
of the radioactive 14C isotope. Once they have established a few dates using
these methods, paleoclimatologists may then model an “age-depth curve” to
provide an approximation of dates in the rest of the sample, such as in a sedi-
ment core. The choice and accuracy of dating methods will vary according to
the archive in question, and the accuracy of dates usually deteriorates farther
back in time. The resolution (precision) of dating can vary from several months
(e.g., tree rings and corals) to centuries or millennia (e.g., ocean sediment
cores).
Records from the archives of societies are usually dated at least by their year,
and in most cases by their season, month, or day. Nevertheless, these records
also present dating challenges. Historical climatologists must first determine
whether the author of a document really witnessed the events described, or
whether they are dealing with an (error-prone) copy. For instance, the new
Euro-Climhist database of European climate and weather observations has sys-
tematically labeled all non-contemporary sources in order to alert researchers
to this problem.7 Dating styles vary according to era and country (e.g., Julian
vs. Gregorian) as well as culture and religion (e.g., solar calendars in Europe vs.
lunar calendars in China and the Islamic world, see Chap. 17). Similar to the
archives of nature, the accuracy of written records usually deteriorates farther
back in time. Manuscript sources pose uncertainties in data extraction: hand-
writing may be difficult to read, the ink may fade, or the paper may become
damaged. Prior to the late nineteenth century, records were often written in
older forms of languages or in regional dialects, and the meanings of terms
34 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

have changed over time.8 Table 3.1 outlines some of the most common proxies
from the archives of nature and the archives of societies, along with their tem-
poral range and resolution.
The second challenge of proxy-based climate reconstruction comes in estab-
lishing the association between the proxy and the past climate. This process
usually involves establishing a statistical relationship between measurements of
the proxy and some climate variable or variables. Usually this relation, termed
a “transfer function,” needs to be calibrated. For some proxies, calibration may
be achieved by experimental or laboratory measurements. More often, statisti-
cal methods are used, working from some period of overlap between proxy
measurements and the instrumental climate record (see Chap. 10). The appli-
cation of a transfer function relies on the concept of stationarity—that is, the
assumption that the relationship between the proxy and the climate was the
same in the past as it is in the present (or in the period of overlap). This assump-
tion may be questionable in some cases, and it can create uncertainty.
Proxy-based climate reconstructions try to isolate the relevant climate “sig-
nal” in their proxy measurements from the “noise” of other factors. For exam-
ple, although tree growth reacts to climate everywhere, tree rings are best
sampled near a growth limit, such as at a mountain tree line (for temperature)
or a desert margin (for precipitation). Even in the best circumstances, no proxy
measurement will produce a pure signal from only one climate variable: other
climatic and non-climatic factors will always influence proxy measurements,
whether taken from the archives of nature or the archives of societies.
To put this relationship in perspective, many climate reconstructions work
with proxy measurements that have correlation coefficients of around 0.5–0.6
with the climate variable they are trying to reconstruct—or about the same as
the correlation coefficient between the height and weight of adult men. Just as
some men might be short and fat while others are tall and skinny, not every thin
tree ring reflects a cold or dry season and not every wide ring records a warm
or wet one. (This is one reason why proxy-based reconstructions often show
moving averages instead of, or in addition to, annual values.) Further sources
of error come from uncertainties in measuring proxies, and the possibility of
non-linear relationships between climates and proxies. For proxies from the
archives of societies, researchers also need to carefully establish the context in
which records were created in order to assess any possible human bias.
Nevertheless, these difficulties do not undermine the validity of proxy-based
climate reconstructions, nor their usefulness in climate history. Many recon-
struction techniques have proven to be remarkably robust, producing well-­
verified results that strongly agree with each other and with historical
descriptions. While discrepancies and disagreements persist, one of the great
achievements of climate history comes from the way that diverse physical and
written records so often complement each other and create a more complete
and reliable picture of the past.9
 ARCHIVES OF NATURE AND ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES 35

3.5   Conclusion: Combining the Archives of Nature

and Society

This handbook focuses on reconstruction techniques from the archives of soci-

eties and from early instrumental records. Whereas research in the archives of
nature has produced a voluminous literature of review articles and textbooks,
this volume is the first of its kind to provide a complete introduction to histori-
cal climatology. Nevertheless, we stress that climate history requires a judicious
use of all available evidence, from natural as well as human records. As Christian
Pfister has explained,

“The objectives of palaeoclimatologists and historical climatologists are similar to

the extent that both attempt to reconstruct climate for the period prior to the
creation of national meteorological networks from the mid-nineteenth century.
To that extent, data from Archives of Nature and Society to some extent comple-
ment each other. Where anthropogenic data are fragmentary or lacking, longer-­
term temperature or precipitation trends may be drawn from evidence contained
in the Archives of Nature. In cases where it is important to establish the nature
and severity of extreme conditions, anthropogenic data are temporally higher
resolved, more differentiated and case-specific.”10

Part III of this volume (Climate and Society) therefore considers both physical
and written records of past climate, and Part IV (Case Studies) provides illus-
trations of how climate historians can combine research in the archives of
nature and society in order to achieve the most complete reconstructions of
climate and weather at the level of human experiences and impacts.

Notes
1. Masson-Delmotte et al., 2014.
2. For a regularly updated database of paleoclimate reconstruction relevant to
human history, see http://www.climatehistory.net/bibliography/ (last accessed
April 8, 2016).
3. Brázdil et al., 2010.
4. Ayre et al., 2015.
5. Aono and Saito, 2010; Daux et al., 2012.
6. Leijonhufvud et al., 2010.
7. Pfister and Rohr, 2015.
8. Pfister et al., 2008.
9. Büntgen et al., 2015; Pfister et al., 2015.
10. Pfister, 2015.

References
Aono, Yasuyuki, and Shizuka Saito. “Clarifying Springtime Temperature Reconstructions
of the Medieval Period by Gap-Filling the Cherry Blossom Phenological Data Series
at Kyoto, Japan.” International Journal of Biometeorology 54 (2010): 211–19.
36 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

Ayre, M. et al. “Ships’ Logbooks from the Arctic in the Pre-Instrumental Period.”
Geoscience Data Journal 2 (2015): 53–62.
Bradley, Raymond S. Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary.
Third edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2015.
Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “European Climate of the Past 500 Years: New Challenges for
Historical Climatology.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 7–40.
Buntgen, U. et al. “Commentary to Wetter et al. (2014): Limited Tree-Ring Evidence
for a 1540 European ‘Megadrought’.” Climatic Change 131 (2015): 183–90.
Daux, V. et al. “An Open-Access Database of Grape Harvest Dates for Climate Research:
Data Description and Quality Assessment.” Climate of the Past 8 (2012): 1403–18.
Eichler, Anja et al. “A 750-Year Ice Core Record of Past Biogenic Emissions from
Siberian Boreal Forests.” Geophysical Research Letters 36 (2009): L18813.
Grudd, Håkan. “Torneträsk Tree-Ring Width and Density AD 500–2004: A Test of
Climatic Sensitivity and a New 1500-Year Reconstruction of North Fennoscandian
Summers.” Climate Dynamics 31 (2008): 843–57.
Leijonhufvud, Lotta et al. “Five Centuries of Stockholm Winter/Spring Temperatures
Reconstructed from Documentary Evidence and Instrumental Observations.”
Climatic Change 101 (2010): 109–41.
Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. “Information from Paleoclimate Archives.” In Climate
Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge;
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Pfister, C. “Weather, Climate and the Environment.” In The Oxford Handbook of Early
Modern European History, 1350–1750, edited by S. Hamish, 70–93. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2015.
Pfister, C., and C. Rohr. “Information System on the History of Weather and Climate.”
Euro-Climhist, 2015. http://www.euroclimhist.unibe.ch/en/.
Pfister, Christian et al. “Documentary Evidence as Climate Proxies.” Proxy-specific
white paper produced from the PAGES/CLIVAR workshop, Trieste, PAGES (Past
Global Changes), 2008.
Pfister, C. et al. “Tree-Rings and People – Different Views on the 1540 Megadrought.”
Climatic Change 131 (2015): 191.
Shotyk, W. et al. “New Peat Bog Record of Atmospheric Lead Pollution in Switzerland:
Pb Concentrations, Enrichment Factors, Isotopic Composition, and Organolead
Species.” Environmental Science & Technology 36 (2002): 3893–900.
Vinther, B.M. et al. “Holocene Thinning of the Greenland Ice Sheet.” Nature 461
(2009): 385–88.
Wang, Yongjin et al. “The Holocene Asian Monsoon: Links to Solar Changes and
North Atlantic Climate.” Science 308 (2005): 854–57.
Wolff, Christian et al. “Reduced Interannual Rainfall Variability in East Africa During
the Last Ice Age.” Science 333 (2011): 743–47.
 CHAPTER 4

Evidence from the Archives of Societies:

Documentary Evidence—Overview

Christian Pfister

4.1   Introduction
When dealing with archives of societies, researchers need to distinguish
between sources and data. A climate historical source is a unit of information
coded by humans which refers to weather and climate, usually from the view-
point of individuals. Data are found within these sources, and their interpre-
tation is content-specific. Human archives contain three kinds of data:
instrumental measurements, narrative data providing direct weather informa-
tion, and observations of climate proxies providing indirect data.1 This doc-
umentary-based proxy evidence includes both plant- and ice-phenological
data as well as historical hydrology, which aims at “reconstructing temporal
and spatial patterns of runoff conditions as well as extreme hydrological
events (floods, ice damming, hydrological droughts) for the period prior to
the creation of national hydrological networks.”2 We can further classify these
archives by their authors and circumstances of production. This chapter dis-
tinguishes between documents produced by members of official bodies (insti-
tutional sources) and those produced by individual amateur observers
(personal sources), although some source types may belong to both catego-
ries (see Table 4.1). To assess and interpret these sources, researchers need to
know who produced them, why, and how they recorded meteorological con-
ditions and their human consequences.3
Communicating climate risk through narratives of extraordinary events
dates back to early civilizations, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptian

C. Pfister (*)
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland

© The Author(s) 2018 37

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_4
38 C. PFISTER

Table 4.1 Major categories of climate and weather sources from the archives of soci-
eties discussed in this handbook
Data Sources

Personal Institutional

Instrumental Measurements by individual Measurements within

observers meteorological networks
Direct: narrative or visual Chronicles Manorial audits
(Weather) diaries Mandatory reports
Newspapers Rogation ceremonies
Letters Damage reports
Scientific journals Ships’ logbooks
Broadsheets, etc. Reports on crop development
Visual art, photographs
Indirect: proxy Plant-phenological observations Time of harvest (grain, grapes)
Ice-phenological observations Wage accounts
Flood and low water marks Flood marks
Agricultural production
Port records

pharaohs, Chinese emperors, and Aztec kings, who recorded these events,
whether in chronicles or pictograms written on clay tablets, in birch-bark,
parchment, or in the Nilometer.4 However, this section focuses on the medi-
eval and (early) modern eras. In addition to presenting an overview of different
types of source, this chapter discusses guidelines on dating applicable to all
kinds of evidence.

4.2   Institutional Sources

Institutions are here defined as bodies in charge of performing official func-
tions including taxation, law, war, and pastoral care, whether as states, munic-
ipalities, armies, or navies. Regulations determined who was in charge of
keeping these records, how frequently, and often in what form. Beginning in
the later Middle Ages, some institutions began keeping records in the same
places for several centuries using more or less standard formats and bureau-
cratic practices. In agrarian societies the timing of most agricultural activities,
receipts, and expenditures varied with the weather in some way, which was
usually reflected in institutional documents. Of course, the officials in charge
could not know that their records would be used as raw material for climate
reconstruction in some distant future. It is up to the researcher to investigate
whether there is really a relationship between the assumed indicator and some
feature of climate, how strong that relationship is, and whether it changes
over time. In the best case, the researcher may establish continuous, multi-
centennial, quantified time series of temperature or precipitation indices, akin
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: DOCUMENTARY… 39

to those from natural archives. Chapters 5 and 6 will describe these sources
and their use in more detail.
Among the earliest and best-known institutional sources are vintage (grape
harvest) dates. To prevent theft or tax evasion, local officials had to decide on
a single day each year to start this important event in the life of rural com-
munities.5 Daily wage accounting records can serve the same purpose. In late
medieval England, estate managers noted down daily wage and food expendi-
tures for harvesters, and so the date of each year’s first payment indicates the
beginning of the harvest.6 Long series of grain harvest dates are available for
Switzerland and Czech lands.7 Andrea Kiss and colleagues provided a May to
July temperature reconstruction of Budapest based on five vine- and grain-­
related historical phenological series from the town of Köszeg in west
Hungary.8
Customs fees paid from incoming and outgoing ships serve as a proxy for
winter and spring temperatures in harbors where the sea regularly freezes, as
series from Tallinn and Stockholm demonstrate.9 Moreover, some official
accounts reference extreme weather when justifying extraordinary expenses.
For example, weekly account books kept in the town of Louny in northwest
Bohemia in the Czech Republic from the mid-fifteenth century list infrastruc-
ture maintenance expenses such as clearing the snow from roads.10 In the city
of Wels in Upper Austria the office of the bridge master was responsible for
bridge repairs in case of flood damage. Weekly account books registered work-
ers’ wages and timber costs, which researchers can use to reconstruct the fre-
quency and severity of river floods.11 Likewise, governors in Venetian possessions
of the Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean had to report annually to their
superiors about events that affected income and expenditure in their territories,
such as storms that damaged port installations or droughts that ruined the
harvest.12
Ships’ logbooks provide a unique source of weather information for the
world’s oceans. The English Admiralty obliged all officers of the Royal Navy to
keep a logbook in which the wind and weather had to be recorded daily if not
hourly, as did the admiralties of other naval powers.13
Chinese emperors ordered provincial administrators to keep detailed weather
records related to the development of crops.14 Bishops in Spain and in the
Spanish world used to schedule rogation ceremonies to assist people in coping
with meteorological stress such as droughts (Pro Pluvia Rogations) or excessive
rain (Pro Serenitate Rogations).15

4.3   Personal Sources

Personal sources refer to those created by individuals rather than institutions.
These present certain characteristics that can complicate their use. They usually
suffer from gaps, their time of reporting is rather short (several decades at best),
40 C. PFISTER

and they necessarily end with the death of the author. Observers often moved
during their lifetime, and they frequently focused on a personal field of experi-
ence and activity, usually agriculture, meaning that we get somewhat d ­ ifferent,
but still usually meteorologically coherent, information from vine growers,
cereal growers, and herdsmen. Issues of language, particularly old dialects, can
create almost insurmountable barriers to interpretation. They often present dif-
ficult handwriting, although numbers remain universally comprehensible.
Until the late eighteenth century, meteorology dealt primarily with weather
narratives. From the point of view of climate reconstruction, the language used
to describe these events and the focus of the narrator can render the narratives
subjective and difficult to compare. On the other hand, they shed light on the
interplay of different weather elements, such as temperature, precipitation,
snow cover, cloud cover, and wind, and they often include conditions in the
surrounding area. The observations were made by humans for humans, thereby
linking natural phenomena and human experiences. They describe, for exam-
ple, the impact of destructive weather on crops and infrastructure, and they lay
down social and cultural information about weather perceptions and dis-
course.16 In doing so, storytelling also addresses people’s emotional side.
Within scientific journals, however, the narrative approach gradually disap-
peared. In 1787

the Irish chemist Richard Kirwan introduced a tradition which would persist until
our own time […] He distinguished between the “Empyric” method—vague and
uncertain—and “Scientific,” still in its infancy, but “grounded on a long series of
observations accurately taken of all the changes of the atmosphere, from whence
some general law may at length be deduced.”17

This tendency became dominant during the nineteenth century, and soon
observers stopped keeping records of phenological observations and natural
disasters such as floods, windstorms, and avalanches. The First International
Meteorological Congress in Vienna, 1873, started work on standardized
instructions and procedures for land observations. In the years that fol-
lowed, member states stopped publishing narrative observations in their
yearbooks altogether in favor of bare instrumental observations. Narratives
even disappeared from newspaper weather reports for some time, at least in
Switzerland. More research is needed about this “quantitative turn” in
meteorology.
Systematic weather diaries contain short, dry weather notes, often in the
form of hardly legible abbreviations. From these, historical climatologists can
derive some quantitative information by counting the frequency of binary
meteorological phenomena (e.g., days with/without precipitation, snowfall,
or frost).18 Most European weather diaries come from Germanic, English,
and Slavic countries. In France, family account books (livres de raison) handed
down from one generation to the next occasionally included notes on the
weather. Weather diaries have also been identified for China (Chap. 17),
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: DOCUMENTARY… 41

India and Japan (Chap. 18), North America (Chap. 24), and Latin America
(Chap. 19).
Chronicles refer to a broad category of medieval and modern works, whose
common denominator is that they list important events in chronological order.
Depending on the interest of the authors, weather usually makes up only a
small part of the information found in them. Some chroniclers noted the
weather frequently and quite systematically, although not on a daily basis, while
others just reported disasters and extreme events. Some noticed only local con-
ditions, while others included a variety of regional events. The merchant
Philippe de Vigneulles (1471–1527), for example, paid great attention to
weather relevant to the development of vines and the sugar content of grapes
around his native town of Metz in France because his income depended on it.19
Most chroniclers wrote about extreme anomalies with serious human conse-
quences. In the same way, some clergymen noted extreme events and those
memorable for their communities in their church registers. The more out-
standing an event the more chroniclers usually went into detail. For example,
the eleven-month-long heatwave and drought of 1540 in Europe, a disaster of
unspeakable dimensions, is described in hundreds of chronicles.20 The “domes-
tic colouring” of such reports, as Theodore Feldman remarked, shows how
much their authors were at home in the weather, how much it formed part of
their daily lives, and how little able they were to objectify the weather for the
purpose of analysis.21
Newspapers and early scientific journals and papers are goldmines for weather
observations and early instrumental measurements in many parts of the world.
For example, in the absence of instrumental observations, Maria Prieto and
colleagues gathered information about climate in the Argentinian and Chilean
Andes from newspapers from 1885 to 2000 (see Chap. 19).22 Likewise, news-
paper reports were crucial for reconstructing weather series for Australia since
its first European settlement (Chap. 21). In Europe, newspaper information
remains important for reconstructions of natural disasters, including hailstorms
and the freezing over of lakes and rivers.23
Travelers’ journals provide important climate-related reports in areas with-
out permanent settlement or with few endogenous records, such as parts of
Africa (see Chap. 20).
Broadsides and pamphlets were short publications often inspired by nature-­
induced disasters and meteorological anomalies, describing the events in detail,
and sometimes placing them in the context of earlier analogous disasters.
Likewise, secular or religious authorities published their views of meteorologi-
cal events, often in the form of exhorting sermons, as in the case of the disas-
trous European ice floods in spring 1784 (see Chap. 34).24
Paintings, etchings, and early photographs of historical glaciers provide
among the most impressive evidence of climatic change. Together with
written evidence, they make it possible to reconstruct the position of well-
documented glaciers with remarkable precision over the last 400 to 500
years, including examples in Norway, the Gorner and Lower Grindelwald
42 C. PFISTER

Glaciers in Switzerland, and the Mer de Glace in France (see Chap. 8).25
Paintings of winter landscapes from the Netherlands during the Little Ice
Age, such as The Return of the Hunters (ca. 1565) by Pieter Bruegel the
Elder, make the viewer feel the coldness of this period—although such
images need to be interpreted carefully before being taken as evidence of
actual weather conditions.26
With regard to early instrumental observations, the earliest instruments and
networks date back to the seventeenth century (see Chap. 7). Barometers and
thermometers sold by traveling salesmen became increasingly fashionable in
better-off households from the early eighteenth century onwards. In England
“by the 1790s, for instance, the barometer was said to be a widely owned piece
of furniture, and often used as nothing more than a toy.”27 Most amateur
observers ignored the problems of standardizing instruments, units of mea-
surements, and observational techniques such as the location of instruments
and schedule of readings. Thus using their early instrumental measurements in
climate reconstruction requires an understanding of the instruments them-
selves, how the measurements were taken, and whether their data display arti-
ficial breaks and trends (see Chap. 9).28 Outside the world of professional
scientists, instrumental readings went hand in hand with narrative weather
reports.
From the Middle Ages onwards, chroniclers increasingly cared for intergen-
erational comparability by referring to quasi-objective climate indicators in the
human and natural environment. These include the level of bridges to indicate
the magnitude of a flood, the absence or duration of snow cover, the freezing
of bodies of water, the appearance of spring flowers, and the advance or delay
of agricultural work.29 Such objective observations may be compared to parallel
cases in the instrumental period. Of course, in order to properly interpret spo-
radic climatic indicators, the researcher needs to become familiar with similar
data from the instrumental period. In some cases, such as Norway, farmers
regularly noted certain agricultural activities in their diaries such as the start of
the cereal harvest, and this data has been used to reconstruct rising seasonal
temperatures.30 High-water marks on the walls of public or private buildings
visually represent the frequency and severity of disaster over time, in a manner
akin to actuarial data.31

4.4   Dating
Globally, there have been two major systems of calendars: solar calendars based
(approximately) on the revolution of the Earth around the sun, and lunar cal-
endars based on the orbit of the moon. The former have historically been used
in Europe (and its colonies), India, and Iran, while lunar calendars were his-
torically used in the Islamic world and imperial China.32
It should be noted that the meaning of terms—for example those of the
seasons—may have been different in the past. In continental Europe, for exam-
ple, “winter” could be equated with the duration of snow cover, which often
included March, whereas “Herbst” (autumn) indicated the period of grape
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: DOCUMENTARY… 43

harvest. In (medieval) England, “summer” was equivalent to the period from

May to July, and “autumn” to August and September. In the tropics, what
mattered was the alternation between dry and wet seasons.
It is also important to distinguish between Julian (“old style”) and Gregorian
(“new style”) dates. Roman emperor Julius Caesar first introduced his calendar
in the first century bc. As time went on, astronomers discovered that each
Julian year was 11 minutes and 10 seconds too long. In 1582, under the aus-
pices of Pope Gregory XIII, most Catholic territories corrected this error by
skipping ten days, in order to bring the calendar date back in line with the solar
year. However, most Protestant territories waited until 1701 to adopt the
Gregorian calendar; England (including the colonies) waited until 1752; and
Russia until 1917. In many cases, this difference in dating will make little or no
difference in climate reconstructions. In other cases, failure to correct for this
change can introduce serious errors, as becomes apparent when comparing an
uncorrected grape harvest series with a corrected one (see Fig. 4.1).
In medieval and early modern Europe, the calendar year did not necessarily
begin on January 1. To make matters worse, most medieval and many early
modern writers were silent about which dating system they used. This fact can
produce puzzling results, particularly with regard to winters. Today, winters

Fig. 4.1 A comparison between a grape harvest date series that has not corrected its
dating for the switch from the Julian to Gregorian calendar (Meier et al. 2007) and a
series that has corrected for this change in dating. (Image reproduced without changes
from O. Wetter and C. Pfister, “An Underestimated Record Breaking Event. Why
Summer 1540 Was Likely Warmer than 2003,” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 41–56,
doi:10.5194/cp-9-41-2013., under a CC-BY 3.0 license: https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/3.0/.)
44 C. PFISTER

are usually dated by the year in which January falls. However, in calendar sys-
tems in which the new year begins on March 25, the meteorological winter
(December to February) falls in the previous calendar year. Sources using dif-
ferent calendar styles may thus refer to the same winter under two different
dates.33
Individual dates were long named after religious feasts, such as Easter, or
after saints. Some conventional handbooks on chronology offer catalogues of
saints’ days together with their corresponding Gregorian dates.34 Most research
by non-specialists has failed to observe that saints’ days in the Julian and in the
Gregorian calendars correspond to different (Gregorian) dates. This section
has highlighted only the most important pitfalls. For further information about
how to grapple with medieval and early modern European dating, see
E.G. Richards, Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History (Oxford University
Press, 1998).

Notes
1. Pfister, 1984; Brázdil et al., 2005, 2010a, 2010b; Ge, 2008.
2. Brázdil and Kundzewicz, 2006.
3. Bell and Ogilvie, 1978.
4. Schwemer, 2001; Seidlmayer, 2001. See also Chaps. 17 and 19.
5. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
6. Pribyl et al., 2012.
7. Wetter and Pfister, 2011; Možný et al., 2012.
8. Kiss et al., 2011.
9. Leijonhufvud et al., 2010; Tarand and Nordli, 2001.
10. Brázdil and Kotyza, 2000.
11. Rohr, 2013.
12. Grove, 1995.
13. Wheeler and Pfister, 2009; Wheeler et al., 2006, 2010.
14. Ge, 2008.
15. Barriendos, 2005.
16. Adamson, 2015.
17. Quoted in Janković, 2001, 154.
18. Pfister et al., 1999; Adamson, 2015.
19. Litzenburger and Le Roy Ladurie, 2015.
20. Wetter et al., 2014.
21. Janković, 2001, 34.
22. Prieto et al., 2001.
23. E.g., Franssen and Scherrer, 2008.
24. Brázdil et al., 2010a, 2010b.
25. Nesje et al., 2008; Zumbühl et al., 2008; Holzhauser, 2010.
26. Behringer, 2010, 139–40.
27. Janković, 2001, 34.
28. Janković, 2001, 122.
29. Wegmann, 2005.
30. Nordli, 2001.
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: DOCUMENTARY… 45

31. Pfister, 2011.

32. Richards, 1999.
33. Rohr, 2015.
34. E.g., Grotefend, 1997; Cheney and Jones, 2000.

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Events in the Hispanic Kingdoms (16th–19th Centuries).” In Cultural Consequences
of the Little Ice Age, edited by W. Behringer and H. Lehmann, 379–414. Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005.
Behringer, Wolfgang. A Cultural History of Climate. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010.
Bell, W., and A. Ogilvie. “Weather Compilations as a Source of Data for the
Reconstruction of European Climate during the Medieval Period.” Climatic Change
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Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “Historical Climatology in Europe–The State of the Art.” Climatic
Change 70 (2005): 363–430.
Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “European Floods during the Winter 1783/1784: Scenarios of an
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Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “European Climate of the Past 500 Years: New Challenges for
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the Period 1901–2006.” International Journal of Climatology 28 (2008): 421–33.
Ge, Q.-S. “Coherence of Climatic Reconstruction from Historical Documents in China
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Grotefend, H. Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit.
Aalen, 1997.
Grove, J. “The Climate of Crete in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Climatic
Change 30 (1995): 223–47.
Holzhauser, H. Zur Geschichte des Gornergletschers: Ein Puzzle aus historischen
Dokumenten und fossilen Hölzern aus dem Gletschervorfeld. Bern: Geographisches
Institut der Universität Bern, 2010.
Janković, Vladimir. Reading the Skies: A Cultural History of English Weather. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Kiss, Andrea et al. “An Experimental 392-Year Documentary-Based Multi-Proxy (Vine
and Grain) Reconstruction of May–July Temperatures for Kőszeg, West-Hungary.”
International Journal of Biometeorology 55 (2011): 595–611.
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Leijonhufvud, Lotta et al. “Five Centuries of Stockholm Winter/Spring Temperatures

Reconstructed from Documentary Evidence and Instrumental Observations.”
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Litzenburger, Laurent, and Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie. “Une ville face au climat: Metz à
la fin du Moyen âge 1400–1530.” Ph.D., Nancy, 2015.
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Temperature Reconstructions back to AD 1480.” Geophysical Research Letters 34
(2007).
Možný, Martin et al. “Cereal Harvest Dates in the Czech Republic between 1501 and
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by Proxy Data from Farmer’s Diaries.” Climatic Change 48 (2001).
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Geschichte von Bevölkerung und Landwirtschaft. Bern: Haupt, 1984.
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Carson Center, 2011.
Pfister, Christian et al. “Daily Weather Observations in Sixteenth-Century Europe.”
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Anglia, 1256–1431.” Climatic Change 113 (2012): 393–412.
Prieto, M.R. et al. “Variaciones Climáticas Recientes y Disponibilidad Hídrica en los
Andes Centrales Argentino-Chilenos (1885–1996). El Uso de Datos Periodísticos
para la Reconstitución del Clima.” Meteorológica 25 (2001): 27–43.
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a Millennium by Way of Proxy Data.” Climatic Change 68 (2001): 189–99.
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Historiographie des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. New York: Peter Lang, 2005.
Wetter, Oliver, and C. Pfister. “Spring-Summer Temperatures Reconstructed for
Northern Switzerland and Southwestern Germany from Winter Rye Harvest Dates,
1454–1970.” Climate of the Past 7 (2011): 1307–26.
Wetter, Oliver, and Christian Pfister. “An Underestimated Record Breaking Event: Why
Summer 1540 Was Likely Warmer than 2003.” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 41–56.
Wetter, Oliver et al. “The Year-Long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought of
1540 – A Worst Case.” Climatic Change 125 (2014): 349–63.
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Wheeler, D., and C. Pfister. “British Ships’ Logbooks as a Source of Historical Climatic
Information.” In Nachhaltige Geschichte. Festschrift für Christian Pfister, edited by
A. Kirchhofer, 109–26. Zurich: Chronos, 2009.
Wheeler, D. et al. “CLIWOC. Climatological Database for the World’s Oceans 1750 to
1850. Results of a Research Project.” Brussels: European Commission, 2006.
Wheeler, D. et al. “Atmospheric Circulation and Storminess Derived from Royal Navy
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Zumbühl, H.J. et al. “19th Century Glacier Representations and Fluctuations in the
Central and Western European Alps: An Interdisciplinary Approach.” Global and
Planetary Change 60 (2008): 42–57.
 CHAPTER 5

Evidence from the Archives of Societies:

Personal Documentary Sources

Christian Pfister and Sam White

5.1   Introduction
Personal documentary sources are highly diverse, fragmentary, and inherently
limited by the lifetime of the author. Grasping their full meaning demands
familiarity with their context and the nuances of their language. It helps to
know the personal background of the observers and their motivations in order
to understand which climatic elements they would have highlighted or disre-
garded. In the best cases, critical editions provide accessible texts with modern-
ized language and spellings as well as biographical information about the
authors and explanations of their terminology.
Most of the evidence discussed in this chapter comes from Europe. Evidence
for other continents is discussed in Chaps. 16–21. The private recording of
weather observations in pre-industrial times was an overwhelmingly male
enterprise. A 2012 study by Georgina Endfield and Carol Morris found just a
single female-authored weather diary from the UK.1 The diaries of Märta
Helena Reenstierna (1753–1841) from outside Stockholm also included
descriptions of plant and animal phenology relevant to climate.
This chapter will not consider compilations—that is, chronologically
arranged extracts from various sources about past weather without critical
explanations. Most compilers have not distinguished between contemporary

C. Pfister (*)
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change,
Bern, Switzerland
S. White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 49

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_5
50 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

and non-contemporary sources, resulting in a mishmash of reliable and unreli-

able evidence.2 Some compilers have not even cited their sources. One excep-
tion is Pierre Alexandre’s critical catalogue of 3500 source excerpts from 1000
to 1425 ce, of which 300 are identified as non-contemporary.3
Instead, this chapter provides an overview of climatic information derived
directly from personal sources. It is primarily concerned with situations where
there is no overlapping period between the documentary and instrumental
periods, rather than situations where observations can be calibrated to instru-
mental data and converted into temperature or precipitation indices. (For cali-
bration and indexing, see Chaps. 10 and 11.) Where there is no overlap with
instrumental measurements, researchers must either settle on qualitative
descriptions or find objective standards by which to assess the magnitude of
climatic changes and extremes.

5.2   The Objectivity of Weather Narratives

Natural scientists have often criticized evidence from weather narratives found
in personal documentary sources as subjective, rather than objective. By this,
they have meant that the evidence is biased and not (quantitatively) measured.
Yet this issue requires closer examination. Any narrative is by definition “story-­
like” and reflects an individual’s perspective. Nevertheless, weather narratives
deal with physical processes that are by definition objective—that is, “in the
realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible
by all observers having reality independent of the mind.”4 Furthermore, insofar
as accounts by different observers prove meteorologically consistent, we can
overcome inevitable problems of individual perception and selection of events.
Most importantly, past observers were themselves aware of these problems
of subjectivity and therefore made deliberate reference to more objective stan-
dards. In some cases, they supported their descriptions of cold or warmth by
referring to the development of crops and wild plants. The annual cycle of
nature, particularly the rhythm of the agricultural year, provided a widely
understood frame of reference. People cultivating the same crops at the same
place year after year became acutely aware of changes in plant development.
Major deviations from the usual pattern of crop development or the timing of
spring blossoms were known indicators of anomalies in growing-season tem-
peratures. In other cases, observations of physical changes could provide quan-
tifiable measurements of changes and extremes, even in the era before weather
instruments. The freezing of lakes, rivers, and seas could provide objective
indications of extreme cold, as an anonymous chronicler wrote about the severe
winter of 764: “In these days the river Seine was covered with a thick ice so that
people could cross it like a bridge.”5 Chinese historical climatologists have even
adopted a typology for personal evidence “grouped into ‘objective’ records
[based on indicators in the natural environment] which can be compared
directly among the different sources, and ‘subjective’ [purely descriptive]
records, which are difficult to compare quantitatively.”6
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY… 51

Likewise, subjective evaluations of meteorological disasters such as “the

worst flood in living memory”—basically a topos for “very large”—are usually
supported by objective references to the scale of damage. For example, we read
in one medieval chronicle:

On December [20,] 1206, in order to punish mankind for its sins, there was a
flood of such magnitude that no contemporary had witnessed it or heard of it
before. The water destroyed three [wooden?] arches of the Petit Pont and washed
many houses away causing huge damage in many places.7

In general, contemporary reports on floods and low water tables need to be

regarded as objective evidence.8 High-water marks offered another convenient
way to objectively compare the frequency and severity of floods over time.9 At
the same time, they served as a basis of comparison for subsequent floods,
which maintained preparedness for prevention. Rather than being purely com-
municative, high-water marks can be read as visual expressions of institutional
risk memory in the sense used by the insurance industry, which defines risk as
the likelihood that a loss of a certain magnitude will occur (Fig. 5.1).

5.3   (Weather) Chronicles

Chronicles are a broad category of historical information listing miscellaneous
events in chronological order. The focus is not always evident from the title.
For example, the chronicle of Hans Stolz, mayor of Guebwiller (France)—sub-
titled “testimony about the [German] Peasants’ War [of 1525] in the Upper
Rhine area”—actually contains numerous weather reports for the 1530s.10
Chronicles have a spatial focus, be that the world, a territory, a town, a village,
or an abbey. Chronicles representing large areas tend to be parsimonious about
weather events. Town and village chronicles are more promising because local
chroniclers more closely witnessed the weather and the related ups and downs
of everyday life in the rural world. They paid particular attention to phases of
weather known to make a difference in the development of the most important
crops. Severe frost in winter and spring as well as persistent rain in summer
were disastrous for vines, whereas grain crops suffered most from long snow
cover in spring and rainy midsummers.11 In their tendency to focus on extreme
events, chroniclers act as a “human high pass filter recording short-term fluc-
tuations about an ever-changing norm.”12 Indeed, as Christian Rohr has dem-
onstrated from accounts about bridge repairs in Austria, chroniclers often
overlooked smaller floods.

5.4   (Weather-Related) Pamphlets and Broadsides

As print became more widespread and literacy rose in Northern Europe, print-
ers began to publish large numbers of cheap short books (pamphlets) and
single-­page illustrations with text (broadsides). Since these formats aimed at a
wider audience, they often focused on popular genres, such as sermons, and on
52 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

Fig. 5.1 Assemblage of

24 water marks on the wall
of a private house situated
at the Tauber River in
Wertheim (Germany).
Photograph: Rüdiger
Glaser, 2013

sensational topics, including meteorological disasters. Pamphlets could be

­particularly useful for providing additional detail on weather events in late six-
teenth- and seventeenth-century England and the Netherlands, where these
sources are especially plentiful but weather diaries are less common or have not
all been analyzed. Broadsides, which sold for as little as an English penny, were
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY… 53

once very common and constituted almost a tabloid press on current events.
However, most were not preserved, and there are not many surviving broad-
sides related to weather.13
Even more than chronicles, pamphlets provide evidence of extremes
rather than average weather conditions. For instance, a major flood in
southwestern England in early 1607 inspired at least a half-dozen pam-
phlets, two even translated into French and Dutch.14 These include details
about the extent of the flooding and the damage inflicted on humans, live-
stock, and farms. Yet typical of the genre, all of them depict it as a singular
event and a divine warning or punishment. On occasion, pamphlets do pro-
vide more measured descriptions of weather events and even attempts to
place them in long-term context. For instance, a 1608 pamphlet attributed
to playwright Thomas Dekker not only gives a detailed account of the “frost
fair” held on the frozen Thames that year but also offers commentary on its
social and economic impacts and compares it with similar events in decades
and even centuries past.15

5.5   (Weather) Diaries

Weather diaries refer to diaries that contain more or less continuous daily
weather records for a significant period.16 They have long been recognized
as one of the “most valuable kinds of non-instrumental meteorological evi-
dence.”17 As George Adamson has explained, “Private diaries constitute a
unique set of materials within climate change research in that they provide
information both on past climate variability and on the ways that people
live within, and interact with weather and climate.”18 Observations in
weather diaries benefit from daily resolution, an absolute dating control,
and a rather standardized vocabulary, often including abbreviations. Most
importantly, they are reasonably continuous with reference to features such
as sunshine, rainfall, snowfall, fog, hail, and frost, and are therefore suited
to statistical analysis and comparison with the recent past. This property is
crucial for the reconstruction of past precipitation patterns, which despite
their significance for the human and the natural world remain systematically
under-researched.
One of the world’s oldest weather diaries was kept by Ptolemy (Claudius
Ptolemaeus) of Alexandria, Egypt (ca. 120 ce). It reveals remarkable differ-
ences from today’s climate in the occurrence of rain every month of the year
except August.19 In Japan, several weather diaries were kept starting around
1000 ad.20 In China, about 200 private diaries containing daily weather records
or weather-related natural phenomena have been found so far, dating back to
the twelfth century (see Chap. 17).
The oldest daily weather observations in Europe, for 1269/70, appear in
an anonymous astronomical calendar attributed to the philosopher and scien-
tist Roger Bacon (1229–1292), a forerunner of empirical methods in scien-
tific studies. His notes are already at the same level of sophistication as most
54 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

of those made in later centuries.21 The Reverend William Merle in Lincolnshire,

England, kept a weather diary from 1337 to January 1344.22 An anonymous
weather diary was kept in Basel or in neighboring France from 1399
to 1406.23
Astronomical almanacs, published in large numbers starting in the late
fifteenth century, became an early form of today’s agenda planner. Monthly
tables listed the saints for each day next to icons indicating astronomical
constellations and suitable conditions for activities such as planting, harvest-
ing, bleeding, and weaning babies.24 The line on the opposite page was left
vacant for personal entries, a space often used for noting weather observa-
tions (Fig. 5.2).25 Many early diarists were astronomers and astrologers who
believed that weather patterns were governed by a conjunction of the plan-
ets. By attempting to make astrometeorological predictions, they hoped to
link their observations of celestial bodies to weather and life on Earth in
order to justify their studies.26 Gabriela Schwarz-Zanetti provides an elabo-
rate detailed analysis of sixteen weather diaries kept in Central Europe
between 1331 and 1521, some written into almanacs.27 A study by Pfister
and colleagues provides a survey of thirty-two sixteenth-century weather
diaries for Central Europe each yielding a minimum of 100 daily observa-
tions.28 In Iberia, weather diaries are scarce, with serial weather descriptions
mostly being attached to early meteorological measurements.29 Klaus-Dieter
Herbst provides a survey of weather diaries in Germany that covers the sev-
enteenth century with only a few gaps (Fig. 5.3).30
The most important information in weather diaries concerns changes in
the monthly frequency of precipitation (distinguishing between rainfall
and snowfall), something that cannot be obtained from the archives of
nature. In order to assess how carefully and completely a diarist might have
observed precipitation events, the researcher needs to compare the average
annual number of his precipitation days with those measured at a neigh-
boring weather station during the instrumental period. The average num-
ber of measured precipitation days depends on the threshold, which is
offered in the statistic: the higher the threshold, the lower is the average
number of precipitation days. Changes in monthly precipitation frequen-
cies are obtained by comparing percentages from the annual average (see
Table 5.1).
Precipitation in the early sixteenth century tended to be lower in winter and
higher in summer than in the twentieth century, probably because observers
may have overlooked feeble snowfalls in winter, and because the summer half-­
year tended to be wetter. The high values obtained from many eighteenth-­
century diaries suggest that the diarists were able to observe values above
0.3 mm of measured precipitation, which is remarkable.31
The long duration or absence of snow cover was recognized as a feature of
exceptionally severe or mild winters. Historical climatologists have used records
of snow cover to reconstruct past winter temperature. For instance, Hermann
Flohn assessed winter temperatures in Zürich from 1551 to 1576 by compar-
Fig. 5.2 Almanac for the year 1600. The calendrical part for January (left) compares the “New” with the “Old” calendar alongside three
EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY…

icons representing the astronomical constellation and recommended activities. Note that “New” and “Old” saints’ days refer to different
Gregorian dates. Tiny weather notes are squeezed into the margin. The empty lines to the right are filled with the personal notes of the owner
55

(not shown). Source: Hans Jakob vom Staal, Kalendernotizen, Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Cod S 5 (3) p. 100, 101
56 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

Fig. 5.3 Places where comprehensive weather diaries were kept in sixteenth-century
Central Europe. A considerable number of diaries were kept by graduates of the univer-
sities of Cracow (Poland) and Ingolstadt (Germany), from where the practice probably
spread to Protestant universities such as Tübingen, Wittenberg, and Basel. Reproduced
from Christian Pfister et al., “Daily Weather Observations in Sixteenth-Century
Europe.” Climatic Change 43 (1999): 111–50

ing the frequency of rain days and snow days in the Wolfgang Haller diary.
Breaking down the series into two subseries, he showed that the frequency of
snow from 1564 to 1576 was 19.3% higher than in the period 1801–1938,
which points to winter cooling.32 Likewise, observers since the late sixteenth
century recorded snowfalls on mountains related to cold snaps during the
warm season. The Zürich diarist Johann Heinrich Fries regularly described the
appearance and melting of snow cover during the late seventeenth century,
which has made it possible to assess the total duration of snow cover at the
time.33
The earliest instrumental temperature observations were being made within
the Medici network (1654–70), set up and sponsored by the Grand Duke
Ferdinand II de’ Medici.34 The subsequent spread of weather instruments dur-
ing the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (see Chap. 7) also encour-
Table 5.1 Mean monthly precipitation in Cracow 1502–38 and Eichstätt 1514–31 against instrumental measurements
Observers Period Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual average

Marcin Biema (%) 1502–38 6.5 7.5 9.3 7.8 9.7 10.1 10.7 9.1 8 7 7 8 132.2 days (100%)
Instrumental (%) 1931–60 9.6 8.6 8 7.6 8 8.6 8.6 7.6 7 7.6 9.2 9.6 186.0 days (>0.1 mm)
(Cracow, Poland)
Difference −3.1 −1.1 1.3 0.2 1.7 1.5 2.1 1.5 1 −0.6 −2.2 −1.6
b
Kilian Leib (%) 1514–31 8.3 8.9 8.8 6.3 8.3 8.5 10.1 9.5 8.1 7.9 7.7 7.5 160.6 days (100%)
Instrumental (%) 1891–1930 8.8 7.4 8.3 8.8 9.2 8.4 8 8.3 7.5 8.6 8 9.5 185.7 days (>0.1 mm)
(Weissenburg)
Difference −0.5 1.5 0.5 −2.5 −0.9 0.1 2.1 1.2 0.6 −0.7 −0.3 −2
Source: Pfister et al. (1999)
a
Marcin Biem (c.1470–1540), a famous Cracow University professor, carefully logged daily weather for 682 months (with gaps)
b
Kilian Leib (1471–1553), abbot of a monastery near Eichstätt (Germany), came close to log days with (<0.3 mm) precipitation
EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY…
57
58 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

aged the keeping of weather diaries incorporating narrative observations and

measurements. This boom involved prominent figures such as Peter the Great,
George Washington, and James Madison.35
Louis Morin (1635–1715), the physician of France’s King Louis XIV,
was perhaps the most outstanding pioneer of early meteorology. His meteo-
rological diary kept in Paris from 1665 to 1713 contains, among other
things, three daily readings of the following elements: air temperature and
pressure, cloudiness, wind direction and strength, rainfall duration and
intensity, and the provenance and speed of clouds.36 With these observa-
tions, Morin was probably the first individual to observe the dynamics of
the free atmosphere.37

5.6   (Personal) Plant-Phenological Observations

Plant phenology is the study of plant life-cycle events, which are triggered by
environmental changes. The term “phenology,” coined in the mid-nineteenth
century, gradually replaced customary terms such as “periodical features.”
Time series of plant-phenological observations may be used to detect climate
change because every plant species requires a specific sum of positive daily tem-
peratures to achieve a certain phenophase, such as leafing or flowering.38
Quantifying phenological growth stages involves first converting all dates into
Day of Year (DOY).39 For an unequivocal designation of plant species, the
Latin name needs to be added in italics. In order to get valid average pheno-
phases, the plants in question should have been regularly observed for at least
ten years. In comparing phenological observations from different places,
researchers must account for changes in altitude and exposure. Over larger
distances, differences in latitude also need to be considered.40
In China, occasional phenological observations began around 2000 years
ago, whereas systematic observations date back to around 1500 ce. In Europe,
phenological observations began to appear in manuscripts during the high
Middle Ages, reflecting a new understanding of nature known as the Renaissance
of the Twelfth Century. Milene Wegmann demonstrated from more than 400
texts that phenological observations soon became an element of monkish
record-keeping.41
Kilian Leib, abbot of a monastery near Eichstätt, Germany, may have been
the first to leave long-term phenological observations. Between 1513 and
1531, he noted down in his weather diary the date of the greening of mead-
ows, the foliation of beech trees (Fagus sylvatica), and the beginning of the
rye (Secale cereale) harvest.42 Hans Rudolf Rieter, a baker in Winterthur,
Switzerland, stands out for the number of early systematic observations he
left. Between 1721 and 1738 he recorded nineteen phenological stages
mostly relating to fruit trees, cereals, and vines, as well as the unfolding of
beech leaves (Fagus sylvatica) and the time of the first ripe strawberries
(Fragaria vesca). More extensive still are the records of Parson Johann Jakob
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY… 59

Sprüngli made at three locations in the canton of Bern between 1759 and
1803.43 The Marsham family in Norwich, UK, set a record for continuous
private phenological records. Their observations cover more than 190 years,
from 1730 to 1925. They regularly noted the leafing of thirteen trees, includ-
ing beech (Fagus sylvatica), four flowering events, and the seasonal appear-
ance of animals such as frogs.44 Dates about the earing, blooming, and
harvesting of rye (Secale cereale) for the territory of Estonia and neighboring
countries were systematically collected and interpreted over the period 1671
to 1985.45 Some n ­ ineteenth-­century Norwegian farmers systematically noted
down the grain harvest dates (barley or oats), which enables estimates of
spring-summer temperatures.46
Regional phenological networks were initiated from the mid-eighteenth
century onwards. For example, the Imperial Royal Patriotic–Economic Society
of Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic) not only made meteorological observa-
tions but also set up a network of phenological stations. Between 1827 and
1847, these stations recorded the stages of thirty-one forest plants, fruit trees,
and field crops in Bohemia; from 1851 to 1877, it expanded its activities
throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire.47 A network of volunteers in
Europe was established by Egon Ihne and Hermann Hoffmann in 1884 and
survived until 1941. Following a recommendation of the World Meteorological
Organisation in 1953, many national meteorological services started regular
observations.48
Historical phenological data was not always gathered according to present-­
day guidelines, and therefore it presents some uncertainties. This poses more
difficulty in identifying long-term trends but is less important in dealing with
single observations made to document extreme events in the pre-instrumental
period. Such observations, usually documented in several narrative sources,
may be cautiously compared with analogous cases in the instrumental period in
order to get a rough idea of the magnitude of temperature deviations.49

5.7   (Personal) Ice-Phenological Data

The freezing and break-up dates of bodies of water were used as early proxies
for cold-season temperatures both in China and Europe.50 Sums of negative
daily temperatures are calculated to assess the freezing condition for a body of
water. Anthropogenic changes in the hydrological conditions through canal
building, the channeling and damming of rivers, and industrial water pollution
need to be taken into account, as well as the effects of strong winds agitating
the water surface. Seawater freezes at lower temperatures than freshwater, at
−1.9° on average, depending on its salinity.
A number of historical climatologists have reconstructed cold-season
temperatures using personal records of the freezing of the sea and inland
waters near the coast. For instance, Koslowski and Glaser investigated winter
severity in the low-salinity western Baltic Sea area between 1501 and 1995
60 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

using narratives about the duration of ice cover and remarks on ice thick-
ness, as well as evidence on ship traffic and weather conditions in the German
“Tambora” database. They assumed an ice thickness of at least 35 cm for
pedestrian traffic and 50 cm for loaded wagons. Dario Camuffo catalogued
instances of the freezing of the Venetian lagoon from early medieval times
until the 1960s, when the construction of a deep canal for tankers modified
its hydrology.51
Switzerland possesses a vast array of inland lakes of varying surface area and
depth. A very long record of freezing dates going back to the Middle Ages
exists for Lake Constance (473 km2) and Lake Zürich (88 km2). The hydro-
logical conditions of both lakes have hardly been affected by anthropogenic
modifications, making them largely homogeneous indicators of winter severity.
A complete freezing of Lake Constance requires a negative temperature sum of
>440° for people to safely walk on the ice, something which occurred for the
last time in 1963. For Lake Zürich, a negative temperature sum of only >350°
is necessary; and the number of known freezings of Lake Zürich in 1501–1963,
an event often associated with public festivals, was about five times as frequent
as those of Lake Constance.52
Descriptions of the most severe winters of the Little Ice Age regularly record
freezing or ice flows on large rivers with a slow current. Sudden warming in
spring then often led to disastrous floods caused by ice jams on bridges. For
instance, a disastrous ice jam disaster in spring 1784 affected France and Central
Europe, including the Danube catchment.53 Ice on the Rhine was monitored
by gauges from the late eighteenth century, and it has decreased remarkably
since the late nineteenth century as a result of rising temperatures and water
pollution.54 Engineers heavily modified most of the major rivers in Central
Europe for navigation between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, also
rendering them less likely to freeze.55 An ice break-up series of the River
Tornionjoki (northern Finland) since the 1690s was set up as an indicator of
spring temperatures.56 The break-up date of Lake Ransfjord (southeastern
Norway) was registered systematically by local farmers from 1758 until the late
nineteenth century.57
Finally, glaciers in mountain areas provide one of nature’s clearest signals of
decadal-scale warming and cooling. Fluctuations in the size of glaciers are pri-
marily influenced by summer air temperature and secondarily by annual pre-
cipitation.58 Systematic measurements of glacier length and thickness began
during the late nineteenth century. Researchers must rely on written and espe-
cially visual evidence to reconstruct the movements of glaciers in earlier times
(see Chap. 8).

Notes
1. Endfield and Morris, 2012.
2. After all, as Bell and Ogilvie (1978) long ago demonstrated, one should strictly
differentiate between contemporary and non-contemporary information, as
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY… 61

names are often misspelled and numbers miscopied. For example, the Italian
eighteenth-century astronomer Giuseppe Toaldo understood from a sixteenth-­
century source that the artillery of Pope Julius II, fighting against France’s King
Louis XII, crossed the frozen River Po in 1503. However, he misread the
Roman numeral MDXI (1511), thus duplicating the event. Camuffo and Enzi,
1995.
3. Alexandre, 1987.
4. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ (accessed January 15, 2015).
5. Pertz, 1829.
6. Ge et al., 2008.
7. Alexandre, 1987, 373.
8. Pfister et al., 2006.
9. Munzar et al., 2006.
10. Stolz, 1979.
11. Pfister, 2015.
12. Bradley, 2015.
13. E.g., D. Sterrie, Briefe Sonet Declaring the Lamentation of Beckles, a Market
Towne in Suffolke Which Was in the Great Winde upon S. Andrewes Pitifully
Burned with Fire … (London: Nicholas Colman, 1586). On German pamphlets,
see Bellingradt, 2008.
14. (Anon.), 1607. A True Report of Certaine Wonderfull Overflowings of Waters …
(London: Edward White, 1607); (Anon.), Een Warachtich Verhael van de
Schrickelicke Springh-Vloedt in het Landtschap van Summerset (Amsterdam:
C. Claesz., 1607); (Anon.), God’s Warning to His People of England … by the
Late Overflowing of the Waters … (London: W. Barley and J. Bayly, 1607);
(Anon.), Miracle upon Miracle or A True Relation of the Great Floods … (London:
Nathanael Fosbrook and John Wright, 1607); Discours veritable et tres-piteux, de
l’inondation et debordement de mer, survenu en six diverses provinces d’Angleterre,
sur la fin de janvier passé, 1607 (Paris: Fleury Bourriquant, 1607).
15. Dekker, 1608; Janković, 2001.
16. Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998.
17. Manley, 1953.
18. Adamson, 2015.
19. Lamb, 1995.
20. Maejima, 1966.
21. Long, 1974.
22. Lawrence, 1972.
23. Frederick et al., 1966.
24. Bepler and Bürger, 1994.
25. Pfister et al., 1999.
26. Pfister et al., 1999.
27. Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998.
28. Pfister et al., 1999.
29. Domínguez-Castro et al., 2014.
30. Herbst, 2016.
31. Pfister et al., 1999.
32. Flohn, 1949.
33. Pfister, 1985.
62 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

34. Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012.

35. Chernavskaya, 1994; Heidorn, 2012; Druckenbrod et al., 2003.
36. LeGrand and LeGoff, 1992.
37. Pfister and Bareiss, 1994.
38. Meier et al., 2009.
39. Tables are available at http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/julian_calendar.shtml (last
accessed January 21, 2016).
40. Ge et al., 2008.
41. Ge et al., 2008; Wegmann, 2005.
42. Pfister et al., 1999.
43. Pfister, 1984.
44. Margary, 2007.
45. Tarand and Kuiv, 1994.
46. Nordli, 2001.
47. Brázdil et al., 2010.
48. Hudson and Keatley, 2010.
49. Pfister, 1992.
50. Ge et al., 2008; Pfister, 1998.
51. https://www.tambora.org/ (accessed October 10, 2016); Koslowski and
Glaser, 1999; Camuffo et al., 2017.
52. Pfister, 1984, 65–66.
53. Brázdil et al., 2010.
54. Jansen, 1983.
55. Blackbourn, 2006.
56. Vesajoki and Tornberg, 1994.
57. Nordli et al., 2007.
58. Oerlemans, 2001.

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 CHAPTER 6

Evidence from the Archives of Societies:

Institutional Sources

Christian Pfister

6.1   Introduction
Institutional sources recording past weather and climate differ from personal
sources in their duration, their continuity and localization of reporting, and
their state of preservation. Personal sources are usually incomplete and rather
short, often made in different places, and end with the death of the observer.
Institutional sources (apart from official chronicles) were produced in the same
place, continuously, over a much longer period of time, and they are usually
preserved in official archives. They are the most accurate documentary sources,
usually written with the purpose of being precise and objective.
Institutional sources can offer many kinds of information about past weather
and climate, but they most often provide proxies for temperature. It is up to
the researcher to investigate whether there is a relationship between the
assumed proxy and climate parameters, how strong that relationship is, and
whether it changes over time. It requires a critical evaluation of human decision-­
making and the institutional framework to determine whether an apparent
proxy yields the same signal throughout the lifetime of the institution (the
“principle of stationarity”) (see Chap. 3). Ideally, researchers look to create a
proxy series that overlaps sufficiently with the instrumental record for appropri-
ate calibration and verification (see Chap. 10). For cases where a sufficient
overlap between the proxy and instrumental measurements is not available,
Fernando S. Rodrigo has proposed a simple approach to reconstructing cli-
matic variables for decadal periods from documentary-based time series.1

C. Pfister (*)
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland

© The Author(s) 2018 67

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_6
68 C. PFISTER

6.2   Agricultural Phenological Series

Agricultural phenology utilizes the dates of recurrent agricultural work, such as
planting and harvesting.2
Records of grape harvest dates obtained from institutional sources provide
the longest continuous series of phenological data in Europe. They were first
used by the Swiss physicist Louis Dufour in 1870 for climatic change research
and became widely known through the work of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.3
An open database including 378 series, mainly from France, was set up by
Valérie Daux and colleagues.4 Historically, grapes have been grown in Europe
up to the northern limit of their natural habitat. The underlying climate signal
of grape harvest dates has been the subject of longstanding discussion.5
Guerreau demonstrated that August temperatures are not significant for grape
maturity, so grape harvest dates are not perfect proxies for assessing “summer
temperatures.”6 Besides grape maturity, several factors could influence the har-
vest date, including local traditions, human decision-making, differences in
fertilization, changes in grape variety (particularly in the late nineteenth cen-
tury), and economically motivated behavior in extreme situations.7
Prior to the French Revolution, vine-growers had to wait for a public order
to begin the harvest. As soon as the grapes were found to be ripe, the vineyards
were banned—that is, guarded day and night to prevent anyone from entering.
This vintage ban dates back to Roman times.8 It was probably intended to
prevent clandestine grape-picking and tithe evasion. The lifting of the ban was
a public act whose date was recorded in municipal registers. After the French
Revolution, vine-growers were theoretically free to begin the harvest when
they pleased, but in practice the vintage ban was maintained.9
The relationship between April to July temperatures and grape harvest dates
is not stationary: Marcel Lachiver showed that prior to the seventeenth century
the vintage in France began on some preferred day of the week depending on
local tradition. For a long time, decisions about grape cultivation were domi-
nated by risk aversion. Vine-growers planted a mixture of early and late variet-
ies to maintain a minimum yield in bad years. As local wines began to face
wider market competition from the seventeenth century onwards, cultivation
was directed more towards obtaining a high sugar content.10 In exceptional
situations, such as military invasions or plagues, harvesters might start the har-
vest before the grapes had reached full maturity or they might skip the vintage
altogether.11 Premature harvests also occurred when the grapes froze or
decayed as a result of unseasonable weather.
Grape harvest dates became relevant in the debate about the summer of
2003, which was the hottest in the instrumental record for Western and
Central Europe. Based on the analysis of a long series of grape harvest dates in
Dijon, France, published in the journal Nature, Chuine and colleagues argued
that temperatures in the summer (June to August) of 2003 were probably
“even higher than in any other year since 1370.”12 Since then, this claim has
been echoed in more than 100 scientific papers. However, subsequent a­ nalyses
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES 69

revealed that the authors neglected critical analysis of the sources. It turned
out that not until 1607 did the municipal council in Dijon prioritize grape
maturity in determining the harvest date.13 Moreover, it became obvious that
the study suffers from incorrect raw data and from a questionable oenological
model.14 Most importantly, the authors overlooked the extreme heat and
drought documented for 1540.15 Thomas Labbé and Fabien Gaveau set up a
new series for the period 1371–2010 from the archives of the famous
Burgundian wine commune of Beaune situated south of Dijon where vine-
growers always cared about quality. It turned out that in Beaune the 1540
vine harvest took place on August 20, just one day after the date in 2003.16
Western and Central Europe suffered that year from a bone-dry spring fol-
lowed by a torrid summer and almost rainless autumn.17 In many regions of
France, Germany, and Switzerland this vintage was postponed because the
grapes had almost dried out by the time they turned ripe. Vine-growers chose
to wait until the next abundant rain spell, on St. Michael’s Day (October 8),
so that regardless of the quality and price of the wine, they would still get
enough liquid from the press to make a profit. Therefore this artificially late
harvest date appears in several municipal records, giving a misleading impres-
sion about summer temperatures (Fig. 6.1).18
Grain harvest dates: Cereals have been the most widely grown crops world-
wide since the Neolithic Revolution. Historically, wheat, barley, rye, and rice
have been the most important grains in Europe and Asia. Their date of matu-
rity depends on the species and the variety of crop, and on the year’s weather.
Analyses carried out in several countries have confirmed the value of grain
harvest dates as a proxy for spring-summer temperatures.21
Nevertheless, as with grape harvest dates, historical climatologists must pay
attention to human and historical factors. The timing of the grain harvest
depends not only on ripeness but also on calculations of risk and profit. The
onset of long rainy spells can prevent sufficient drying and may postpone the
start of the harvest. On the other hand, if the plant becomes overripe, there is
the risk of substantial loss of grains during harvesting. The introduction of the
combine harvester thresher radically changed grain harvesting, starting in the
early twentieth century in North America and after the mid-twentieth century
in the rest of the world. A combine requires grain to be ripe seven to ten days
before cutting, which is much later than had been customary.22
Historical climatologists in several countries have found different methods
to determine grain harvest dates and their relationship to climate. In
Switzerland, the right to collect the grain tithe was sold by auction, usually to
a member of the village elite. In 1979, Christian Pfister discovered that the
date of the auction could serve as a good proxy for average March–July mean
temperatures.23 For example, the books of expenditure kept by the hospital in
Basel between 1454 and 1705 list daily wage payments to laborers. They indi-
cate the start dates of various agricultural field and vineyard work, including
the start of the winter rye harvest. Using tithe auction dates, Wetter and Pfister
 70
C. PFISTER

Fig. 6.1 April to July mean temperatures estimated from a new series of Swiss grape harvest dates in 1540 were significantly higher than
those in 2003. The time of grape maturity in 1540 is estimated here from phenological observations because the harvest date was delayed in
order to wait for rain (see the text). (Image reproduced without changes from Oliver Wetter and Christian Pfister, “An Underestimated
Record Breaking Event: Why Summer 1540 Was Likely Warmer than 2003,” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 41–56, under a CC-BY 3.0 license:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.) Note that August temperatures cannot be assessed from grape harvest dates.19 According
to a model-based approach, summer (June, July, August) temperatures were probably somewhat higher in 2003 than in 154020
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES 71

were able to extend this series to 1825, providing a suitable period for calibra-
tion and verification with the long Basel temperature series (beginning 1755).24
Manorial records of medieval England have provided further grain harvest
dates suitable as climate proxies. English manorial records include the oldest
wage payment dates in Europe as well as specific information about weather
and its effects on agriculture (see Chap. 27). As historical climatologist Kathleen
Pribyl has explained,

“The manorial accounts enabled a non-resident landlord to control and assess the
economic performance of his directly managed estate (as opposed to leasing out
to farmers). These documents report the cost and profits of the farming activities
on the manor; they list expenses and receipts and consider the state of the agricul-
tural and pastoral sectors.”25

Accroding to Jan Titow,

“References to the weather were made to explain why certain expenditures

exceeded those standards or why certain items of income did not meet them. For
example, references to hard winters (which included most of spring), are usually
made to explain why unusually large quantities of grain were fed to the manorial
hogs and sheep which could not find enough feed in the open.”26

If an account does not mention extraordinary weather-related expenses, we

may assume that outstanding weather extremes did not occur during the har-
vest year:

“The accounts covered the agricultural year, which is the time from Michaelmas
(September 29) to the following Michaelmas (the year of harvest). The informa-
tion was supplied by the personnel managing the manor, recorded by scribes in
medieval Latin on a parchment roll and was checked in an audit process by the
landlord or his representatives.”27

This system of manorial record-keeping ended in the early fifteenth century.

The longest series, from Norwich Cathedral Priory in southeast England, aug-
mented by shorter series from neighboring institutions, yielded 616 dates indi-
cating the onset and often the end of the grain harvest. Needless to say, there
is no overlap between the medieval time series and the Central England
Temperature Series, the longest English instrumental record, which begins in
1659. But using a long time series of wheat harvest dates from Langham,
England, between 1768 and 1867, Pribyl established a relationship between
growing season temperature and grain harvest dates, and that relationship in
turn served to determine medieval temperature values. It turned out that
April–July average temperatures fell from 13.0° to 12.4° between 1256 and
1431, a decline that possibly indicates the onset of the Little Ice Age (see
Chaps. 22 and 23).28
72 C. PFISTER

Tithes of grain paid in kind were roughly proportional to harvest size.29

However, they are not suitable climatic indicators in mid latitudes because
grain harvests there are related to different seasonal temperature and
­precipitation patterns (see Chap. 27). Otherwise, rainfall from late October
to early April is the dominant factor for harvest size in regions with a
Mediterranean climate. García-Herrera and colleagues showed that between
1595 and 1836 the amount of tithe paid to the Spanish authorities on the
Canary Islands (near the Atlantic coast of Africa) fluctuated widely according
to rainfall. Small harvests often coincided with Pro Pluvia rogations (see
Sect. 6.5), whereas harvests were abundant in years when floods destroyed
bridges near the capital. Statistically, the authors demonstrated that years of
dearth and plenty also agreed well with movements in the North Atlantic
Oscillation, which controls the strength and position of westerly winds in the
North Atlantic.30

6.3   Municipal Accounts

Municipal governments in Europe often recorded income and expenditure
related to city services and infrastructure, and in some cases these may serve as
climate proxies. For instance, continuous information about floods may be
obtained from municipal accounts of bridge repairs, as Christian Rohr has dem-
onstrated for the town of Wels in Austria. The weekly accounts of the bridge
master from 1441 to 1520 list the timber purchased and the wages of crafts-
men for repairing bridges damaged by floods and other events. The amount of
timber needed and the duration of the repair were taken as indicators of flood
intensity.31
To take another example, the town of Louny in today’s Czech Republic
owned a number of fields, meadows, and vineyards, which were managed using
hired labor. Account books, kept in Latin up to 1450 and then in Czech from
1450 to 1632, list wages paid each Saturday to day laborers for different kinds
of work in the fields and vineyards, as well as expenses for maintenance follow-
ing extreme events. The series ends in 1632 because the municipality switched
from weekly to monthly accounting.32

6.4   Hydrological and Ice-Phenological Series

In some cases, state and religious institutions regularly recorded the freezing
dates of lakes and rivers. For example, historical climatologists have found con-
tinuous freezing dates for the small Lake Suwa in central Japan that go back to
the fifteenth century, and these are highly correlated to December and January
temperatures. When this lake freezes, the shrinkage and expansion of the ice
resulting from diurnal temperature variations produces an unusual type of ice
cracking, named Omiwatari, which resembles a bridge crossing the lake (see
Fig. 6.2). For six centuries, the Suwa Shrine has celebrated the annual ­formation
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES 73

Fig. 6.2 The Omiwatari feature, an unusual form of ice cracking on the frozen Lake
Suwa in Japan, has been recorded since the fifteenth century. It is related to December
and January temperatures. Photo: T. Mikami

of Omiwatari with a special ceremony, the date of which has been recorded in
the shrine’s records.33
Records on the entry and departure of ships were kept in most ports because
customs and fees were levied on unloaded or uploaded goods. In high latitudes
the sea usually freezes during winter, blocking maritime traffic. The date on
which the first ship arrives in spring thus indicates that the sea has become ice
free. The longest series of this kind, starting (with some gaps) in the fourteenth
century and almost continuous after 1500, relates to the harbor of Tallinn in
Estonia. This series was used to estimate December to March temperatures in
the country.34 A similar series from Stockholm has been used to assess January
to April temperatures in this town since the early sixteenth century. A team of
researchers led by Lotta Leijonhufvud and colleagues looked through hun-
dreds of bulky volumes of documents related to port activities kept from 1535
to 1892 in order to set up a time series for the dates of entry and departure of
the first ships in spring. The dates fluctuate widely. In 1676, for example, the
first ship entered the port of Stockholm on March 22. In 1685, on the other
hand, the first ship entered no earlier than April 27, which indicates a long
freezing of the Baltic. The statistical evaluation of this series can serve as a
model for sophisticated time series analysis of documentary data.35 Likewise,
the freezing of canals connecting the major cities in the Netherlands has been
registered since 1634, which allowed de Vries to extend the long temperatures
series of De Bilt (from 1706) back to the early seventeenth century.36
74 C. PFISTER

In Spain, the books of municipal acts provide detailed descriptions of

extreme meteorological events (torrential or persistent rains, storms at sea,
huge snow cover, cold waves) that interfered with people’s daily life. In this
way the authorities tried to assess the damage caused to buildings and infra-
structure in order to organize their reconstruction. Fernando Rodrigo and
Mariano Barriendos systematically combed 1463 volumes of handwritten
information originating from six cities (Bilbao, Barcelona, Murcia, Toledo,
Seville, and Zaragoza) representing the main climatic regions of Spain.37 High-­
water marks on public buildings such as bridges and town halls were probably
commissioned by the authorities to keep the memory of flood disasters alive
and keep the public aware of risks. These may be regarded as a reliable source,
but the dating needs to be checked using independent evidence (Fig. 6.3).38 In
general, records on floods contained in institutional sources, such as in munici-
pal acts or Chinese local gazettes (see Chap. 17), can be regarded as objective
evidence.

Fig. 6.3 An assemblage of high-water marks, initially attached to the “Old Bridge”
over the River Main in Frankfurt, Germany, and today placed at a pedestrian bridge over
the river. By far the highest mark of the assemblage (just below the white lamp on top to
the left) reminds us that the worst flood ever known on the river occurred on July 22 (or
July 30 in the Gregorian calendar), 1342. It destroyed the Old Bridge and cut 14 m deep
ravines in the fields.39 Until the Protestant Reformation, a memorial procession was
always held on the anniversary of the disaster. © Eveline Zbinden, Bern, April 19, 2008
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES 75

6.5   Rogation Ceremonies

Records of certain liturgical acts held in Spanish churches, known as rogation cer-
emonies, can provide a special source of climatic information. Mariano Barriendos
demonstrated that these ceremonies, which were administered in the same way
throughout the Iberian Peninsula, were a response to ­ environmental stress.
Moreover, he developed a methodology that recovers detailed data on floods and
droughts for Spain and the Spanish colonies, principally in Latin America.40
Unlike ordinary processions—for example those held on a particular saint’s
day—rogations were extraordinary processions held only during adverse sociopo-
litical or environmental circumstances, such as military defeats, epidemics, or cli-
matic hazards. Different climate-related rogations included responses to drought
(“Pro Pluvia”), persistent rain (“Pro Serenitate”), torrential rain and floods, and
storms or cold spells during the growing season. Barriendos has established a
procedure for categorizing these rogation ceremonies: associations of farmers
noticed signs of weather stress in the fields, such as the wilting of crops. In such a
case they informed the city council in the local town (Step 1). These bodies, which
mostly consisted of aristocratic families engaged in commerce or law, then decided
whether or not to call a rogation (Step 2). The council communicated its decision
to the ecclesiastical authorities, who in turn figured out when and how the cere-
mony could be incorporated into the pattern of regular liturgical activities (Step
3). The rogation ceremony would take place within a week of the first warnings.
The meteorological conditions giving rise to weather-related rogation cere-
monies are hardly mentioned. The severity and duration of adverse climate can
be assessed from the kind of liturgical act organized by the ecclesiastical authori-
ties. For drought—by far the most frequent and formidable hazard—we can
distinguish five levels of severity. The first two levels involved simple prayers and
the exposure of relics in the church; the third level involved a public procession;
fourth-level ceremonies had a greater solemnity; and at the fifth level, the author-
ities organized a pilgrimage to a venerated sanctuary, such as from Barcelona to
the Virgin of Montserrat 45 km away. The system of rogations was insulated
from alteration or abuse because the ecclesiastical authorities had to provide the
ceremonies while the civil authorities had to pay for them. Hence the church
could not expand rogation ceremonies against the opposition of the municipali-
ties that bore the cost, nor could municipalities shorten the ceremonies against
the objections of ecclesiastical authorities, who argued to uphold tradition.41

6.6   Ships’ Logbooks

Ships’ logbooks are the most abundant institutional sources recording direct
weather observations. A ship’s officer navigating in open seas needed informa-
tion about wind speed and direction over the previous twenty-four hours in
order to determine the position (latitude and longitude) of the ship. Logbooks
also provided a general-purpose official record of the voyage. In case of loss or
damage to cargo and claims from insurance companies, they were the principal
document used in court, comparable to the black box in an airplane or the trip
76 C. PFISTER

recorder in a lorry.42 The navies and merchant marines of different nations

ordered the keeping of logbooks and set procedures. In the British Royal Navy,
every officer on board a vessel had to keep his own logbook, ensuring a high
level of correlation among logbooks from officers on the same ship and those
from other ships sailing in convoy.43
One of the advantages of logbooks is their consistency of content, layout,
and vocabulary. The descriptive structures were brief and note-like, presumably
to meet the needs of officers for uncomplicated and unambiguous descriptions
of weather during the voyage.44 The major shortcoming of logbooks as records
of past climate is the spatial scattering of the data on account of the mobility of
ships (Fig. 6.4).
The interpretation of wind direction records is straightforward because
standard compass directions were used. Wind speed data, on the other hand,
required much more careful work. Of course, no anemometers were available
on board these sailing ships, but the officers were highly skilled in estimating
wind from the state of sea, sails, and clouds. These estimates were recorded
using descriptive terms rather than expressed numerically.45 Around 1600, the
first information about wind force began to appear routinely in ships’ logbooks
of the Dutch East India Company. By the middle of the seventeenth century,
wind force terminology had evolved into a more or less standard system.
Around 1700, practical scales of wind force terms such as “fine breeze” and
“hard gale” were developed and ultimately evolved into today’s international
Beaufort scale of wind force.46
Tens of thousands of logbooks have survived in the archives of the great naval
powers, including those of the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Spain.47 The
European Union project CLIWOC (Climatological Database for the World’s
Oceans 1750–1950) digitized and quality checked nearly 300,000 daily records
from British, Spanish, Dutch, and French logbooks of open-­ocean voyages for
the period 1750–1854. The data are available in an open access database.48
These provide the date, geographical position of the ship, wind direction, wind
force, present weather, sea state, sea ice reports, and—from the turn of the nine-
teenth century onwards— temperature and air pressure.49 Weather data from
the logbooks of British whaling ships in the Arctic are distinguished by their
valuable records of sea ice cover and iceberg incidence.50

6.7   Mandatory Reporting

In different parts of the early modern world, various imperial and religious
institutions required their agents to make regular reports about conditions—
including the weather—to their superiors in the central administration.
Historical climatologists have investigated records from this kind of mandatory
reporting in imperial China (Chap. 17), the Spanish Empire (in the minutes of
city council meetings, or Actas Capitulares) (Chap. 19), and the Venetian
Empire in the eastern Mediterranean.51 Members of the Company of Jesus
were required to report to their superiors or brothers any remarkable military,
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES 77

Fig. 6.4 Logbook of the William Hamilton of New Bedford, mastered by Humphrey
Allen Shockley, on a voyage from June 1850 to November 1852, giving information
about wind speed and wind direction (from Wikimedia Commons, with permission of
the Bedford Whaling Museum)
78 C. PFISTER

political, ecclesiastic, or weather events that occurred in their environment.

Rodrigo and colleagues investigated climate-relevant passages in more than
1000 letters sent from various Spanish cities to the historian Father Rafael
Pereyra.52 Under such circumstances we may assume that an absence of evi-
dence with regard to extreme weather may be regarded as evidence of absence,
provided that all the relevant reports survive. Finally, diplomatic dispatches
from regular postings in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, starting in the six-
teenth century, provide frequent (typically biweekly or monthly) although
inconsistent reporting about weather conditions.53

Notes
1. Rodrigo, 2008.
2. Ge, 2008.
3. Le Roy Ladurie, 1967, 1971.
4. Daux et al., 2012.
5. Wetter and Pfister, 2013.
6. Guerreau, 1995.
7. Guerreau, 1995.
8. Ruffing, 1997.
9. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
10. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
11. Chuine et al., 2004, 289.
12. Garnier et al., 2011.
13. Labbé and Gaveau, 2011.
14. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
15. Glaser et al., 1999.
16. Labbé and Gaveau, 2013.
17. Wetter et al., 2014.
18. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
19. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
20. Orth et al., 2016.
21. Kiss et al., 2011.
22. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
23. Pfister, 1979.
24. Wetter and Pfister, 2011; Možný et al., 2012.
25. Pribyl et al., 2012, 395.
26. Titow, 1960, 368.
27. Titow, 1960, 394.
28. Pribyl et al., 2012.
29. Le Roy Ladurie and Goy, 1982.
30. García-Herrera et al., 2003.
31. Rohr, 2013.
32. Brázdil and Kotyza, 1999.
33. Mikami et al., 2015.
34. Tarand and Nordli, 2001.
35. Leijonhufvud et al., 2010.
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES 79

36. de Vries, 1977.

37. Rodrigo and Barriendos, 2008.
38. Wetter et al., 2011.
39. Glaser, 2001, 66.
40. Garza-Merodio, 2007.
41. Barriendos, 2005.
42. Wheeler and Wilkinson, 2005.
43. García-Herrera et al., 2003, 1027.
44. Wheeler and Wilkinson, 2005.
45. García-Herrera et al., 2003.
46. Wheeler, 2005.
47. García-Herrera et al., 2003.
48. Wheeler et al., 2006.
49. Wheeler, 2005.
50. Ayre et al., 2015.
51. Grove and Conterio, 1995.
52. Rodrigo et al., 1998.
53. E.g., White, 2011 for examples from Istanbul.

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Titow, Jan. “Evidence of Weather in the Account Rolls of the Bishopric of Winchester
1209–1350.” The Economic History Review 12 (1960): 360–407.
Wetter, Oliver, and Christian Pfister. “Spring-Summer Temperatures Reconstructed for
Northern Switzerland and Southwestern Germany from Winter Rye Harvest Dates,
1454–1970.” Climate of the Past 7 (2011): 1307–26.
Wetter, Oliver, and Christian Pfister. “An Underestimated Record Breaking Event: Why
Summer 1540 Was Likely Warmer than 2003.” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 41–56.
Wetter, Oliver et al. “The Largest Floods in the High Rhine Basin since 1268 Assessed
from Documentary and Instrumental Evidence.” Hydrological Sciences Journal 56
(2011): 733–58.
Wetter, Oliver et al. “The Year-Long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought of
1540 – A Worst Case.” Climatic Change 125 (2014): 349–63.
Wheeler, Dennis. “British Naval Logbooks from the Late Seventeenth Century: New
Climatic Information from Old Sources.” History of Meteorology 2 (2005): 133–45.
Wheeler, Dennis, and C. Wilkinson. “The Determination of Logbook Wind Force and
Weather Terms: The English Case.” Climatic Change 73 (2005): 57–77.
Wheeler, Dennis et al. “CLIWOC. Climatological Database for the World’s Oceans 1750
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White, Sam. The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2011.
 CHAPTER 7

Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Early

Instrumental Observations

Dario Camuffo

7.1   Introduction
This chapter defines early instrumental observations and explains their signifi-
cance for climate reconstruction. It also addresses their problems and explains
how best to work with them. The following sections discuss the development
and shortcomings of early instruments—thermometers, barometers, and rain
gauges—the relevant measurement practices, and the history of early instru-
mental observation networks.1
The transition between early and modern instrumental measurements came
in around the middle of the nineteenth century, when meteorological instru-
ments were well developed and their uncertainties known.2 In 1860, George
Biddel Airy (Greenwich Observatory) and Urbain Jean-Joseph Le Verrier
(Paris Observatory) signed an agreement to collect British and French observa-
tions to forecast storms. A few years later in 1873, under the direction of
Christoph Buys Ballot, the International Meteorological Committee was
founded in Vienna, incorporating the newly organized national weather ser-
vices. In 1950 the International Meteorological Committee became the World
Meteorological Organization, with 160 country members, under the direction
of the United Nations.3

D. Camuffo (*)
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council (CNR),
Padua, Italy

© The Author(s) 2018 83

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_7
84 D. CAMUFFO

7.2   Early Temperature Observations

The discovery that liquids are subject to thermal expansion led to the invention
of the liquid-in-glass thermometer. Galileo made the earliest experiments with
a “thermoscope”—the ancestor of the air thermometer—but it had no scale
and was sensitive to atmospheric pressure. He also invented a thermometer
composed of a number of glass spheres with slightly different densities
immersed in spirit. It was nicknamed the Termometro Infingardo (“Sluggish
Thermometer”) because it took so long to react.4 In 1642, the last year of
Galileo’s life, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and Evangelista Torricelli invented
the true liquid-in-glass thermometer. The most accurate type, the little
Florentine thermometer (Fig. 7.1), used a scale in Galileo degrees (1 °G = 1.44
°C).5 It was employed in the first network of regular meteorological measure-
ments from 1654 to 1770.
The Florentine Thermometers long remained unequaled for their quality,
consistency, and durability. However, only a wealthy patron such as the grand
duke could support the cost of distributing hundreds of them all over Italy and
Europe. The “normal” thermometer of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries used a different technology, based on a capillary tube fixed to a wooded
tablet. The instrument maker had to produce a glass tube with a bulb, fill it with
the thermometric liquid, and finally seal the top of the tube.6 The choice of the
thermometric liquid was crucial: it needed a high expansion coefficient, it should
not freeze during measurements, and it should not adhere to the glass tube.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit used mercury, and it proved to be an excellent choice
because the thermal expansion of mercury is linear. A ­number of calibration

Fig. 7.1 The little Florentine thermometer (Museo Galileo, Florence; photo by
Franca Principe and Sabina Bernacchini)
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: EARLY INSTRUMENTAL… 85

scales were proposed, each with pros and cons. In 1742, Anders Celsius pro-
posed the centigrade scale, originally inverted with 100 °C for the freezing point
and 0 °C for boiling point.7 The mercury thermometer had a very small linear
departure in temperature (±0.1 °C), followed by Newton’s linseed oil thermom-
eter (±0.15 °C). Wine spirit in the 0–80 °R Réaumur calibration had a bias reach-
ing −5 °C at 30 °C in warm climates; however, if the calibration was made in a
restricted range (e.g. 0 °C and 30 °C as in the Florentine thermometers) the bias
was much reduced (e.g. ±0.5 °C in the Florentine thermometers).8
Early “normal” thermometers were not weatherproof and could not be kept
outdoors, especially in rain or fog. This limited their use in humid regions and
rainy seasons. Readings taken in massive brick buildings obscured the real tem-
perature cycle, and one or two readings were considered representative of the
whole day. Most people lived in unheated rooms, so monitoring indoor tem-
perature was considered useful for public health purposes. One of the most
famous long instrumental records, the Central England temperature series, had
to combine short indoor or outdoor instrumental records in the roughly trian-
gular area bounded by Bristol, Lancashire, and London.9 Another crucial prob-
lem was inadequate shielding from direct sunlight. In 1785, Giuseppe Toaldo
in Padua employed a screen for the first time,10 but such screens were often
missing or insufficient until the 1860s.11

7.3   Early Pressure Observations

In 1643 at the Accademia del Cimento, two of Galileo’s pupils made a revolu-
tionary discovery: Evangelista Torricelli arrived at the theoretical conclusion
that air had a weight, and Vincenzo Viviani set up the experimental device to
verify it. The instrument was called the “barometer,” which measured the
“weight” of the air column. The earliest barometers consisted of a vertical glass
tube closed on the top, filled with mercury and immersed in a vessel that acted
as an open, fixed cistern (Fig. 7.2a). The wheel barometer, invented by Robert
Hooke in 1665, used a float in a bowl of mercury to drive a pulley attached to
a pointer on a circular scale (Fig. 7.2b). Wheel barometers were decorative and
easy to use. However, the friction between the mechanical parts, the capillary
attraction of the mercury, and the influence of temperature on the float, thread,
and pulley all reduced its accuracy.12 In 1844, Lucien Vidi invented the aneroid
barometer using a capsule that drives a pointer. It, too, was easy to use but not
very precise.13 Nevertheless, the barometer (or “weather glass”) soon proved
essential in forecasting storms.
These early mercury barometer readings require several corrections to pro-
duce accurate standardized measurements. These include corrections for (1)
the influence of temperature on the density of mercury; (2) the effects of alti-
tude; (3) the influence of latitude on gravity; and (4) capillary depression of the
mercury column in thin tubes. Early corrections began by 1830, but they
remained missing or incomplete until the International Meteorological Tables
86 D. CAMUFFO

Fig. 7.2 (a) Early barometer, Torricelli type, consisting of a glass tube filled with mer-
cury and a vessel acting as a cistern. (b) Wheel barometer invented by Hooke14

(1890) provided corrections related to the acceleration of gravity, altitude, and

temperature.15

7.4   Early Precipitation Observations

Rain gauges have been used since antiquity in the Near East and India, and
since at least 1440 in Korea. However, these instruments remained practically
unknown in Europe until Father Benedetto (born Antonio) Castelli’s 1639
rain gauge, a simple vessel with an open top exposed to the sky. Early rain
gauges varied greatly in design and quality, and as they aged their readings suf-
fered. For more than a century, they remained essentially storage vessels topped
by a poor collecting funnel (Fig. 7.3). The rim of the collecting funnel lacked
the sharp edge needed to collect raindrops blown at tilted or grazing angles
and to retain splashing drops or snowflakes.
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: EARLY INSTRUMENTAL… 87

Fig. 7.3 Rain gauge of

the mid-nineteenth century,
composed of a collecting
funnel (F), a storage can
(B), and an external
graduated glass tube (D) to
measure the amount of
precipitated water16

Once or twice a day, or after rain showers, the observer measured the col-
lected water. Multiple readings to reduce evaporation losses remained uncom-
mon, so the time of daily readings introduced considerable irregularities.
Location, height, and exposure were not standardized. Up to the second half
of the eighteenth century, rain gauges were normally sited on roofs, chimneys,
or walls, or in closed courtyards and gardens; but only rarely in real open spaces
free from obstructions. Long rain gauge measurement series usually have to
combine several shorter subseries of observations in different locations, at dif-
ferent heights, facing different obstructions—factors that complicate the
homogenization and comparison of records (see Chap. 9).17
Early instruments used various methods to measure the collected water.
Some had the vessel fixed to the building frame and were emptied through a
tap at the bottom, while others were turned upside down. Some used a gradu-
ated dip rod to measure the water level, others a side tube. They might measure
by level, by weight, or by volume. Various factors add to the uncertainties and
errors of early rain gauge measurements.18 Vessels were inadequately shielded,
causing evaporation losses. Instruments were not properly located to minimize
obstruction from buildings and trees. Instruments might lose water when they
were emptied for readings, or leftover water could affect subsequent measure-
ments. Users also failed to take measures against frost.
88 D. CAMUFFO

7.5   Early Meteorological Networks

The Grand Duke of Tuscany organized the first network of regular meteoro-
logical observations, the Rete Medicea (Medici Network), from 1654 to 1670.
Its stations were Florence, Vallombrosa, Pisa, Cutigliano, Bologna, Parma,
Milan, Innsbruck, Warsaw, Osnabrück, and Paris. At each station, readings
were taken using identical instruments and following the same protocols. Each
station had two identical thermometers, one hung on a north-facing wall and
the other on a south-facing wall, to evaluate air temperature in the shade and
the sun. Readings were performed every three to four hours day and night.
The Florence and Vallombrosa stations operated continuously; the others were
secondary and operated for some years in winter and summer. The 1654–70
observations of the Medici Network constitute the earliest known instrumental
temperature observations.19
The Wrocław (Breslau) network of temperature, pressure, and precipitation
measurements was established in eastern Slovakia in 1717–30. Its main stations
were Kezmarok and Presov (which used a little Florentine thermometer).20
The next successful international meteorological network was established in
1723 by James Jurin, secretary of the Royal Society of London. He set precise
norms for its instruments (thermometer, barometer, rain gauge) and opera-
tions, following the guidelines of Robert Hooke. These recommended tem-
perature readings in north-facing unheated rooms, for instance. The network
was active from 1724 to 1735 and observations were published in the
Philosophical Transactions. It initiated a number of regular instrumental obser-
vations, some of them still ongoing.21
Several short-lived national and international networks followed. The Bern
meteorological network, active 1760–62, comprised six stations in Switzerland:
Bern, Lausanne, Orbe, Cottens, Vevey, and St. Cergue.22 In 1776, to supply
the newly established Societé Royale de Médecine with meteorological data,
Vicq d’Azyr promoted a correspondence network of instrumental readings.23
In 1781 the Prince Elector Karl Theodor von Pfalz and his secretary John
Jacob Hemmer founded the Societas Meteorologica Palatina in Mannheim.
This international network, active in the period 1781–92, included thirty-nine
sites across Europe, except for England and the Iberian Peninsula. Hemmer
established an operational methodology and schedule of observations. The
network also distributed instruments and specified their characteristics. Its
observations were published in the Ephemerides Societatis Meteorologicae
Palatinae from 1783 to 1795.24 Following the plea of these international net-
works, several local and regional instrumental series were launched: a selection
of the most famous is given in Table 7.1.
The eighteenth century witnessed technological improvements in instru-
ments. For instance, thermometers and scales were weatherproofed so that
it was possible to resume outdoor observations. During the nineteenth cen-
tury, meteorology became a mature, technologically advanced discipline car-
ried out by trained professionals. With this professionalization came a shift
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: EARLY INSTRUMENTAL… 89

Table 7.1 Long regular meteorological observations in Europe

Location Start Reference quoted therein

Central England 1659 Manley, 1974; Parker et al., 1992

De Bilt 1706 Koopmans et al., 2015
Paris 1676 Rousseau, 2009, 2013
Berlin 1701 Brumme, 1981
Bologna 1715 Camuffo et al., 2010, 2016, 2017
Padua 1716 Camuffo and Jones, 2002; Camuffo et al., 2006
Uppsala 1722 Bergström and Moberg, 2002
St. Petersburg 1743 Camuffo and Jones, 2002
Stockholm 1756 Camuffo and Jones, 2002
Milan 1763 Camuffo and Jones, 2002
Prague 1775 Brázdil, 2012
Barcelona 1780 Rodríguez et al., 2001
Budapest 1780 Csernus-Molnár and Kiss, 2011
Timişoara 1780 Csernus-Molnár et al., 2014
Rome 1782 Colacino and Rovelli, 2010; Colacino and Purini,
1986
Lisbon 1783 Taborda et al., 2004
Cadiz 1787 Camuffo and Jones, 2002; Gallego et al., 2007
Palermo 1791 Chinnici et al., 2000

from local to national and finally international organization. The International

Meteorological Committee and the World Meteorological Organization
established common protocols in observations, and members’ countries
improved their national weather services accordingly. To use long instru-
mental series dating before these improvements requires careful correction
and homogenization of the results based on analysis of both the data and the
metadata (see Chap. 9).25

7.6   Conclusion
Early instrumental measurements provide crucial information about past
weather and climate, particularly in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
Europe. However, using this information properly requires a critical analysis of
the instruments, calibration, exposure, and operational protocols.
Understanding the history of these instruments and observation networks not
only has significant cultural value but also helps us correct and homogenize
their readings in order to better reconstruct and analyze past climate.

Notes
1. Middleton, 1964, 1966; Goodison, 1968; Frisinger, 1977; Landsberg, 1985;
Borchi et al., 1990; Borchi and Macii, 1997; Kingston, 1997; Camuffo and
Jones, 2002; Brázdil et al., 2005; Brázdil, 2012; Przybylak et al., 2010.
2. Negretti and Zambra, 1864; Scott, 1875.
90 D. CAMUFFO

3. WMO, 2006.
4. Magalotti, 1667.
5. Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012.
6. Camuffo and Jones, 2002; Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012.
7. Middleton, 1966; Camuffo and Jones, 2002.
8. On Newton’s linseed oil themometer, see Camuffo and della Valle, 2017; on
spirit thermometers, see Camuffo and della Valle, 2016.
9. Manley, 1974; Parker et al., 1992.
10. Camuffo and Jones, 2002.
11. Böhm et al., 2010.
12. Goodison, 1968.
13. Middleton, 1964.
14. Cotte, 1774.
15. Middleton, 1964.
16. Ganot, 1854.
17. Groisman et al., 1996.
18. Strangeways, 2010.
19. Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012.
20. Brázdil et al., 2008.
21. Camuffo and Jones, 2002.
22. Pfister, 2008.
23. Borel, 2005.
24. Cassidy, 1985.
25. Camuffo and Jones, 2002.

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 CHAPTER 8

Evidence from the Archives of Societies:

Historical Sources in Glaciology

Samuel U. Nussbaumer and Heinz J. Zumbühl

Glaciers have been recognized as key indicators of climate change. As such,

changes in glaciers not only have relevance for climate policy but also affect
popular global perceptions of climate change.1 To assess the current decline in
glaciers worldwide, their changes must be compared with the natural glacier
fluctuations since the end of the last ice age.
Various methods with varying temporal resolution and accuracy allow
researchers to reconstruct glacier fluctuations throughout the Holocene (ca.
9700 bce–present). To reconstruct glacier changes over recent centuries,
including the Little Ice Age (LIA) (see Chap. 23), historical methods have
proven especially valuable. Where sufficient in quality and quantity, pictorial
documents (drawings, paintings, prints, and photographs); cartographical
documents (maps, cadastral plans, and reliefs); and written accounts (chroni-
cles, church registers, land sale contracts, travel descriptions, early scientific
works on Alpine research, etc.) can provide a detailed picture of glacier fluctua-
tions, in particular frontal length changes. Using these data, we can achieve a
resolution of decades or in some cases even individual years of ice margin
positions.2
To reconstruct past glacier movements, researchers must handle historical
data carefully and take local circumstances into account. In particular, the

S. U. Nussbaumer (*)
Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
H. J. Zumbühl
Institute of Geography, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research,
University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

© The Author(s) 2018 93

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_8
94 S. U. NUSSBAUMER AND H. J. ZUMBÜHL

evaluation of pictorial sources has to fulfill certain conditions in order to obtain

reliable results concerning the former extents of glaciers (Fig. 8.1):

• First, the date of the document has to be known or reconstructed. That

is, researchers have to know the exact date when the artist was visiting the
glacier and making travel sketches or studies. Oil paintings might have
been done on site, but they were quite often finished later, usually in the
artist’s studio.3 Prints of artworks often bear a different date than their
originals. Dating early glacier photographs can be especially difficult and
often includes time-consuming archival work.
• Second, the glacier and its surroundings have to be represented in a man-
ner that is realistic and topographically correct, something that requires
particular skills of the artist. Some artists liked to compose motifs of their
own in the foreground or omit unaesthetic frontal moraines, features that
could obscure the true position of glaciers.
• In addition, the artist’s topographic position should be known. The pres-
ence of prominent features in the glacier’s surroundings such as rock
steps, hills, or mountain peaks can facilitate the evaluation of historical
documentary data.4

Iconic depictions of glaciers appear in the works of famous artists such as

Caspar Wolf (1735–1783), Jean-Antoine Linck (1766–1843), Samuel Birmann
(1793–1847), and Thomas Ender (1793–1875). Their outstanding drawings
and paintings have allowed the reconstruction of LIA glacier fluctuations in the
European Alps in a uniquely precise way.5
Prior to 1800, the abundance of historical material in Europe depended
mainly on the elevation of LIA glacier tongues and the threat that glacier
advances posed to settlements and cultivated land.6 Probably the earliest known
representation of a glacier in the Alps is that of Vernagtferner (Ötztal, eastern
Alps) in 1601: the drawing shows a dangerous glacial lake dammed by the
advancing glacier.7 Two emblematic glaciers with a wealth of historical (picto-
rial) documents are the Lower Grindelwald Glacier (Bernese Oberland,
Switzerland) and the Mer de Glace (Mont Blanc area, France). Using historical
data, researchers have reconstructed series of cumulative length changes for
these glaciers that extend back to the sixteenth century. Those reconstructions
show main glacier maxima around 1600 and 1640 and again around 1820 and
1850, as well as several smaller intermediate advances.8 Reconstructions based
on dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating confirm these pulses; moreover,
they indicate a third LIA peak in the second half of the fourteenth century.9
From the late 1840s, a rapidly increasing number of photographs depict the
onset of glacier retreat, marking the end of the LIA in the European Alps.10 In
southern Norway and Iceland, historical evidence and instrumental measure-
ments show a distinct glacier asynchrony when compared with the European
Alps, with LIA maxima around 1750 and at the end of the nineteenth century,
respectively.11
Fig. 8.1 The Mer de Glace seen from the viewpoint of La Flégère, overlooking the valley of Chamonix (Mont Blanc). Left: Drawing (water-
colour, pencil) by Samuel Birmann from 1823 (Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, reproduction by H.J. Zumbühl). Middle:
Photograph taken by Henri Plaut in the 1850s (collection of R. Wolf, reproduction by S.U. Nussbaumer). Right: Current view with recon-
structed glacier extents in 1644 (grey, largest extension), 1821 (black), and 1895 (white) (photograph by S.U. Nussbaumer)
EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: HISTORICAL SOURCES…
95
96 S. U. NUSSBAUMER AND H. J. ZUMBÜHL

Outside Europe, historical sources (before the late nineteenth century) are
less abundant.12 Nevertheless, resources exist for other regions, including
southern South America and New Zealand.13 Systematic worldwide observa-
tions of glacier fluctuations (regarding length, mass, volume) began at the end
of the nineteenth century. Corresponding data are available from the World
Glacier Monitoring Service. They deliver clear evidence that centennial glacier
retreat is a global phenomenon, and that rates of early twenty-first-century
mass loss are without precedent on a global scale—at least for the time period
observed, but probably also for recorded history as indicated by historical
sources.14

Notes
1. Orlove et al., 2008; Carey, 2010.
2. Zumbühl, 1980; Nussbaumer et al., 2007; Holzhauser, 2010.
3. An illustrative example is the exact oil painting of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier
by Joseph Anton Koch, signed and dated in 1823. This artwork was initially
misinterpreted, but Zumbühl (1980) could provide evidence that it is based on
an original watercolour, drawn by Koch in the field in 1794. The oil painting,
made twenty-nine years later in Rome, shows the glacier extent from 1794 (a
reduced extent compared with 1823, when the glacier was strongly advancing),
but in the foreground we can identify Mediterranean vegetation.
4. Zumbühl and Holzhauser, 1988.
5. Zumbühl, 2009; Nussbaumer et al., 2012.
6. Le Roy Ladurie, 1967.
7. Nicolussi, 1990.
8. Zumbühl, 1980; Zumbühl et al., 1983; Nussbaumer et al., 2007.
9. Holzhauser et al., 2005; Le Roy et al., 2015.
10. Zumbühl et al., 2016.
11. Nussbaumer et al., 2011; Hannesdóttir et al., 2015.
12. Grove, 2004.
13. Araneda et al., 2009; Purdie et al., 2014.
14. WGMS, 2017.

References
Araneda, A. et al. “Historical Records of Cipreses Glacier (34°S): Combining
Documentary-Inferred ‘Little Ice Age’ Evidence from Southern and Central Chile.”
The Holocene 19 (2009): 1173–83.
Carey, M. In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers: Climate Change and Andean Society.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Grove, J.M. Little Ice Ages: Ancient and Modern, Second ed. London: Routledge, 2004.
Hannesdóttir, H. et al. “Variations of Southeast Vatnajökull Ice Cap (Iceland)
1650–1900 and Reconstruction of the Glacier Surface Geometry at the Little Ice
Age Maximum.” Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography 97 (2015):
237–64.
 EVIDENCE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF SOCIETIES: HISTORICAL SOURCES… 97

Holzhauser, H. Zur Geschichte des Gornergletschers: Ein Puzzle aus historischen

Dokumenten und fossilen Hölzern aus dem Gletschervorfeld. Bern: Geographisches
Institut der Universität Bern, 2010.
Holzhauser, H. et al. “Glacier and Lake-Level Variations in West-Central Europe over
the Last 3500 Years.” The Holocene 15 (2005): 789–801.
Le Roy, M. et al. “Calendar-Dated Glacier Variations in the Western European Alps
during the Neoglacial: The Mer de Glace Record, Mont Blanc Massif.” Quaternary
Science Reviews 108 (2015): 1–22.
Le Roy Ladurie, E. Histoire du climat depuis l’an mil. Paris: Flammarion, 1967.
Nicolussi, K. “Bilddokumente zur Geschichte des Vernagtferners im 17. Jahrhundert.”
Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie 26 (1990): 97–119.
Nussbaumer, S.U. et al. “Fluctuations of the Mer de Glace (Mont Blanc Area, France)
AD 1500–2050: An Interdisciplinary Approach Using New Historical Data and
Neural Network Simulations.” Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie 40
(2007): 1–183.
Nussbaumer, S.U. et al. “Historical Glacier Fluctuations of Jostedalsbreen and
Folgefonna (Southern Norway) Reassessed by New Pictorial and Written Evidence.”
The Holocene 21 (2011): 455–71.
Nussbaumer, S.U. et al., eds. Mer de Glace – art et science. Chamonix: Atelier Esope,
2012.
Orlove, B. et al., eds. Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2008.
Purdie, H. et al. “Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, New Zealand: Historic Length Records.”
Global and Planetary Change 121 (2014): 41–52.
WGMS. Global Glacier Change Bulletin No. 2 (2014–2015). Zürich: World Glacier
Monitoring Service, 2017.
Zumbühl, H.J. Die Schwankungen der Grindelwaldgletscher in den historischen Bild-
und Schriftquellen des 12. bis 19. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Gletschergeschichte
und Erforschung des Alpenraumes. Basel: Birkhäuser, 1980.
Zumbühl, H.J. “‘Der Berge wachsend Eis …’ Die Entdeckung der Alpen und ihrer
Gletscher durch Albrecht von Haller und Caspar Wolf.” Mitteilungen der
Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern 66 (2009): 105–32.
Zumbühl, H.J., and H. Holzhauser. Alpengletscher in der Kleinen Eiszeit. Bern:
Schweizer Alpen-Club, 1988.
Zumbühl, H.J. et al. Die Kleine Eiszeit: Gletschergeschichte im Spiegel der Kunst.
Sonderausstellung des Schweizerischen Alpinen Museums, Bern, 24. August–16.
Oktober 1983, und des Gletschergarten-Museums, Luzern, 9. Juni–14. August 1983.
Luzern/Bern, 1983.
Zumbühl, H.J. et al., eds. Die Grindelwaldgletscher – Kunst und Wissenschaft. Bern:
Haupt-Verlag, 2016.
 CHAPTER 9

Analysis and Interpretation: Homogenization

of Instrumental Data

Ingeborg Auer

9.1   Why Do We Need to Homogenize Instrumental

Data?
Experts depend on instrumental measurements to explore past climate change
and to analyze climatic trends and variability. But are long-term instrumental
series always reliable? And when can we trust the displayed trends?
Early meteorological measurements, even those following the best practices
of the period, remain incomparable with instrumental measurements using
today’s standards. The longer a series is, the greater the risk that it will be
biased by one or more inhomogeneities. The reasons for such inhomogeneities
are many—for example, station relocations, instrument or observer changes,
and even the improved precision of measurements. Network regulations—such
as observation hours, formulae for mean calculation, measurement units, and
new types of instrument—can all change over the course of time. Sudden alter-
ations in a station’s environment, from the erection of a nearby housing block
to the clearance of a nearby forest, may bias the time series. Growing heat
islands of growing cities introduce artificial warming trends into the series;
growing trees casting growing shadows introduce artificial cooling.
The historical climatologists’ challenge is to detect these inhomogeneities
and correct them enough to distinguish the real trends in a series and remove
its artificial breaks and biases. Homogenization is an appropriate and even neces-
sary procedure to detect non-climatological breaks or trends in a series and remove
them as best as possible. A perfectly homogenized series will be free of any artificial
influences and reflect only natural climate variability.

I. Auer (*)
Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik, Vienna, Austria

© The Author(s) 2018 99

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_9
100 I. AUER

Our longest instrumental weather series date back to the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. At that time, instruments were not as precise as today,
and observers lacked experience in how and even where to take measurements.
Individuals began performing meteorological measurements with no coordi-
nated networks or national weather service to help out. Uncoordinated mea-
surements led to unstandardized results among stations. For instance, one of
the longest series in the Alpine region, Kremsmünster, went through thirteen
documented changes of observation hours during its 250 years of existence,
twelve of them in the very early period.1 By the end of the twentieth century
the very early daily records of air temperature and pressure from a number of
sites across Europe—Padua and Milan (Italy), San Fernando/Cadiz (Spain),
Brussels/Uccle (Belgium), Uppsala and Stockholm (Sweden), and St.
Petersburg (Russia)—have been quality controlled and homogenized during
the IMPROVE project.2 All the original data and metadata, and the final cor-
rected, validated, and homogenized series, have been made available on
CD-ROM, along with a detailed explanation of all the steps that were neces-
sary to get from the original registers to the final series.
Station and network history (the so-called metadata that explain the condi-
tions within which data has been produced) give a first impression about the
quality and homogeneity of data.3 Ideally these will provide useful information
such as changes in geographical coordinates, altitude, and the types of instru-
ment and their mountings, supported by maps, photos, written communica-
tions, and other helpful contents. This kind of metadata helps determine the
exact break dates in the series. However, nobody should trust the metadata to
provide complete information. Statistical tests (homogeneity tests) should also
be applied in order to assess the reliability of any series.

9.2   The Practice of Homogenization

There is no generally valid recipe for calculating the “perfect series” with all
artificial breaks or trends removed. Nevertheless, any successful homogeniza-
tion should use both statistics and station history. Parallel measurements can
also be helpful in understanding the consequences—that is, the statistical prop-
erties—of a break in more detail. A homogenized series provides not the
“truth” but rather a best indicator. (Historical) climatologists should prefera-
bly base any calculations on already homogenized series. Nevertheless, while
the number of homogenized series has increased considerably in recent years,
much work remains to be done.
Numerous homogeneity tests have been developed for the detection and
correction of breaks and trends, most of them designed to improve the quality
and reliability of monthly temperature and precipitation series. There has been
and still is an ongoing discussion about the best tool for homogenization. In
2007–11, COST action (Advances in homogenisation methods of climate
series: an integrated approach HOME) was launched to compare various
homogenization procedures and test their efficiency in a blind experiment with
unknown perturbations.
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: HOMOGENIZATION OF INSTRUMENTAL DATA 101

Many good tests can be downloaded free of charge, and it is advisable to use
this open-source software. For instance, HOMER (homogenization software
in R; available at http://www.homogenisation.org/) is useful for monthly
data and includes a tool for separating out urban warming effects. HOM/
SPLIDHOM is useful for daily data.4 An extensive list of tests and web addresses
is available at http://www.meteobal.com/climatol/DARE/. As a general rule
one can say that relative homogeneity tests perform better than absolute homo-
geneity tests. The latter should only be used in exceptional cases when all other
possibilities have been exhausted. Relative tests objectively check the probabil-
ity of a break in the candidate series by using a couple of reference stations of a
network, or one (weighted) reference series built up from several stations, as a
comparison.
In general, to remove inhomogeneities in monthly (or seasonal, or annual)
mean temperature or precipitation series it is sufficient to calculate the monthly
(or seasonal, or annual) adjustment factors for the period in question. Working
with daily values means that such a correction has to be applied to every day’s
measurement; thus daily data correction requires both more data and more
time. The simplest methods derive these correction coefficients from monthly
adjustments while more complex methods take the whole frequency distribu-
tion into account.5 Regardless of the method chosen, it is important to assess
uncertainties in the adjusted data by using different samplings and by varying
the reference stations (Fig. 9.1).
Fully automatic homogenization procedures, such as ACMANT (http://
www.c3.urv.cat/members/softpeter.html), work without any user interaction.
These methods are recommended for analyzing large networks. The results will
be the same for all users. Semiautomatic methods require some user interaction
during the homogenization process. The results may be different from differ-
ent users, and well-trained homogenizers will probably produce better results.
It is advisable to take metadata into account when carrying out homogeniza-
tion, since there will be cases where statistics alone will not be able to detect
breaks. This is particularly the case when inhomogeneities occur across the whole
network at the same time—for instance, when there are changes in the time of
observations or in the number of observations per day for calculating daily or
monthly means, or when a network changes its equipment within a short period.
In such cases all series will be affected at the same time, and the inhomogeneities
will go undetected by relative homogeneity tests. (For more information about
early instrumental measurements and networks, see Chap. 7.)
So far, homogenization activities have focused mainly on monthly tempera-
ture and precipitation totals. Other crucial climate measurements—including
air pressure, cloudiness, radiation, snow cover, and wind speed and direction—
have all received less attention. Even more neglected are the daily data series,
given the greater demands on network density and spatial correlation. The
homogenization of short-term extreme values remains unsolved, even though
more scientific evidence about these events would be an important step for-
ward in understanding climate change.
 102
I. AUER

Fig. 9.1 Differences between automatically and manually measured temperatures with respect to automatically measured daily maximum
(tmax—left) and minimum (tmin—right) temperatures at the Kremsmünster station from June 1988 to December 2008. In this example, only
tmax measurements will require temperature-dependent corrections
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: HOMOGENIZATION OF INSTRUMENTAL DATA 103

Finally, we have to be aware that a series once homogenized will not stay
homogeneous forever. It may look different after some years because it had to
be “rehomogenized.” Why? On the one hand, future inhomogeneities
(unavoidable relocations, improved techniques, extension of built-up areas,
etc.) might disturb the series, making it a candidate for homogenization all
over again. On the other hand, more advanced tools for homogenization or
more and better reference stations might become available. Whenever
rehomogenization becomes necessary, one should start over from the origi-
nal—not the homogenized—data. Homogenization must be transparent and
understandable, and so one should preserve documentation of the processes
used at all stages.

9.3   An Example from the European Alpine Region

As an example, Fig. 9.2 shows HOMER plots that visualize the homogeniza-
tion of the temperature series from the mountain station Patscherkofel in
Austria. The figure displays the test results from raw data (upper part) and
homogenized data (lower part). The Patscherkofel data has been compared
with that of several other stations. Here only test results for the comparison
with Rudolfshütte, Säntis (Switzerland), and Kredarica (Slovenia) are shown. A
dataset of homogenized long-term series of mean temperature, precipitation,
air pressure, and sunshine duration for the European Greater Alpine Region
can be freely downloaded for climate research purposes from http://www.
zamg.ac.at/histalp.
More than 500 such series have been homogenized.6 It turned out that
none of the series was free of breaks or artificial trends once it exceeded a cer-
tain length. On average, a temperature or precipitation series experiences a
break every twenty-three years. The distribution and size of breaks is not ran-
dom, and this means that any spatially averaged trend for larger regions will
give biased results, so long as it relies on inhomogeneous series.
As mentioned above, systemic changes in the history of networks dramati-
cally influence the homogeneity of their measurements. Very early measure-
ments (before 1850) demand particular attention. In this example, the very
early precipitation measurements at the beginning of the nineteenth century
were performed with rain gauges installed on roofs or other open locations. As
a result of higher wind speeds in these open positions, the specific precipitation
loss in the instrumental measurements was greater than in today’s shielded
exposures. Moreover, Stevenson screens did not come into use until about
1850, so before then, incoming or reflected radiation could bias temperature
measurements (see Chap. 7).7 The scarcity of early instrumental stations, and
the rather sudden introduction of weather shelters, means that statistical tests
alone would not have spotted and corrected these inhomogeneities. Only
metadata and parallel measurements with modern equipment made it possible
to correct the early data.
104 I. AUER

Fig. 9.2 HOMER plots visualizing the homogenization of the temperature series at
the mountain station Patscherkofel in Austria. This shows the test results of raw data
and of homogenized data. In this case the Patscherkofel series was compared with those
of Rudolfshütte (AT), Säntis (CH), Kredarica (SI), Schmittenhöhe (AT), Villacher Alpe
(AT), Zugspitze (GE), Feuerkogel (AT), Jungfraujoch (CH), Sonnblick (AT), Großer
St. Bernhard (CH), Schöckl (AT), Mooserboden (AT), and Lago Gabiet (IT). Only the
test results for the comparison with Rudolfshütte (AT), Säntis (CH), and Kredarica (SI)
are shown here. Credit: reproduced by permission of Barbara Chimani.
Note: AT = Austria; CH = Switzerland; SI = Slovenia; IT = Italy; GE = Germany

Urban development, bringing a gradual increase of built-up areas and a

reduction in grassland or forests, also obscured the natural climate variability
by introducing an “urban trend.” However, it was not enough to correct the
data simply by estimating the surplus warming for the city as a whole: the urban
trend depended on the location of stations within cities. For instance, Reinhard
Böhm has shown that early instrumental stations erected in Vienna’s historic
city center—already a densely built-up area—did not experience the same
urban warming trend as those erected in suburban districts, where former
green areas were later developed.8
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: HOMOGENIZATION OF INSTRUMENTAL DATA 105

9.4   Conclusion
Homogenization of instrumental data frees biased time series from detectable
inhomogeneities introduced by artificial breaks or trends. The procedures are
based on statistics, meaning that the quality of results depends not only on the
quality of the candidate series but also on the existence of suitable reference
series. Although far from easy, homogenization remains a necessary procedure
to ensure a best possible basis for calculating past climatic trends or cycles.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Barbara Chimani for providing Fig. 9.2.

Notes
1. Auer, 2013.
2. Camuffo and Jones, 2002.
3. Aguilar et al., 2003.
4. Mestre et al., 2013.
5. For example, see Vincent et al. (2002) for simpler methods and Mestre et al.
(2011) for more complex methods.
6. Auer et al., 2007.
7. Böhm et al., 2010.
8. Böhm, 1998.

References
Aguilar, Enric et al. Guidelines on Climate Metadata and Homogenization. Edited by
Paul Llansó. Geneva: World Meteorological Organization, 2003.
Auer, Ingeborg. “250 Jahre meteorologische Messungen in Kremsmünster und ihre
Bedeutung für die Klimaforschung in Österreich.” ÖGM Bulletin 1 (2013): 13–19.
Auer, Ingeborg et al. “HISTALP—Historical Instrumental Climatological Surface
Time Series of the Greater Alpine Region.” International Journal of Climatology 27
(2007): 17–46.
Böhm, Reinhard. “Urban Bias in Temperature Time Series—A Case Study for the City
of Vienna, Austria.” Climatic Change 38 (1998): 113–28.
Böhm, Reinhard et al. “The Early Instrumental Warm-Bias: A Solution for Long
Central European Temperature Series, 1760–2007.” Climatic Change 101 (2010):
41–67.
Camuffo, Dario, and Phil Jones. “Improved Understanding of Past Climatic Variability
from Early Daily European Instrumental Sources.” Climatic Change 53 (2002): 1–4.
Mestre, Olivier et al. “SPLIDHOM: A Method for Homogenization of Daily
Temperature Observations.” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 50
(2011): 2343–58.
Mestre, Olivier et al. “HOMER: A Homogenization Software—Methods and
Applications.” IDŐJÁRÁS, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological
Service 117 (2013): 47–67.
Vincent, Lucie A. et al. “Homogenization of Daily Temperatures over Canada.” Journal
of Climate 15 (2002): 1322–34.
 CHAPTER 10

Analysis and Interpretation:

Calibration-­Verification

Petr Dobrovolný

10.1   Introduction
Historical climatologists must work with diverse types of qualitative evidence
regarding past weather and climate (see Chap. 4). Efforts to create quantitative
climate reconstructions using these sources from the archives of societies pres-
ent many of the same methodological challenges that paleoclimatologists face
when working with physical sources such as tree rings or ice cores. In particu-
lar, documentary-based quantitative reconstructions have to bridge qualitative
information from historical archives with early instrumental measurements.
The most important step in this reconstruction procedure is calibration.
Calibration is a statistical procedure that converts direct or indirect (proxy)
documentary evidence about weather and climate into meteorological units
such as degrees Celsius or millimeters of precipitation. The key procedure in
this process is the construction of a transfer function. This should translate
documentary and proxy data into appropriate meteorological units. It should
subsequently be verified by statistical tests and independent data.

10.2   Establishing Documentary-Based Series

The most important steps in the reconstruction procedure are summarized in
Fig. 10.1. The increasing quantity and quality of databases compiled from
historical archives has enabled historical climatologists to apply techniques

P. Dobrovolný (*)
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

© The Author(s) 2018 107

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_10
108 P. DOBROVOLNÝ

1. Interpretation of documentary sources

Documentary evidence Monthly temperature indices

extremely warm +3
very warm +2
warm +1
normal 0
cold –1
very cold –2
extremely cold –3

2. Transformation to index series

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850

20
10
Annual index

0
–10
–20
–30 overlap Instrumental series
Temp. anomaly (°C)

2.0
1.0
0.0
–1.0
–2.0

3. Calibration and verification 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

3.0
Temp. anomaly (°C)

calibration verification
2.0
1.0
0.0
–1.0
–2.0
–3.0
1760 1780 1800 1820 1840

4. Final reconstruction with error bars

4.0
measured
3.0 reconstructed
Temperature anomaly (°C)

2.0
1.0
0.0
–1.0
–2.0
–3.0
–4.0
1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
Year

Fig. 10.1 The main steps in quantitative climate reconstruction based on temperature
or precipitation indices derived from documentary evidence. Credit: Rudolf Brázdil
et al., “European climate of the past 500 years: new challenges for historical climatol-
ogy,” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 7–40. Courtesy of Springer
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: CALIBRATION-VERIFICATION 109

from high-resolution paleoclimatology (e.g., dendroclimatology) to some

documentary-­ based quantitative climate reconstructions.1 Nevertheless,
­documentary data also presents some particular challenges, as described in the
following paragraphs.
Historical climatologists can employ two types of documentary evidence for
quantitative reconstructions. First, they can convert indirect (proxy) data—
that is, biological or physical processes related to climate—into time series with
annual resolution. Ideally, these series should be more or less continuous: regu-
larly chronicled or officially regulated annual agricultural activities, such as the
dates of grape and cereal harvests, are good examples.2 In other cases, the
spring opening of harbors or river and lake freezing dates can be useful.3 Often
several such series from different sources are combined into a single
“chronology.”4
Second, historical climatologists can use various reports that directly describe
weather and climate. The qualitative character of this evidence requires expert
interpretation and the formulation of temperature or precipitation indices
before it can be converted into useful time series (see Chap. 11).5 Compared
with the proxy-based series described above, the data in these index series
remains more subjective and less continuous in time and space.
When the density of data is low, the reconstruction should embrace a wider
region in order to include more observations—provided, of course, that the
region shares a common climate. For instance, the Central European tempera-
ture series brought together national series from Germany, Switzerland, and
the Czech Republic over several centuries. Similarly, low data density can be
overcome by summing up monthly indices to seasonal ones. The incomplete-
ness of individual index series and the changing number of indices over time
means that the resulting documentary-based index series used for the final
reconstruction should employ variance stabilization instead of simple arithme-
tic averaging to combine the different indices.6

10.3   The Practice of Calibration

The most common method of calibration requires a sufficient overlap between
the proxy or index series and instrumental measurements. Certain types of
documentary evidence became rare from the 1800s onwards as these observa-
tions were replaced by instrumental measurements; therefore, index series usu-
ally end in the early nineteenth century. This means that the period of overlap
used for calibration and verification usually covers the late 1700s to early
1800s—the same period when systematic temperature and precipitation mea-
surements began in much of Europe. Both this relatively short period of over-
lap and the peculiarities of early instrumental data add further uncertainties to
quantitative reconstructions based on index series (see Chaps. 6 and 9).7
As presented in Fig. 10.2, the data from the period of overlap is usually
divided into early and late subperiods. The index series are calibrated to the
early subperiod and then independently verified against the late subperiod. The
110 P. DOBROVOLNÝ

Fig. 10.2 An example of measured (red) and reconstructed (blue) mean annual pre-
cipitation anomalies (departures from the 1961–90 reference period) based on (a) early
subperiod calibration (1804–29) and late subperiod verification (1830–54); and (b) late
subperiod calibration (1830–54) and early subperiod verification (1804–29). Both are
complemented by measures of reconstruction skill (r2, RE, CE, and DW—see the text
for explanation)9

whole process may then be repeated with the calibration and verification sub-
periods being switched. Among various approaches to calibration, the most
common uses simple linear regression to estimate transfer function coefficients,
and then several statistics to evaluate the quality of the calibration: the squared
correlation (r2), the standard error of estimate (SE), and the Durbin–Watson
(DW) test. To verify the calibration result r2, the reduction of error (RE), the
coefficient of efficiency (CE), and the root mean square error (RMSE) may
also be calculated.8
The r2 quantifies the amount of temperature or precipitation variance
explained by a reconstruction, while the SE measures the uncertainty in physi-
cal units. The DW tests the first-order autocorrelation within the regression
residuals. Critical values of DW depend on the number of independent vari-
ables and also on the time series length, but values between 1.5 and 2.5 (with
an ideal target of 2.0) are generally acceptable. DW values outside this range
indicate problems with reconstructing multidecadal variations.
The RE statistic compares the mean square error (MSE) of the reconstruc-
tion to the MSE of a “reconstruction” that is constant in time with a value
equal to the mean value for the measured (target) data in the calibration
period. The CE instead compares the MSE of the reconstruction to a “recon-
struction” that is constant and equal to the mean value of the measured data
in the validation period. Both RE and CE can take values between one and
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: CALIBRATION-VERIFICATION 111

negative infinity. CE is always less than, or equal to, RE. For both measures,
positive values indicate that the linear regression model has some potential for
reconstruction skill.
If the calibration and verification statistics provide acceptable results for
both the early and the late subperiods, then the calibration is repeated for the
whole overlapping period and used for the final reconstruction. One draw-
back of linear regression calibration is a reduction in the variance of the
reconstructed values. Therefore the reconstructed values are scaled to have
the same mean and variance as the target data in the full period of data over-
lap. This means that the reconstructed values are as close as possible to instru-
mental data and the side effect of the regression (reduced variability) is partly
eliminated.
Some specific features of documentary evidence, such as the tendency of
observers to record extreme events, have encouraged different approaches to
calibration. For instance, F.S. Rodrigo has proposed a method that uses infor-
mation about the frequency of extremely wet and dry months to reconstruct
the low-frequency variability (i.e., long-term changes) in winter rainfall series
in Andalusia, Spain.10
As discussed by Christian Pfister and colleagues, estimating and quantifying
all the various sources of uncertainty in documentary evidence often proves
problematic.11 Some methodological approaches employed in dendroclimatol-
ogy have been applied in the Central European temperature reconstruction.12
Documentary evidence can also add valuable information regarding tempera-
ture and precipitation in climate field reconstructions that use a multiproxy
approach and multivariate principal component regression, as indicated in sev-
eral past studies.13
Numerous existing climate reconstructions based on man-made historical
archives have proved that they can be, in several respects, complementary to
natural proxy reconstructions. They are especially strong in the reconstruction
of year-to-year variability (high-frequency signal) because documentary evi-
dence allows precise identification of the most disastrous historical hydrome-
teorological extremes. Still open to question is how well they reproduce
long-term changes (low-frequency signal). Thus the combination of proxies
from natural and man-made archives in multiproxy reconstructions is
challenging.

Acknowledgment This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and
Sports of CR within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I), grant number
LO1415.

Notes
1. Brázdil et al., 2005, 2010.
2. Daux et al., 2012; Možný et al., 2012; Wetter and Pfister, 2013.
3. Nordli et al., 2007; Leijonhufvud et al., 2010.
112 P. DOBROVOLNÝ

4. Leijonhufvud et al., 2010; Kiss et al., 2011.

5. Pfister and Brázdil, 1999; Brázdil et al., 2010.
6. Osborn et al., 1997.
7. Böhm et al., 2010.
8. Dobrovolný et al., 2010.
9. Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
10. Rodrigo et al., 2008.
11. Pfister et al., 2008.
12. Dobrovolný et al., 2010.
13. Luterbacher et al., 2004; Xoplaki et al., 2005; Pauling, 2006.

References
Böhm, R. et al. “The Early Instrumental Warm-Bias: A Solution for Long Central
European Temperature Series 1760–2007.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 41–67.
Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “Historical Climatology in Europe—The State of the Art.”
Climatic Change 70 (2005): 363–430.
Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “European Climate of the Past 500 Years: New Challenges for
Historical Climatology.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 7–40.
Daux, V. et al. “An Open-Access Database of Grape Harvest Dates for Climate Research:
Data Description and Quality Assessment.” Climate of the Past 8 (2012): 1403–18.
Dobrovolný, Petr et al. “Monthly, Seasonal and Annual Temperature Reconstructions
for Central Europe Derived from Documentary Evidence and Instrumental Records
since AD 1500.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 69–107.
Dobrovolný, Petr et al. “Precipitation Reconstruction for the Czech Lands, AD
1501–2010.” International Journal of Climatology 35 (2015): 1–14.
Kiss, Andrea et al. “An Experimental 392-Year Documentary-Based Multi-Proxy (Vine
and Grain) Reconstruction of May–July Temperatures for Kőszeg, West-Hungary.”
International Journal of Biometeorology 55 (2011): 595–611.
Leijonhufvud, Lotta et al. “Five Centuries of Stockholm Winter/Spring Temperatures
Reconstructed from Documentary Evidence and Instrumental Observations.”
Climatic Change 101 (2010): 109–41.
Luterbacher, Jürg et al. “European Seasonal and Annual Temperature Variability,
Trends, and Extremes Since 1500.” Science 303 (2004): 1499–1503.
Možný, Martin et al. “Cereal Harvest Dates in the Czech Republic between 1501 and
2008 as a Proxy for March–June Temperature Reconstruction.” Climatic Change
110 (2012): 801–21.
Nordli, Oyvind et al. “A Late-Winter to Early-Spring Temperature Reconstruction for
Southeastern Norway from 1758 to 2006.” Annals of Glaciology 46 (2007):
404–08.
Osborn, Timothy J. et al. “Adjusting Variance for Sample-Size in Tree-Ring
Chronologies and Other Regional-Mean Time-Series.” Dendrochronologia 15
(1997): 89–99.
Pauling, A. “Five Hundred Years of Gridded High-Resolution Precipitation
Reconstructions over Europe and the Connection to Large-Scale Circulation.”
Climate Dynamics 26 (2006): 387–405.
Pfister, Christian, and Rudolf Brázdil. “Climatic Variability in Sixteenth-Century
Europe and Its Social Dimension: A Synthesis.” Climatic Change 43 (1999): 5–53.
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: CALIBRATION-VERIFICATION 113

Pfister, Christian et al. “Documentary Evidence as Climate Proxies.” Proxy-specific

white paper produced from the PAGES/CLIVAR workshop, Trieste, PAGES (Past
Global Changes), 2008.
Rodrigo, Fernando S. et al. “A New Method to Reconstruct Low-Frequency Climatic
Variability from Documentary Sources: Application to Winter Rainfall Series in
Andalusia (Southern Spain) from 1501 to 2000.” Climatic Change 87 (2008):
471–87.
Wetter, Oliver, and Christian Pfister. “An Underestimated Record Breaking Event: Why
Summer 1540 Was Likely Warmer than 2003.” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 41–56.
Xoplaki, E. et al. “European Spring and Autumn Temperature Variability and Change
of Extremes over the Last Half Millennium.” Geophysical Research Letters 32 (2005):
L15713.
 CHAPTER 11

Analysis and Interpretation: Temperature

and Precipitation Indices

Christian Pfister, Chantal Camenisch, and Petr Dobrovolný

11.1   Introduction
Paleoclimate research focuses mainly on the long-term, large-scale develop-
ment of past climates, particularly changes in temperature. The results of this
research are, however, rarely suited to understanding short-term, local impacts
on economies and societies. In this respect, there is a gap between the scale on
which paleoclimatologists provide information and the scale on which humans
have responded—and still respond—to weather and climate, and their effects.1
Weather provides the link between climate history and human history, as well
as the raw material for the statistical reconstruction of climate. For these rea-
sons, historical climatologists work to recover high-resolution, monthly, sea-
sonal, and sometimes even daily data on both temperature and precipitation.
The archives of societies have left extensive descriptions and narratives about
past local weather and how it affected people’s daily lives (see Chap. 4). However,
this information is too diverse and inconsistent to directly apply a standard sta-
tistical calibration and verification procedure (as explained in Chaps. 9 and 10).
There remains the methodological challenge of making local weather informa-
tion compatible with the statistical requirements of climate change research.

C. Pfister (*) • C. Camenisch

Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland
P. Dobrovolný
Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

© The Author(s) 2018 115

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_11
116 C. PFISTER ET AL.

One solution to this problem lies in generating ordinal-scale temperature

and precipitation indices as an intermediate step between raw descriptions and
climate reconstructions. The “index” approach—an original concept of
historical climatology—provides an interface between individual pieces of
­
weather information on the one hand and climate history on the other. It con-
verts disparate documentary evidence into continuous quantitative proxy data
for temperature and precipitation but without losing the ability to get back to
the short-term local information for critical inspection and analysis. In a sense,
this procedure resembles the way that national weather services aggregate
monthly climate data from hourly and daily instrumental measurements, which
nevertheless remain accessible for further research. This demanding task of
index generation is accomplished by distinguishing and quantifying evidence
based on human observations in a way that is compatible with the require-
ments of climatic time series analysis (Chap. 10).
This chapter briefly outlines the history of the index concept and then intro-
duces the method, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. Finally, it demon-
strates how indices can contribute to large-scale climate reconstructions and to
modeling relationships among climate, grain prices, and demographic
variables.

11.2   History of the Index Approach

As early as the late 1800s, researchers began to develop quantitative recon-
structions of warm-season temperature based on dendrochronological (tree
ring) data and grape harvest dates.2 Nevertheless, there were no comparable
reconstructions of cold-season temperatures, until in 1928 Dutch journalist
and amateur meteorologist Cornelis Easton developed a sophisticated winter
severity index based on an extensive, well-documented compilation of narrative
evidence.3 Charles E.P. Brooks included Easton’s winter severity indices in the
second edition of his synthesis of climate history in 1949, although he criti-
cized them “for being too low.”4 In 1977, one of the pioneers of climate his-
tory, Hubert H. Lamb, designed seasonal numerical three-point winter severity
and summer wetness indices for Western Europe by calculating the ratio of
warm to cold winter months and wet to dry summer months per decade (see
Chap. 1). A decade later, in 1987, Pierre Alexandre adopted Lamb’s approach
for his reconstruction of medieval climate in Europe from 1000–1425.
F.S. Rodrigo further developed a method to assess long-term changes in cli-
mate variability using the statistical distribution of extreme events.5 In the
meantime, F. IJnsen proposed a sophisticated nine-point temperature and pre-
cipitation index; however, apart from some Dutch colleagues, it was not
adopted by other researchers.6
Christian Pfister came at historical climatology from a background in eco-
nomic, agricultural, and glacier history, where temperature and precipitation
variations make a difference. In 1981, he extended the three-point tempera-
ture and precipitation indices to all months and seasons of the year. Likewise,
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION INDICES 117

he devised a now widely adopted scheme of monthly seven-point ordinal-

scale temperature and precipitation indices (see Table 11.1), which climate
historian Franz Mauelshagen has named “Pfister Indices.” The research
group led by Rüdiger Glaser in Freiburg (Germany) and the research team
led by Rudolf Brázdil in Brno (Czech Republic) adopted the scheme of
seven-point ordinal “Pfister Indices,” which have since been used in other
series. For instance, documentary temperature indices have been generated
for north-eastern Italy for the period 1500–1759, therefore overlapping with
the long instrumental series from Padua and Bologna that starts in 1716
(albeit with many gaps). The index series was recalculated in order to have
the same mean and variance as the instrumental observations.7 Other series,
from Poland (1501–1700) and the Carpathian Basin (1516–1870), have
helped to create more comprehensive historical coverage of Central Europe
(see Sect. 11.6).8

11.3   The Structure of Documentary-Based

Temperature and Precipitation Indices
By their very nature, indices are simplifications, combining many details into a
generalized description of weather and climate. The information in indices is
“ordinal-scale,” meaning it is ordered in categories ranked from lowest to
highest, much like students might rate a professor’s course from “1” (poor) to
“5” (excellent). Note that this is not the same as “interval-scale” information
that specifies the amount of difference between items: the categories in indices
are ranked, but the difference between each rank is not necessarily known.
There are two main types of temperature and precipitation indices: the three
point and the seven point. The three-point index is divided into three rank-
ings or classes (−1, 0, +1) based on purely narrative observations. It distin-
guishes only between “cold” or “dry” anomalies (index −1) and “warm” or
“wet” anomalies (index +1), disregarding any subjective emphasis given in the
descriptions, such as “extremely cold” or “extremely dry.” The class of 0 is

Table 11.1 The seven-point temperature and precipitation index. The average is
based on the reference period. The percentile is a statistical measure indicating the value
below which a given percentage of observations in a group falls
Index Designation Assigned class (percentile)

−3 Extremely cold/extremely dry < 8.3%

−2 Cold/dry 8.3–25%
−1 Rather cold/rather dry 25.1–42%
0 Average (in terms of the reference period) 42.1–58%
+1 Rather warm/rather wet 58.1–75%
+2 Warm/wet 75.1–91.7%
+3 Extremely warm/extremely wet > 91.7%

For Switzerland the reference period is 1901–60. SD: standard deviation. After Pfister, 1999, 46
118 C. PFISTER ET AL.

used for average or unremarkable months or seasons. A three-point index does

not use an (instrumental) reference period to establish a mean or standard
deviation. Where there is only descriptive evidence (e.g., “a mild winter” or “a
rainy November”) then these indices should only use values from −1 to +1.
Indices derived from descriptive evidence may be considered relative and unit-­
less departures from “average” temperature/precipitation conditions of a given
month (season).
The seven-point index (or “Pfister” index) is divided into seven classes (see
Table 11.1). These classes, from −3 to +3, represent deviations from a desig-
nated reference period taken after the start of regular instrumental measure-
ments but prior to the full onset of global warming, such as 1901–60. Although
it is not an interval scale, and the intervals between its rankings cannot be
precisely measured, the seven-point index indicates an approximate degree of
difference between one ranking or class and the next, whether in temperature
or precipitation values.9
Monthly rankings above +1 and below −1 according to the seven-point
scale index should be attributed only on the basis of the analysis of proxy data
such as plant-phenological evidence (see Chap. 6). Table 11.2 distinguishes
between criteria obtained from the statistical analysis of institutional sources (in
italics) and those for which analyses are still lacking, such as the monthly dura-
tion of snow cover, but which are nevertheless meteorologically significant.

Table 11.2 Criteria for generating seven-point temperature indices of +/2 and +/−3
for Switzerland
Month “Cold” (indices ≤ −2) “Warm” (indices ≥ +2)

Dec, Jan, Feb Uninterrupted snow cover Scarce snow cover

Freezing of lakes Early vegetation activity
March Long duration of snow cover Early sweet cherry flowering
Frequent snowfalls No snowfall
April Several days of snow cover Beech tree leaf emergence
Frequent snowfalls Early vine flower
May Late grain and grape harvest Early grain and grape harvest
Late vine flower Start of barley harvest
June Late vine flower Early grain and grape harvest
Several low altitude snowfalls High vine yields
July Low vine yields High vine yields
Snowfalls at higher altitudes
Aug Low tree ring density High tree ring density
Low sugar content of vine High sugar content of vine
Snowfalls at higher altitudes
Sep Low sugar content of vine High sugar content of vine
Snowfalls at higher altitudes
Oct Snowfalls, snow cover Second flowering of spring plants
Nov Long duration of snow cover Second flowering of spring plants
No snowfall

Italics: Ranking criteria grounded in statistical analyses. After Pfister, 1992, 33

 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION INDICES 119

Table 11.3 Criteria for generating seasonal temperature and precipitation indices
(seven-point index scale) for the Low Countries, based on the available fifteenth-­century
evidence for winter (altitude 5 to 100 m a.s.l.)
Index Designation Applied criteria

3 Extremely No frost or very few frost days, vegetation extremely advanced, at least
warm two months “very warm”
2 Warm Very short frost period, vegetation advanced one month “very warm”
1 Rather warm Short frost periods, mainly rainfall instead of snowfall
0 “Average” Longer frost period, short snow-cover, a few days with drift ice
−1 Rather cold Several periods with frost and drift ice; longer period with snow cover
−2 Cold Frost for about a month, ponds and small rivers ice bound, persistent
snow cover
−3 Extremely Large rivers and lakes ice bound. Frost for at least two months, frost
cold impacts on crops, trees or/and vines

Table adapted from Chantal Camenisch, “Endless Cold: A Seasonal Reconstruction of Temperature and
Precipitation in the Burgundian Low Countries during the 15th Century Based on Documentary Evidence,”
Climate of the Past 11 (2015): 1049–66, under a CC-BY 3.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0/

Chantal Camenisch has applied a seven-point scale to seasonal temperature

and precipitation indices for the Low Countries based on the available fifteenth-­
century evidence. Table 11.3 presents the criteria for winter. Seasonal indices
are a sum of the corresponding monthly values (winter: DJF, spring: MAM,
summer: JJA, autumn: SON), and therefore range from −7 to +7 on the three-­
point index scale and from −12 to +12 on the seven-point index scale, respec-
tively. Seasonal sums on the basis of the seven-point index scale might also be
divided by three, resulting in seasonal indices with one decimal place, such as
2.3 or −1.7, which can be classified according to the monthly scheme. Narrative
descriptions of whole seasons—rather than more precise daily, weekly, or
monthly observations—are considered secondary evidence and should be
marked accordingly.10
Statistics obtained from the analysis of weather diaries, such as the number
of precipitation days, cannot be classified according to the scheme described
above. In these cases, it is more straightforward to work with duodecile statis-
tics. Duodeciles are threshold values that—in the case of indices—arrange a set
of values that have been sorted in descending order (from highest to lowest)
into twelve classes of equal size, each containing ~8.33% of the total. Let us
illustrate the procedure from a set of sixty monthly sums of precipitation assum-
ing a threshold value of 5.2 precipitation days for the lowest duodecile. This
entails that the eight lowest values, being between 0 and 5, receive a score of
−3, or “extremely dry” (see Table 11.4).
120 C. PFISTER ET AL.

Table 11.4 The seven-point precipitation index based on duodecile statistics. As in

Table 11.1, the average is based on the reference period, and the percentile is a statistical
measure indicating the value below which a given percentage of observations in a group fall
Index Duodecile % Designation

+3 >11 > 91.7% Extremely wet

+2 >9 75.1–91.7% Wet
+1 >7 58.1–75% Rather wet
0 >5 42.1–58% Average
−1 >3 25.1–42% Rather dry
−2 >1 8.3–25% Dry
−3 <1 < 8.3% Extremely dry

Source: Pfister, 1999

11.4   Guidelines for Generating Indices

Researchers have developed the following guidelines as best practices for gen-
erating monthly and seasonal indices from collections of historical evidence
(both narrative and proxy):11

1. Researchers should choose an appropriate temporal resolution (monthly,

seasonal, or annual) based on the number and quality of available
records. For example, Chantal Camenisch has reconstructed tempera-
ture and precipitation indices for the Low Countries (present-day
Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) in the fifteenth century.
She selected a seasonal resolution, because the density and quality of
the evidence was not sufficient for generating monthly indices.12
2. Whether to generate three-point or seven-point indices depends on the
types of available records (subjective and objective or only subjective
sources).
3. Records should be sorted chronologically in descending order according
to year, month, and season. Indices are then generated stepwise for
each month and for each season. It is preferable to begin by indexing the
most recent period, which is usually the best documented, and then work
backward to periods where the evidence is less reliable and less com-
plete. This procedure, named “weather hindcasting,” has the important
advantage that researchers become familiar with well-documented
anomalies within the instrumental period prior to analyzing analogous
cases (months or seasons) in the pre-instrumental past.13
4. Indices should use collections of records that overlap with a climatically
defined region. Such a region might not coincide with the borders of a
modern political unit.
5. Indices should be generated using several independent contemporary
records that complement and corroborate each other. If weather within
a large region is documented with just a single contemporary record,
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION INDICES 121

this evidence should usually be excluded in order to enhance the valid-

ity of the reconstruction.
6. If both objective (statistically defined) and subjective (purely narrative)
records are available for a regional and temporally defined aggregate of
records, then the two types of record may be combined in order to
derive additional monthly seven-point indices. Relatively objective
proxy data such as plant-phenological observations always relate to
temperatures over two or more months, which can include quite
diverse and even contrasting monthly temperature patterns. For exam-
ple, the full flowering of vines in open vineyards situated in the Swiss
Mittelland (~430 m above sea level) is tied to May and June tempera-
tures.14 An advanced flowering at the end of May might occur after an
exceptional heat wave in April followed by average conditions in May,
or average or even cool weather in April followed by an unusually
warm spell in May. Only detailed narrative evidence can enable us to
assess which of those monthly patterns actually occurred. Of course,
this problem only adds to the uncertainty already inherent in the cor-
relation between, in this case, plant-phenological proxy data and May–
June temperatures. This example shows how subjective and objective
records must complement each other to create monthly indices. Only
the combination of monthly weather narratives with plant-phenologi-
cal, ice-phenological, or hydrological data makes it possible to apply
the seven-point ordinal scale to monthly temperature or precipitation
indices.
7. Researchers should repeat the classification procedure several times in
order to reduce inhomogeneity.
8. Periods without records should be clearly labeled so that they are not
included in statistical analyses. Marking periods without records as “0”
will give misleading results, and so those periods need to be removed
from the series altogether.
9. The entire procedure should be fully transparent and open to critical
re-evaluation by disclosing both the indices and the underlying evi-
dence (narrative texts and proxy data). This disclosure enables the
reviewing and crosschecking of different types of records often originat-
ing from different regions of the country.15
10. As new evidence becomes available, indices should be revised.16 No
index can ever be regarded as “final.” Rather, an index represents only
an approximation—open to refinement and correction—of an underly-
ing climatic reality.
11. For generating indices, researchers should have a basic understanding
of (regional) meteorology and a good understanding of the strengths
and weaknesses of their evidence. In any case, a high degree of expertise
is essential to minimize subjectivity in the process of transforming the
information in narrative accounts to numbers on a scale.17
122 C. PFISTER ET AL.

11.5   Shortcomings and Uncertainties

Index generation inevitably suffers from several shortcomings. First, while the pro-
cedure performs well in periods with extensive high-quality proxy coverage, it
shows deficiencies in periods where climate indicators are sparse, poor, or missing.
Second, ordinal indices underestimate climate variability. On the one hand,
they suppress small variations from the mean.18 On the other hand, since the
highest and lowest classes are open ended, they cannot adequately reproduce
outstanding extreme events such as winters with months-long river and lake
freezes or heat-ridden summers like those of 2003 and 2015 in Western and
Central Europe, which should rank −4 and +4 instead of −3 and +3. Moreover,
months or seasons assigned values of −1 or +1, because only descriptive evi-
dence was available (see the discussion of seven-point indices above), might
suppress much larger anomalies. In short, the procedure is designed to err on
the side of caution, underestimating rather than overestimating deviations.
These shortcomings are reflected in changes in low-frequency variability (or
long-term trends), as found over the course of the Central European
Temperature Series (CEUT), discussed in Sect. 11.6.19 Every time series can be
broken down into frequencies of different length, of which longer ones may
represent secular changes such as the Little Ice Age (LIA), and shorter ones
multiannual or annual departures from this trend. The first part of the CEUT
(1500–1759), which is based on documentary indices, indicates much weaker
low-frequency variability than the second part of the CEUT (1760–2007),
which is based on instrumental measurements. On the other hand, the
Stockholm temperature series, based on objective institutional ice-­phenological
data (see Chap. 6), shows a pronounced low-frequency component.20 It is
hypothesized that the smaller variability of the index-based part of the CEUT
is mainly related to the time period prior to 1650, which relies particularly on
three-point indices based on subjective (narrative) data. Nevertheless, this
shortcoming should not be overestimated. Glaser and Riemann showed from
their thousand-year temperature reconstruction for “Germany” that “in prin-
ciple [there is] a strong capability of indices to describe long-term variations.
Even with reduction to a 3-point scale and subsequent calibration back to
temperature, thereby losing information, it is possible to keep the low-­
frequency signal as shown by the 11-year mean temperatures.”21
Third, in order to create quantitative temperature and precipitation recon-
structions based on indices, and to evaluate those reconstructions, the indices
need to undergo the same calibration and verification procedures as would
natural proxies, such as tree ring measurements (see Chaps. 3 and 10). However,
unlike proxy evidence from the archives of nature, which usually continue to
the present, older types of narrative sources for weather history, including
weather diaries and chronicles, fade away with the onset of scientific meteorol-
ogy during the nineteenth century. The First International Meteorological
Congress in Vienna in 1873 banished all kinds of “soft” narrative weather
information from being published in official yearbooks, reducing climate to
bare numerical measurements. This tunnel vision of some early climatologists
even affected weather reports in the press. This decline of published documen-
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION INDICES 123

tary evidence is an important reason why there is often no overlap period

between series of documentary evidence and instrumental data long enough
for calibration and verification.

11.6   Evaluations and Results

Several recent studies have reviewed the available evidence for constructing
indices, the statistical strength of indices, and the validity of their results.22 In
2010, Petr Dobrovolný and colleagues carried out the most comprehensive
evaluation of documentary-based index series for past climate reconstruction.
They selected series from Germany, Switzerland, the Czech lands, the Low
Countries, Poland, and the Carpathian Basin (including present-day Hungary
and parts of Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania).23
To overcome problems of missing values and poorly documented periods,
the Czech, German, and Swiss index series were merged into one main series.
Moreover, the longest homogenized instrumental series for the region were
merged into a single instrumental “Central European Temperature Series”
(CEUT) covering 1760–2007. The authors then reconstructed monthly mean
temperatures from 1500 to 1759 by calibrating and verifying the index series
against the instrumental CEUT (1760–2000).
The study arrived at the following results:

• The values in all of the index series did not differ significantly from a normal
(Gaussian) distribution (i.e., a “bell curve”). Neither the instrumental data
nor the indices deviate from a normal distribution if applying a statistical test.
• The documentary evidence provided a similar level of data coverage for the
Czech lands, Germany, and Switzerland from 1500 to 1854—that is, 70–90%
of all months and seasons had sufficient observations to assign an index value.
The Polish and the Carpathian series had considerably less coverage.
• High and statistically significant correlations were consistently found
between the main index series (averaging the seven countries and regions)
and the single Czech, German, and Swiss series, but the values were lower
for the Polish and the Carpathian series. This result reflects both data
quality and the spatial coherence of temperature variability.
• It turned out that the documentary evidence explains a large fraction of
temperature variability, varying according to season (from 73% in autumn
(SON) to 83% in winter (DJF), and according to month, from 56% in
September to 86% in January).
• A spatial field reconstruction (see Chap. 12) of January to April tempera-
tures in the whole of Europe in combination with model runs yielded the
result that the CEUT is significantly correlated to 91% of all grid cells in
the entire European and northern Mediterranean temperature field.24 This
result implies that this series is also representative of temperatures outside
the Central European core area (and so can aid climatic impact research in
surrounding regions that lack adequate climate records). Monthly tem-
perature estimates from 1500 onwards will further improve the robustness
of current gridded temperature reconstructions for the last 500 years.
124 C. PFISTER ET AL.

Table 11.5 Reconstruction of seasonal temperature and precipitation in the Low

Countries, 1400–99 (percentage of reconstructed seasons)
Season Temp (%) Prec (%)

Winter 83 42
Spring 47 32
Summer 50 60
Autumn 32 39

Indices cf. Chantal Camenisch, “Endless Cold: A Seasonal Reconstruction of Temperature and Precipitation in
the Burgundian Low Countries during the 15th Century Based on Documentary Evidence,” Climate of the Past
11 (2015): 1049–66, under a CC-BY 3.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

There are substantially fewer valid instrumental precipitation series than

temperature series for early modern Europe, and the spatial coherence of pre-
cipitation patterns is much smaller than that of temperature patterns (see Chap.
23). A Czech team centered around Petr Dobrovolný has succeeded in gener-
ating seasonal precipitation estimates for the Czech lands from 1501 to 2010
based on precipitation indices and instrumental measurements.25 Andreas
Pauling and colleagues have attempted a continental-scale reconstruction of
European precipitation from 1500 to 2000 incorporating documentary-based
indices.26 Chantal Camenisch has also succeeded in generating a set of both
seasonal temperature and seasonal precipitation indices based on multiple
observations for each season covered.27 However, the data coverage varied with
the time of year and measurement type (see Table 11.5).

11.7   Applications
Documentary-based indices and climate reconstructions were devised in the
late twentieth century to become an interface between climate history and
weather-related human history. Climate indices based on human archives can
also provide longer coverage than instrumental records, and at a higher level of
spatial and temporal resolution than most proxies from the archives of nature.
They capture the exceptional events and extremes typically missing from recon-
structions created by and for climatologists. Consequently, they can offer new
insights into climate patterns and trends, and particularly the human conse-
quences of past climate. Therefore, the last section of the chapter reviews some
key findings for climate history and then for human history.
The large comprehensive study by the multiauthor Pages 2k Consortium on
global temperature fluctuations over the last 2000 years is supported by eleven
annually resolved tree ring width and density series together with documentary
records from ten European locations (including the CEUT).28 This series
(together with tree ring records) was also used to assess European mean
­summer temperatures over the last half-millennium.29 The findings revealed a
previously unobserved long-term decrease in temperature variability over the
last five centuries during winter, spring, and summer. Purely documentary
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION INDICES 125

records may in themselves represent the spatial structure of some climatic ele-
ments. In particular, they can act as a reliable guide for reconstructing sea-level
pressure patterns for anomalously cold winters for periods when no instrumen-
tal information is available.30
Documentary-based indices also enable researchers to build numerical mod-
els exploring the relations between climate and factors such as crop yields and
prices. Pfister developed a model of climatic factors accounting for variations in
the production of grain, vine-must, and dairy products in Switzerland, which is
also valid for other parts of Central Europe. The numerical model that ulti-
mately corresponded best to the grain price curve, for instance, comprised
several seasonal “biophysical impact factors,” including adverse temperatures
or untimely precipitation in autumn, spring, and summer but particularly cold
springs and wet midsummers.31
A study has calculated biophysical impact factors for the Czech lands and
Switzerland from 1750–1800, in order to focus on the European subsistence
crisis of the early 1770s (see Chap. 23). The course of the weather in these
regions was similar in many respects. Chilly springs and wet midsummers were
noted in 1769 and 1770 in both countries, leading to two harvest failures. The
situation in 1771 improved somewhat in Switzerland, where high atmospheric
pressure brought a warm and dry July; however, the Czech lands suffered again
from persistent midsummer rains, leading to a third consecutive harvest failure.
Given the high social and economic vulnerability of the region—rigid feudal
structures, inhibitive mercantile policies, inefficient bureaucracies, and late
adoption of the potato—the famine that followed resulted in a 10% loss of
population, attributable to the adverse climate and harvest failures (Fig. 11.1).32

Fig. 11.1 Biophysical Climate Impact Factors computed from documentary-based

indices for Switzerland and for the Czech lands over the period 1750–1800. (Image
reproduced without changes from C. Pfister and R. Brázdil, “Social Vulnerability to
Climate in the ‘Little Ice Age’: An Example from Central Europe in the Early 1770s,”
Climate of the Past 2 (2006): 115–29, under a CC-BY 3.0 license: https://­
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
126 C. PFISTER ET AL.

Fig. 11.2 Little Ice Age-type impacts in South-Central Europe 1560–1670

(Reproduced from Christian Pfister, “Climatic Extremes, Recurrent Crises and Witch
Hunts: Strategies of European Societies in Coping with Exogenous Shocks in the Late
Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries.” Medieval History Journal 10 (2007):
33–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/097194580701000202, a SAGE publication)

A longer-term analysis of biophysical impact factors for Switzerland revealed

that negative effects were unevenly distributed over time. Some periods dis-
played more frequent biophysical impact factors—also named “Little Ice Age-­
type impacts”—and therefore brought higher levels of climatic stress (see
Chaps. 23 and 27). The six decades from 1568 to 1630 stand out as climati-
cally the most adverse since 1500, contributing to higher average prices for
grain (Fig. 11.2).33 The seasonal temperature and precipitation indices devel-
oped for the Low Countries during the fifteenth century (see Table 11.3) were
also used to investigate the relationship between climatic parameters and rye
prices in Antwerp. It turned out that variations in prices are significantly cor-
related with indices for winter precipitation, as well as summer precipitation
and temperatures.34
Surprisingly, this model also indicated that a classical subsistence crisis in
Switzerland (and in neighboring countries) occurred during the latter half of
World War I, between 1916 and 1918. It was caused by an LIA-type impact
occurring under the stress of the Allied blockade of the Central Powers, which
impeded adequate imports of food and forage.35
In conclusion, documentary-based indices and climate reconstructions
have passed the test in both fields: Anthropogenic observations can signifi-
cantly contribute to large-scale climate reconstructions. Climatologist Jürg
Luterbacher has concluded that, under the right conditions, early
­instrumental sources and non-instrumental documentary sources “can be
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION INDICES 127

treated as one in terms of providing temporally continuous and homoge-

neous series.”36 Furthermore, socioeconomic modeling built on documen-
tary-based indices has turned out to be a powerful instrument to assess
climate impacts in human history, although this research requires further
demonstration.

Notes
1. Oreskes et al., 2010, 1023.
2. Speer, 2010 (and references therein); Dufour, 1870; Angot, 1883.
3. Easton, 1928.
4. Brooks, 1949.
5. Lamb, 1977; Alexandre, 1987; Rodrigo, 2008.
6. IJnsen and Schmidt, 1974; Engelen et al., 2001 used it for temperature recon-
struction of the warm and the cold season (excluding April and October) in the
last millennium.
7. Mauelshagen, 2010, 55; Camuffo et al., 2010.
8. Bokwa et al., 2001; Dobrovolný et al., 2010.
9. Pfister, 1992, 133.
10. Dobrovolný et al., 2010.
11. See also Brázdil et al., 2010.
12. Camenisch, 2015a, 2015b.
13. Pfister, 1999, 38–39.
14. Pfister, 1984, 104.
15. Pfister and Rohr, 2015.
16. Brázdil et al., 2010.
17. Brázdil et al., 2010.
18. Glaser and Riemann, 2009.
19. Dobrovolný et al., 2010.
20. Brázdil et al., 2010.
21. Glaser and Riemann, 2009, 442.
22. See, e.g., Brázdil et al., 2010.
23. This paragraph follows the discussion by Dobrovolný et al. (2010) and refer-
ences quoted therein unless stated otherwise.
24. Luterbacher et al., 2010.
25. Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
26. Pauling et al., 2006.
27. Camenisch, 2015a.
28. PAGES 2k Consortium, 2013.
29. Luterbacher et al., 2016.
30. Luterbacher et al., 2010.
31. Pfister, 1988; Pfister and Brázdil, 2006.
32. Pfister and Brázdil, 2006.
33. Pfister, 2005, 61.
34. Camenisch, 2015a.
35. Pfister, 2016.
36. Luterbacher et al., 2010.
128 C. PFISTER ET AL.

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tions climatiques de 1000 à 1425, d’après les narratives de l‘Europe Occidentale. Paris:
Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1987.
Angot, Alfred. Étude sur les vendanges en France, vol. 1. Annales du Bureau central
météorologique de France, 1883.
Bokwa, Anita et al. “Pre-Instrumental Weather Observations in Poland in the 16th and
17th Century.” In History and Climate: Memories of the Future?, edited by P.D. Jones
et al., 9–27. Boston: Springer, 2001.
Brázdil, Rudolf et al. “European Climate of the Past 500 Years: New Challenges for
Historical Climatology.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 7–40.
Brooks, C.E.P. Climate through the Ages. Revised ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949.
Camenisch, Chantal. “Endless Cold: A Seasonal Reconstruction of Temperature and
Precipitation in the Burgundian Low Countries During the 15th Century Based on
Documentary Evidence.” Climate of the Past 11 (2015a): 713–53.
Camenisch, Chantal. Endlose Kälte: Witterungsverlauf und Getreidepreise in den bur-
gundischen Niederlanden im 15. Jahrhundert. Basel: Schwabe, 2015b.
Camuffo, Dario et al. “500-Year Temperature Reconstruction in the Mediterranean
Basin by Means of Documentary Data and Instrumental Observations.” Climatic
Change 101 (2010): 169–99.
Dobrovolný, Petr et al. “Monthly, Seasonal and Annual Temperature Reconstructions
for Central Europe Derived from Documentary Evidence and Instrumental Records
Since AD 1500.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 69–107.
Dobrovolný, Petr et al. “Precipitation Reconstruction for the Czech Lands, AD
1501–2010.” International Journal of Climatology 35 (2015): 1–14.
Dufour, M. Louis. “Problème de la variation du climat.” Bulletin de La Société Vaudoise
des Sciences Naturelles 10 (1870): 359–556.
Easton, Cornelis. Les hivers dans l’Europe occidentale. Leiden: Royal Dutch Meterological
Institute, 1928.
van Engelen, Aryan F.V. et al. “A Millennium of Weather, Winds and Water in the Low
Countries.” In History and Climate: Memories of the Future?, edited by P.D. Jones
et al., 101–24. Boston: Springer, 2001.
Glaser, Rüdiger, and Dirk Riemann. “A Thousand-Year Record of Temperature
Variations for Germany and Central Europe Based on Documentary Data.”Journal
of Quaternary Science 24 (2009): 437–49.
IJnsen, Folkert, and Franz H. Schmidt. Onderzoek naar het Optreden van Winterweer
in Nederland. De Bilt: KNMI, 1974.
Lamb, Hubert H. Climate: Past Present and Future. London: Meuthen, 1977.
Luterbacher, Jürg et al. “Circulation Dynamics and Its Influence on European and
Mediterranean January–April Climate Over the Past Half Millennium: Results and
Insights from Instrumental Data, Documentary Evidence and Coupled Climate
Models.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 201–34.
Luterbacher, Jürg et al. “European Summer Temperatures Since Roman Times.”
Environmental Research Letters 11 (2016): 024001.
Mauelshagen, Franz Matthias. Klimageschichte der Neuzeit, 1500–1900. Darmstadt:
Darmstadt Wiss. Buchges, 2010.
Oreskes, Naomi et al. “Adaptation to Global Warming: Do Climate Models Tell Us
What We Need to Know?” Philosophy of Science 77 (2010): 1012–28.
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Pages 2k Consortium. “Continental-Scale Temperature Variability During the Past

Two Millennia.” Nature Geoscience 6 (2013): 339–46.
Pauling, Andreas et al. “Five Hundred Years of Gridded High-Resolution Precipitation
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Geschichte von Bevölkerung und Landwirtschaft. Bern: P. Haupt, 1984.
Pfister, Christian. “Fluctuations climatiques et prix céréaliers en Europe du XVIe au XXe
siècle.” Annales 43 (1988): 25–53.
Pfister, Christian. “Monthly Temperature and Precipitation in Central Europe
1525–1979: Quantifying Documentary Evidence on Weather and Its Effects.” In
Climate Since A.D. 1500, edited by R.S. Bradley and P.D. Jones, 118–42. London:
Routledge, 1992.
Pfister, Christian. Wetternachhersage: 500 Jahre Klimavariationen und Natur
Katastrophen (1496–1995). Bern: Paul Haupt, 1999.
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Impacts, 1570–1630.” In Kulturelle Konsequenzen der Kleine Eiszeit, edited by
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Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005.
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European Societies in Coping with Exogenous Shocks in the Late Sixteenth and
Early Seventeenth Centuries.” Medieval History Journal 10 (2007): 33–73.
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Speer, James. Fundamentals of Tree-Ring Research. Tuscon: University of Arizona
Press, 2010.
 CHAPTER 12

Analysis and Interpretation: Spatial Climate

Field Reconstructions

Jürg Luterbacher and Eduardo Zorita

12.1   Introduction
This contribution gives a short overview of spatial climate field reconstructions
(CFR), the technique of employing different statistical methods to reconstruct
climate (such as temperature, precipitation, drought, and air pressure) over
larger geographical areas based on data from climate proxies. CFR methods
have been applied both to filling spatial gaps in early instrumental climate data-
sets and to the problem of reconstructing past climate patterns from natural
and documentary-based proxy data.

12.2   Concepts
Studies of long-term climate change require long time series of information.
There are various initiatives that undertake and facilitate the recovery of his-
torical instrumental surface terrestrial and marine global weather observations
to underpin three-dimensional weather reconstructions (re-analyses) spanning
the last 200–250 years for climate applications, such as the international
Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE).1 To recon-
struct climate change for the pre-instrumental periods, researchers must use
climatically sensitive natural proxies, such as tree rings, corals, ice cores, speleo-

J. Luterbacher (*)
Department of Geography, Climatology, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change,
Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany
Centre of International Development and Environmental Research, Justus Liebig
University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany
E. Zorita
Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 131

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_12
132 J. LUTERBACHER AND E. ZORITA

thems, and sediments, as well as information from documentary evidence (see

Chap. 3). If they can establish a sufficient overlap between the proxy and
instrumental records, they can then calibrate the proxy measurements to the
instrumental measurements in order to reconstruct pre-instrumental climate
(see Chap. 10).
By contrast, statistical spatial CFR techniques attempt to reconstruct a cli-
mate field—such as surface air temperature, pressure, precipitation, or
drought—over a wide area, including regions where there may not be local
proxy data. They accomplish this by using a spatial network of proxy indicators.
They then perform a multivariate calibration of the large-scale information in
the proxy data network against the available instrumental data (Fig. 12.1). The
large-scale climate field is simultaneously calibrated against the entire informa-
tion in the proxy network. Therefore, the statistical model is not based on a
one-to-one link between the proxy indicator and the local climate variable
(although this link has to exist). Rather, it searches for statistical connections
between the local proxies and each part of the geographical area to be
reconstructed.
All statistical models that offer the best fit between proxy climate data and
the most probable state of large-scale climate should, however, respond to
some aspect of local climate during some season of the year. This so-called
“upscaling” involves developing statistical models that offer the best fit between
proxy climate data and the most probable state of large-scale climate (step 1 in
Fig. 12.1). Model fitting is based on the period of overlap between the proxy
and the instrumental data, which is usually split into a calibration and a verifica-
tion period (steps 1, 2, and 3 in Fig. 12.1). The statistical connections that
were derived from the period of overlap within the instrumental era are then
applied to the entire period to be reconstructed (step 4 in Fig. 12.1). This step
assumes that the statistical relationships throughout the reconstruction period
are stable—an assumption known as the “principle of stationarity.”

12.3   Applications
Since proxy records only provide a collection of measurements at particular
points in space, a CFR necessarily involves some type of spatial interpolation.
Fortunately, climate patterns are usually coherent over larger regions (except
for precipitation), and this spatial coherency can be used to “scale up” the
localized information taken from proxies to a wider area. All CFR methods use
the tendency of climate fields, such as temperature, to be correlated over long
distances. For instance, temperature in a particular winter tends to be colder or
warmer than normal over the whole of Northern Europe, and in those winters,
Greenland tends to display the opposite temperature anomalies.2 This large-­
scale spatial relation can be exploited to extrapolate (and interpolate) the local
information provided by a network comprising a few proxy records in order to
reconstruct spatially resolved temperature over larger areas.
Fig. 12.1 Schematic diagram for climate field reconstructions (from Neukom 2010)
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: SPATIAL CLIMATE FIELD RECONSTRUCTIONS
133
134 J. LUTERBACHER AND E. ZORITA

CFR commonly employs a number of statistical methods in order to help

scale up localized proxy measurements to a reconstruction over a wide area.
These methods (which are too complex to explain in a short chapter) include
point-by-point regression, multivariate principal components regression,
canonical correlation analysis, iterative covariance-based missing data imputa-
tion techniques such as regularized expectation maximization, neuronal net-
works, and Gaussian graphical models.3 Furthermore, the analogue method
retrieves the spatial structures from climate model simulations and then uses
proxy records to potentially produce a full three-dimensional reconstruction.4
In addition to filling in spatial gaps in early instrumental climate datasets,
these statistical methods have been used for temperature, pressure, precipita-
tion, and Palmer Drought Severity Index reconstructions.5 Figure 12.2 shows
as an example one warm and one cold European summer CFR from the fif-
teenth century using tree ring information and applying a statistical approach
known as Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling.6
CFR provides a distinct advantage over averaged climate reconstructions
when, for instance, trying to understand the response of climate in a region
to some external forcing, such as a large tropical volcanic eruption. In CFR,
we can see for instance how the generally cool and wet mean summer condi-
tions in Europe one to three years after the eruption are distributed over the
various regions,7 the late winter temperature response in temperate western
North America,8 the volcanic response in the Asian monsoon region9 and in
European summer droughts.10 Thus, proxy-based CFR reconstructions pro-
vide spatially resolved climate fields at regional to global scales and can offer
critical insights into the range and geographic characteristics of historical
climate variability.

Fig. 12.2 Bayesian hierarchical model-based temperature CFR for a cold and warm
European summer in the 1430s. The anomalies are shown as departures from the
1961–90 period. The reconstruction uses only tree ring information reconstructions.
(Credit: Reproduced from J. Luterbacher et al., “European Summer Temperatures
since Roman Times.” Environmental Research Letters 11 (2016): 024001 under a CC
BY 3.0 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: SPATIAL CLIMATE FIELD RECONSTRUCTIONS 135

CFR can also contribute to analyzing the causes and processes of past cli-
mate variability and therefore the impact of weather on past societies. Proxy-­
based reconstructions of spatially resolved climate fields at regional to global
scales can offer critical insights into the range and geographic characteristics of
historical climate variability. Their comparison with climate model runs also
provides an important test bed for understanding multidecadal to centennial
climate variability and climate sensitivity to external forcing, while providing an
extended context for anthropogenic warming prior to the instrumental era.11

12.4   Uncertainties
In performing CFR, researchers have to make decisions that will ultimately
affect the reliability of the reconstruction. These include decisions driven by
scientific needs and by methodological concerns (i.e., the choice of season,
climate variable, and target field; the calibration data and calibration time inter-
val; the spatial and temporal sampling of the proxy network; and the actual
climate–proxy connection of each proxy record used for the reconstruction).12
A leading challenge in producing climate reconstructions is the assessment
of their uncertainties. The uncertainty of a real-world reconstruction comes
from two main sources: first, the imperfections of the proxy and instrumental
data; and second, the uncertainties associated with the statistical methodolo-
gies. While proxies are sensitive to changes in climate, there are other non-­
climatic factors that can leave an imprint on them. To take the case of tree
rings, their width and density can be affected by insects, competition from
other trees, nutrient availability, and other environmental factors besides tem-
perature and precipitation. This “noise” needs to be filtered out from the
purely climatic “signal,” which makes reliable reconstruction a challenging sta-
tistical problem. Further data uncertainties include measurement errors in the
proxies, sampling errors in instrumental climate fields, chronological uncer-
tainties, and the coarse spatio-temporal coverage of proxy or instrumental mea-
surements. Methodological uncertainties can also stem from input data (type
of data, resolution, noise level, and spatio-temporal variability), as well as sen-
sitivity to model parameters and the uncertainty associated with the choice of
these parameters.13

12.5   CFR Methods and Climate Models

One important tool for assessing CFR reconstruction methods is millennium-­
length climate simulations with fully coupled general circulation models
(GCMs) (see Chap. 13).14 These simulations are obviously not equivalent to
the real climate, but they are realistic enough to be used as a “laboratory” to
test CFR methods in controlled conditions. The rationale is that in the real
world, the true climate is, of course, not exactly known, and therefore the reli-
ability of CFR cannot be directly addressed (if the true climate were known we
would not need reconstruction methods in the first place). In the virtual world
136 J. LUTERBACHER AND E. ZORITA

produced by climate simulations, however, the past temperature and precipita-

tion is indeed known. In this numerical laboratory, all the procedures used in
the CFR can be emulated, for instance by taking simulated local climates as
pseudo-proxies and applying CFR to these pseudo-proxies. The advantage is
that the output of the CFR can then be compared with the full climate field,
thereby providing a measure of the uncertainties inherent in CFR. The motiva-
tion for these pseudo-reconstructions is that real-world reconstructions are
derived from many different methods, calibration choices, and proxy networks,
which can be tested in the controlled set-up of climate simulations.15
The conclusion from these tests is that there is no one CFR method that
outperforms all the others. While most methods perform well in areas with
good spatial coverage by proxies, all show deficiencies in areas where proxies
are missing or where they do a poor job indicating the climate. Thus, there is
no “one method fits all” conclusion. Rather, reconstruction quality depends on
multiple non-methodological factors, including the climate variable, season,
and target field of the reconstruction.16

Notes
1. Allan et al., 2011.
2. van Loon and Rogers, 1978.
3. Briffa et al., 2002; Mann et al., 2008; Tingley and Huybers, 2010a, 2010b;
Smerdon, 2012; Dannenberg and Wise, 2013; Werner et al., 2013, 2018;
Guillot et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2014.
4. Graham et al., 2011; Franke et al., 2011.
5. Schneider, 2001; Küttel et al., 2010; Luterbacher et al., 2002, 2004, 2016;
Mann et al., 2008; Riedwyl et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2014; Xoplaki et al., 2005;
Neukom et al., 2011; Cook et al., 2013, 2015; Pauling et al., 2006; Shi et al.,
2015, 2017; Anchukaitis et al., 2017; Werner et al., 2018.
6. Luterbacher et al., 2016.
7. E.g. Briffa et al., 2002.
8. Wahl et al., 2014.
9. Anchukaitis et al., 2010.
10. Fischer et al., 2007; Gao and Gao, 2017; Rao et al., 2017.
11. Jansen et al., 2007.
12. Werner et al., 2013; Smerdon et al., 2016, 2017.
13. Wang et al., 2014.
14. Schmidt et al., 2011; PAGES 2k-PMIP3 group, 2015.
15. Mann et al., 2005; Smerdon, 2012; Wahl and Smerdon, 2012; Wahl et al.,
2012; Werner et al., 2013; Gomez-Navarro et al., 2015; Steiger and Smerdon,
2017.
16. Ammann and Wahl, 2007; Tingley and Huybers, 2010b; Smerdon et al., 2010,
2011, 2016; Dannenberg and Wise, 2013; Werner et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014.

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AD 900.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Bern, 2010.
138 J. LUTERBACHER AND E. ZORITA

Neukom, R. et al. “Multiproxy Summer and Winter Surface Air Temperature Field
Reconstructions for Southern South America Covering the Past Centuries.” Climate
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of Extremes over the Last Half Millennium.” Geophysical Research Letters 32 (2005):
L15713.
 CHAPTER 13

Analysis and Interpretation: Modeling

of Past Climates

Eduardo Zorita and Sebastian Wagner

13.1   Introduction
Computer climate models have become an essential tool to analyze past and
future climate change. Since these models comprise rather complicated pieces
of computer code, the interpretation of their results requires care and a basic
familiarity with their structure, underlying assumptions, and implications of
their results. This need becomes even more pressing when comparing paleocli-
mate simulations with proxy reconstructions, because they capture different
spatial and temporal scales of the climate variations. For instance, whereas
proxy records can represent local seasonal mean temperature (see Chap. 3), a
climate model produces daily and even subdaily temperatures averaged over
10,000 km2. This chapter introduces important topics of consideration for the
interested community of paleoclimatologists and historical climatologists who
may not work regularly with climate models.

13.2   How Models Work

Climatology is essentially an observational science. Most information comes
from analyzing measurements, rather than purpose-built experiments. Climate
models, being a computer code that can generate virtual climates in some sense
similar to observed climate, provide the means to conduct numerical experi-
ments under controlled conditions in order to test hypotheses, much as in a labo-
ratory. In addition, models can provide long, comprehensive, and gap-free
climatic time series that cover several millennia and share some statistical prop-

E. Zorita (*) • S. Wagner

Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 141

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_13
142 E. ZORITA AND S. WAGNER

erties with observational records. Despite the fact that present-day Earth
System Models represent and simulate a large number of the climatic
­subcomponents, it is still important to bear in mind that they are simplifica-
tions of the real world (see Chap. 38). In the future, as we gain more under-
standing about the respective subsystems of climate, new processes will be
incorporated into the earlier model versions. Therefore, it is important to rig-
orously test models with observational and paleoclimate records.
Modern climate models are basically computer codes that represent the con-
tinuous systems of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and so on, using a dis-
crete three-dimensional grid over the Earth (see Chap. 2). They simulate, to
some level of realism, the state of these systems. Here state is defined as the
average conditions for a given time interval, typically thirty minutes. In mod-
ern climate models, the mesh size (that is, the size of a box in the three-­
dimensional grid) is typically about two degrees of longitude by two degrees of
latitude, divided into fifty atmospheric levels and fifty oceanic levels of depth.
Before starting a climate simulation, the computer code requires two essen-
tial types of drivers. The first drivers are the initial conditions, or the state of the
climate at the start of the simulation. These conditions are prescribed by the
climate modeler independently of the computer code used to perform the sim-
ulation. Understanding this concept is essential to grasp the subtleties of com-
parison between climate simulations and proxy-based climate reconstructions.
The second driver consists of external climate forcings, such as changes in
Earth’s orbital parameters, solar output, volcanic aerosols, and greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere including carbon dioxide and methane.1 In this case,
external drivers are those constructed and implemented by the user but not
modified by the computer code itself. For instance, concentrations of atmo-
spheric carbon dioxide, as an external driver, are not modified by the model,
whereas water vapor, also a greenhouse gas, is interactively simulated by the
climate model according to balance of evaporation, precipitation, and advec-
tion of air masses. Once these drivers are provided, the computer code repeat-
edly leapfrogs forward by the specified time interval, simulating the evolution
of the state of the atmosphere and ocean and other components of the Earth
system at each successive interval.
Climate variability, whether real or modeled, is composed of the combina-
tion of external variability and internal variability. External variability arises
from external drivers, whether natural variations such as solar activity, or
anthropogenic forcings such as greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. If
external drivers remained constant over time, then external climate variability
would be zero. Nevertheless, the climate would not remain constant: every
year, every decade, every century would be different from the previous one,
because internal variability would still operate. For instance, the interaction
between atmosphere and oceans in the tropics gives rise to interannual and
decadal variations such as ENSO (the El Niño–Southern Oscillation), even in
the absence of changes in solar irradiance or in greenhouse gas concentrations
(see Chap. 2).
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: MODELING OF PAST CLIMATES 143

External variability is potentially predictable since it is linked to external

forcings, whose input is prescribed independently of the response from the
climate system. All simulations driven by the same external forcings should
theoretically produce the same external climate variability. By contrast, internal
climate variability remains unpredictable beyond a certain time range, much
like local weather. Even small changes in initial conditions will produce large
divergences in trends among simulations. Those simulations may look the same
in a statistical sense—that is, displaying the same mean, standard deviations,
and covariations in results—but they will give different time trajectories.
This point is critical when comparing simulations to proxy-based climate
reconstructions. We cannot know the precise initial conditions of any historical
simulation—for example, the position and velocity of every molecule of water
and air during the first second of the year 850 ce. Therefore, a simulated record
may show the same statistical properties as the historical record, such as mean
value, amplitude of variability, and so forth, but the precise evolution in time
will be different. A simulation could be programed with the same external vari-
ability, but the timing of ENSO events and other climatic phenomena would
still turn out different in the simulation than in the historical record. To date,
there is no established method to lock in a paleoclimate simulation so that it
also reproduces the timing of observed internal climate variability, as meteo-
rologists do when predicting the weather on a given day or hour.
As a general rule, the contribution of internal variability is larger at small
spatial and short temporal scales, whereas externally driven variability becomes
more relevant over longer time periods and larger areas. At smaller and shorter
scales—for instance, a few tens of kilometers or a few weeks—the role of
weather noise plays a greater role than slowly changing external global drivers
such as total solar irradiance. This is important to bear in mind because proxy
and documentary climate usually record local climate conditions, whereas
model grid cells typically represent mean conditions over large areas.
Internal climate variability also depends on the basic characteristics of differ-
ent regional climates. For instance, tropical regions share a more or less homo-
geneous temperature regime and an annual cycle of precipitation. Studies
investigating the impact of long-term solar changes on temperatures tend to
find the largest signals over tropical areas because lower internal variability
leads to a higher signal-to-noise ratio when measuring the effects of external
forcings. In extratropical regions, by contrast, atmospheric circulation patterns
and recurrent sequences of mid-latitude cyclones play a larger role in shaping
variability. As stated above, the amplitude of atmospheric internal variability
should diminish at longer multidecadal timescales, but it is not yet clear at
which timescales external forcing begins to dominate climate variability.
Since models cannot predict the actual state of the climate at a given point
in time based on initial conditions, these climate states have to be prescribed at
random within a certain plausibility range. This range of choices is, however,
virtually infinite. In theory, with unlimited computer resources, many simula-
tions could be run with different initial conditions, producing a range of
144 E. ZORITA AND S. WAGNER

­ ossible trajectories that would encompass the range of uncertainty. But in

p
practice, this is impossible. Instead, the ensemble size is usually limited to a few
simulations. Once the initial conditions are prescribed, the climate model is
also provided with the values of the external forcings for each year (solar irradi-
ance, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, volcanic
aerosols, land-use changes, etc.) through the period covered by the simula-
tion.2 The climate model then generates one full history (among the infinite
number that would be compatible with the external forcing) of the three-
dimensional “weather” at a given time resolution (typically thirty minutes)
over several centuries or millennia. This process may take several months even
on the best current supercomputers used in climate modeling.

13.3   Examples and Regional Simulations

Figure 13.1 presents an example of an ensemble of just three simulations of
climate in the period 850–1850 ce, using the same global climate model MPI-­
ESM-­P and driven by the same external forcings. This period was selected by
the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and denoted as past1000.
About ten other climate models have conducted past1000 simulations that are
publicly available.3 The three time series in Fig. 13.1 represent three possible
trajectories of simulated winter (December–February) near-surface air temper-
ature over Central Europe. Results are presented in thirty-year moving aver-
ages in order to better display the slowly changing evolution of mean
temperature. This figure illustrates that even at these timescales (thirty years),
the portion of internal regional climate variability contained in these records
remains very large, and accordingly, the influence of external forcing is small.
The agreement among these three records has been achieved under ideal con-
ditions (i.e., using the same model and same estimated external forcing), and
so this agreement is the best that we can expect when comparing simulations
and reconstructions. Reconstructed records have been obtained with a differ-
ent “model” (that is, nature itself), and real external forcings may have deviated
from those in simulations.
For instance, these climate simulations do not always demonstrate the effects
of known historical forcings, even large volcanic eruptions such as Samalas in
1257 and Tambora in 1815 (see Chap. 35), or else they may reflect one such
event but not another. This suggests that internal climate variability is so strong
that it can potentially mask the effects of even these strong eruptions. Whether
or not it does so in any particular simulation remains a matter of chance and
cannot be ascertained beforehand. It is plausible to believe that this also occurs
in the real world—in other words, that large-scale internal climate variability
often masks the pronounced effects of short-term external forcings such as
major tropical eruptions.
However, certain characteristics of European climate appear in all three sim-
ulations described above, and are thus very likely caused by the external forc-
ings prescribed in all three. Therefore, these characteristics should show up in
proxy- and documentary-based reconstructions, too. The temperature drops
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: MODELING OF PAST CLIMATES 145

Fig. 13.1 Time series of winter (December-to-February) air temperature averaged

over Central Europe (0°E–20°E; 45°N–55°N) as simulated in three simulations with
the global climate model MPI-ESM-P, started with different initial conditions on
January 1, 850 ce

systematically from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (see Chap. 22) to
the Little Ice Age (LIA) (see Chap. 23), although each particular simulation
produces large multidecadal temperature variations around this overall cooling
trend. All three simulations also produce a recovery of temperatures from
around 1700 ce onward. At shorter timescales, a relatively warm period around
1400 ce also appears in all three simulations, pointing again toward the possi-
ble role of external climate forcing. However, based on the appearance of the
simulated series, the reader will acknowledge that this apparent agreement may
be due to chance, and thus such an interpretation must be adopted with care.
We can now focus on one of the coldest periods within the past millennium
in Europe, as reflected in many proxy records and historical evidence: the Late
Maunder Minimum (LMM) of 1675–1715 ce. Figure 13.2 depicts the
European winter temperature differences between the LMM and the MCA in
 146
E. ZORITA AND S. WAGNER

Fig. 13.2 Maps of the winter air temperature differences between the Late Maunder Minimum (1680–1710 ce) and the Medieval Climate
Anomaly (1000–1200 ce) over Europe, as simulated in three global simulations with the climate model MPI-ESM-P, started with different
initial conditions on January 1, 850 ce
 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: MODELING OF PAST CLIMATES 147

the three simulations using model MPI-ESM-P. All three simulations produce
generally colder temperatures during the LMM than during the MCA. However,
the spatial structure of the temperature drop differs considerably among the
simulations. The two simulations r1i1p1 and r2i1p1 simulate a stronger tem-
perature drop in southeastern Europe than in Western Europe, with the largest
temperature contrast found in r2i1p1. However, in the third simulation
(r3i1p1), the cooling is more moderate and spatially more homogeneous. In
this case, simulated LMM temperatures in southeastern Europe remain very
similar to those of the MCA, while temperatures over the Swiss Alps actually
increase slightly.
The grid cells of the model MPI-ESM are about 1.8 degrees longitude by
latitude. Clearly, this resolution cannot properly represent regions with rapidly
changing topography, such as the alpine region or complex coastlines.
Simulations based on regional climate models, with higher spatial resolution for
specific regions of the Earth, can help correct or at least ameliorate this prob-
lem. These models, using grid cells as small as 10 × 10 km, can better capture
regional characteristics. Since regional simulations cannot cover the whole
world, global climate simulations provide the data at their borders. Regional
models are thus a tool to zoom in on specific regions of interest. Unfortunately,
these simulations remain costly in terms of computer resources. Although they
provide better regional details, their application remains too expensive to cre-
ate a large ensemble of regional simulations. In time, ensembles of regional
simulations could solve important outstanding questions in climatology, such
as the magnitude of regional multidecadal variability for climate variables
including precipitation and soil moisture.

13.4   Conclusion
Climate simulations and climate reconstructions provide two complementary
tools to study past climates. Despite efforts by both climate modelers and his-
torical climatologists, merging insights and information from these two tools
remains a daunting endeavor hindered by technical hurdles.4 Despite advances
in computer technology and Earth System Models, long-term climate variabil-
ity presents unresolved questions, particularly concerning the interplay between
internally generated and externally forced variations. It remains of utmost
importance to investigate the full set of forcing agents and evaluate their spatio-­
temporal variations in the context of reconstructed climate variations over the
last millennium and beyond.

Notes
1. Some modern climate models include a model of the Earth’s carbon cycle. In
those models, the external forcing is the anthropogenic carbon emissions, whereas
the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are interactively calculated by
the model.
148 E. ZORITA AND S. WAGNER

2. Schmidt et al., 2011.

3. Bothe et al., 2013. The external forcing prescribed in the CMIP simulations with
different models is similar but not the same in all of them, since each modeling
group chose different reconstructions of, e.g., solar irradiance or volcanic
aerosols.
4. Brönnimann et al., 2013.

References
Bothe, O. et al. “Consistency of the Multi-Model CMIP5/PMIP3-past1000
Ensemble.” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 2471–87.
Brönnimann, Stefan et al. “Transient State Estimation in Paleoclimatology Using Data
Assimilation.” PAGES News 21 (2013): 74–75.
Schmidt, G.A. et al. “Climate Forcing Reconstructions for Use in PMIP Simulations of
the Last Millennium (v1.0).” Geoscientific Model Development 4 (2011): 33–45.
 CHAPTER 14

The Denial of Global Warming

Naomi Oreskes, Erik Conway, David J. Karoly, Joelle Gergis,

Urs Neu, and Christian Pfister

14.1   Introduction
No book about the science of climate reconstruction would be complete if it
did not also address the organized efforts to reject and obfuscate that science.
This chapter begins with passages adapted from Naomi Oreskes and Erik
M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the
Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (2010), which were
kindly shared by the authors and publisher. This path-breaking work uncov-
ered links among the tactics and agents involved in organized efforts to cast
doubt and disrepute on research and researchers who have demonstrated how
certain profitable enterprises have negative health and environmental externali-
ties. Here, we have extended Oreskes and Conway’s account with a discussion
of global warming denial in Europe and in Australia.

N. Oreskes (*)
History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
E. Conway
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
D. J. Karoly • J. Gergis
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
U. Neu
Swiss Academy of Sciences, Bern, Switzerland
C. Pfister
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland

© The Author(s) 2018 149

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_14
150 N. ORESKES ET AL.

14.2   The USA (adapted from Merchants of Doubt)

In 2004, the US magazine Discover ran an article on the top science stories of
the year, one of which was the emergence of a scientific consensus over the
reality of global warming. National Geographic similarly declared 2004 the
year that global warming “got respect.”1
Many scientists felt that respect was overdue: as early as 1995, the leading
international organization on climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), had concluded that human activities were affecting global cli-
mate. By 2001, IPCC’s Third Assessment Report stated that the evidence was
strong and getting stronger, and in 2007, the Fourth Assessment called global
warming “unequivocal.”2 Major scientific organizations and prominent scientists
around the globe had repeatedly ratified the IPCC conclusion.3 By the late
2000s, all but a tiny handful of climate scientists were convinced that Earth’s
climate was heating up, and that human activities were the dominant cause.
Yet many Americans remained skeptical. A public opinion poll reported in
Time magazine in 2006 found that only just over half (56%) of Americans
thought that average global temperatures had risen—despite the fact that virtu-
ally all climate scientists thought so.4 An ABC News poll that year reported that
85% of Americans believed that global warming was occurring, but more than
half did not think that the science was settled. Of Americans, 64% perceived “a
lot of disagreement among scientists.”5
The doubts and confusion of the American people were particularly peculiar
when put into historical perspective, for scientific research on carbon dioxide and
climate has been going on for 150 years. In the mid-nineteenth century, Irish
experimentalist John Tyndall first established that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse
gas—meaning that it traps heat and keeps it from escaping to outer space. He
understood this as a fact about our planet, with no particular social or political
implications. This changed in the early twentieth century, when Swedish geo-
chemist Svante Arrhenius realized that carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere
by burning fossil fuels could alter Earth’s climate, and British engineer Guy
Callendar compiled the first empirical evidence that the “greenhouse effect”
might already be detectable. In the 1960s, American scientists started to warn
their political leaders that this could be a real problem, and at least some of them—
including Lyndon Johnson—heard the message. Yet they failed to act on it.6
One reason for the American confusion about global warming was clear:
from the time that a scientific consensus emerged, a campaign to undermine
that consensus and confuse the American people about it emerged as well.7
And as the body of scientific evidence grew, the campaign to discredit and
undermine it grew too.

14.3   The George C. Marshall Institute

In 1984, physicist William Nierenberg retired as director of the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and joined the Board of Directors of a newly
formed think-tank in Washington, DC, the George C. Marshall Institute.
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 151

Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow had established the Institute to defend President

Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) against critique by leading American
scientists, and recruited physicist Frederick Seitz, a former President of the US
National Academy of Sciences, to be its founding director. But by 1989, the
justification for SDI—containing communism—had collapsed. The Berlin Wall
had come down, the Soviet Union was disintegrating, and the end of the Cold
War was in sight. The Institute might have disbanded—its raison d’être disap-
peared—but instead, the old Cold Warriors decided to fight on. The new
enemy? Environmental “alarmists.” In 1989—the very year the Berlin Wall
fell—the Marshall Institute published its first report attacking climate science.
Their initial strategy was not to deny the fact of global warming but to
blame it on the sun. They circulated an unpublished “white paper,” generated
by Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg, entitled “Global Warming: What Does the
Science Tell Us?,” which claimed that the available evidence pointed to the sun
as the cause of the observed rise in global temperatures.8 The Institute’s
Washington office staff contacted the White House to request the opportunity
to present it. Nierenberg gave the briefing to members of the Office of Cabinet
Affairs, the Office of Policy Development, the Council of Economic Advisers,
and the Office of Management and Budget.9
The briefing stopped the positive momentum that had been building in the
Bush administration to act on climate change. “I was impressed with the
report,” said one member of the cabinet affairs office. “Everyone has read it.
Everyone takes it seriously.” Another ruminated, “It is well worth listening to.
They are eminent scientists. I was impressed.”10 White House Chief of Staff
John Sununu—a nuclear engineer by training—was particularly taken. Stanford
University’s Stephen Schneider lamented, “Sununu is holding the report up
like a cross to a vampire, fending off greenhouse warming.”11
The following year, the IPCC published its first assessment of the state of
climate science. It reiterated the result that was by now familiar to anyone who
had been following the issue: unrestricted fossil fuel use would produce a “rate
of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3
°C per decade; this is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years.”12
Global warming from greenhouse gases would produce changes unlike what
humans had ever seen before.
The IPCC explicitly rejected the Marshall Institute argument. The upper
limits on solar variability, they explained, are “small compared with green-
house forcing and even if such a change occurred over the next few decades,
it would be swamped by the enhanced greenhouse effect.”13 But the IPCC’s
refutation did not alter the Marshall scientists’ views. In 1991, they repub-
lished their report in a longer version, and in 1992 Bill Nierenberg took it
“on the road” to the World Petroleum Congress in Buenos Aires, where he
launched a full frontal attack on climate science. Nierenberg insisted that
global temperatures would increase at most by 1 °C by the end of the twenty-
first century, based on a straight linear projection of twentieth-century warm-
ing. Bert Bolin, a founder of the IPCC, confronted him directly, pointing out
that greenhouse gas emissions were increasing exponentially, not linearly.
152 N. ORESKES ET AL.

Add to this the time lag induced by the oceans—which meteorologist Jule
Charney and others had warned about a decade earlier—and warming would
accelerate over time.
In his memoir, Bolin called Nierenberg’s conclusion “simply wrong.”14 A
less polite man would have said something else. If Nierenberg were a journalist,
one might suppose he was just confused. But Nierenberg was no journalist. He
had been a brilliant scientist, and a very strategic man: one long-time associate
at Scripps once said that she never knew a man who was more careful in choos-
ing what he worked on and how he worked on it.15
Meanwhile, the CATO Institute—a libertarian think-tank in Washington,
DC—began to circulate parts of the original Marshall Institute white paper.16
In a February 1991 letter to the vice president of the American Petroleum
Institute, Jastrow boasted about the impact they were having. “It is generally
considered in the scientific community that the Marshall report was responsible
for the Administration’s opposition to carbon taxes and restrictions on fossil
fuel consumption.” Quoting New Scientist magazine, he described the report
as “the controlling influence in the White House.”17
At the same time, leaders of governments and NGOs were finalizing plans
to convene in Rio de Janeiro for the UN Earth Summit. In June 1992, 108
heads of state, 2400 representatives of non-governmental organizations and
more than 10,000 on-site journalists began to converge in the Brazilian metro-
pole, yet it was unclear whether the US President would attend. At the last
minute, George H.W. Bush flew to Rio de Janeiro to sign the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which committed its
signatories to preventing “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the cli-
mate system.”18 President Bush then pledged to translate the written docu-
ment into “concrete action to protect the planet.”19 By March 1994, 192
countries had signed on to the Framework Convention, and it came into force.
Like the Vienna Convention on Ozone-depleting Chemicals, the Framework
Convention on Climate Change had no real teeth: it set no binding limits on
emissions. It was an agreement in principle not in practice. Real limits would
be determined later, in a protocol that would be eventually signed in Kyoto,
Japan (just as the Vienna Convention was backed up by the Montreal Protocol).
With the threat that real limitations would soon be enforced, the merchants of
doubt redoubled their efforts.

14.4   Discrediting Ben Santer, Derailing Rio

Despite the best efforts of Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg to prevent it, the
scientific debate over the detection of global warming was reaching closure.
A key element was something called “detection and attribution studies.”
These studies work by considering how warming caused by greenhouse gases
might be different from warming caused by the sun or other natural forces.
These studies spoke directly to the issue of causality: to the social question of
whether or not humans were to blame, and to the regulatory question of
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 153

whether or not greenhouse gases need to be controlled. As these studies

began to appear in the peer-reviewed literature, the contrarians began to
challenge them.
The lead author of the IPCC chapter on detection and attribution was a
young scientist named Benjamin Santer of the Program for Climate Model
Diagnosis and Inter-comparison at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. Santer had the good fortune to arrive at the lab not only in the
middle of one of the first major model intercomparison projects but also at a
time when Livermore colleagues Karl Taylor and Joyce Penner were perform-
ing an innovative set of climate model experiments that considered not only
greenhouses gases, which cause warming, but also sulfate aerosol particles,
which generally cause cooling. The Taylor and Penner experiments clearly
showed that human influences on climate were complex: changes in carbon
dioxide and sulfate aerosols had distinctly different climate fingerprints.
Fingerprinting proved to be a powerful tool for studying cause and effect
relationships. Up to that point, much of the scientific argument about the
causes of climate change had gone like this: if greenhouse gases increased, then
you would expect temperatures to increase, too. They had. So, the prediction
had come true. Textbook scientific method. The problem with the textbook
method, however, is that it is logically fallacious. Just because a prediction
comes true does not mean the hypothesis that generated it is correct. Other
causes could produce the same effect. To prove that greenhouse gases had
caused climate change, you would have to find some aspect of it that was dif-
ferent than if the cause were the sun or volcanoes. You needed a pattern that
was unique.
V. Ramanathan, a prominent atmospheric scientist, had suggested one: the
vertical structure of temperature.20 If warming were caused by the sun, then
you would expect the whole atmosphere to warm up. If warming were caused
by greenhouse gases, however, the effect on the atmosphere would be differ-
ent. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) so
it warms up, while the reduced heat flow into the upper atmosphere causes it
(the stratosphere) to cool. Collaborating with colleagues at the Max Planck
Institute and six other research institutions around the world, Santer started to
look at the vertical variation of temperature.21 Before they had finished the
work, Santer was asked to become the convening lead author for the Detection
and Attribution chapter of the second IPCC assessment. Soon after, Santer
submitted his results to Nature. The data clearly showed that the troposphere
was warming but the stratosphere was not. It was the fingerprint of human-­
made climate change.
Santer presented this work to his IPCC colleagues in the summer of 1994.22
The presentation electrified the audience—it was “mind-boggling,” in the
words of one of those present.23 And so, the final report of the IPCC would
conclude: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human impact” on
the global climate.24 “In an important shift of scientific judgment, experts
advising the world’s governments on climate change are saying for the first
154 N. ORESKES ET AL.

time that human activity is a likely cause of the warming of the global atmo-
sphere,” the New York Times declared on its front page.25 This, of course, was
not quite right. Scientists had been saying for a long time that human activity
was a likely cause of warming. They were now saying that it was demonstrated.
The New York Times did not get it. But the skeptics did, and they went on the
attack.
The Republican majority in the US Congress launched the first strike. In a
set of hearings in November, they questioned the scientific basis for concern.
The star witness was another well-known contrarian, Patrick J. Michaels, who
had completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1979,
building models relating climate change to crop yields. In 1980, he was
appointed State Climatologist of Virginia by Republican governor John
Dalton (although, many years later, Michaels was forced to forgo that title
when it was shown that Dalton had acted without legal authority).26 In the
1980s, Michaels had published scientific work on the climate sensitivity of
various crops and ecosystems, but by the early 1990s he was mainly known not
for mainstream science but his efforts to discredit it.27 Among other things,
Michaels had previously joined with physicist Fred Singer, a colleague of
Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg, in publicly attacking the mainstream scientific
view of ozone depletion.28 He also produced a quarterly newsletter called the
World Climate Review, funded at least in part by fossil fuel interests, which he
now used as a platform to attack mainstream climate science. The report was
circulated free to members of the Society for Environmental Journalism,
ensuring that its claims got wide attention.29 Michaels was also working as a
consultant to the coal industry to promote the idea that burning fossil fuels
was good, because it would lead to higher crop yields as increased atmospheric
carbon dioxide led to increased photosynthesis and therefore increased agri-
cultural productivity.30 Republicans seeking to block action on climate turned
to Michaels.
It was not exactly news by late 1995 that the Republican Congressional
leadership opposed environmental protection: there had been discussion that
year of repealing the Clean Water Act, one of the cornerstones of US environ-
mental protection. So, the hearing was designed to buttress the Republican
majority’s claim that no action on climate was needed. Writing to Seitz after
the hearing, Nierenberg said, “I doubt that Congress will do anything foolish.
I can also tell you that at least one high-level corporate advisor is advising
boards that the issue is politically dead. Happy holiday.”31
The next step was an assault on the IPCC. In a letter to the journal Science
on February 2, 1996, four months before formal release of the IPCC report,
Singer claimed that the Summary for Policymakers ignored satellite data that
showed “no warming at all, but actually a slight cooling.” The IPCC had vio-
lated one of its “major rules” by including the fingerprinting work, because
“the research had not yet, to my knowledge, appeared in the peer-reviewed
literature.” The panel had also ignored an “authoritative US government
report” that had found the twenty-first-century warming might be as little as
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 155

0.5 °C, making global warming a non-problem. (Singer did not cite the report.)
Finally, he concluded, “The mystery is why some insist in making it into a
problem, a crisis, or a catastrophe—‘the greatest global challenge facing
mankind.’”32
Santer’s co-author Tom Wigley responded to Singer’s criticisms in March.
Rejecting the “no warming” claim entirely, he simply stated: “[T]his is not
supported by the data; the trend from 1946 to 1995 is 0.3°C. As shown in
chapter 8 of the full report (figure 8.4) there is no inconsistency between the
observed temperature record and model simulations.” There were some differ-
ences between measurements made with satellites and measurements made
with “radiosondes”—instruments on balloons, with radios attached to transmit
the results—but climate scientists did not expect them to perfectly track each
other; the reasons were explained in chapters three and eight of the IPCC
work. “There are good physical reasons to expect differences between these
two climate indicators,” Wigley noted, because they were in different places
measuring somewhat different things.
Wigley also refuted the claim that the pattern recognition studies violated
the IPCC’s rules. The IPCC allowed use of material from outside the peer-­
reviewed journals as long as it was accessible to reviewers. This was to ensure
the report was “up to date” when published. Moreover, the specific work
Singer referred to, “on the increasing correlation between the expected
greenhouse-­aerosol pattern and observed temperature changes, is in the peer-­
reviewed literature.”33 Singer was either dishonest or misinformed.
Moreover, Singer had misrepresented what the IPCC had said. “Singer
refers to the [Summary for Policymakers] as saying that global warming is ‘the
greatest global challenge facing mankind.’” But the IPCC had not said that,
Wigley and his co-authors explained: “We do not know the origin of this state-
ment—it does not appear in any of the IPCC documents … [I]t is the sort of
extreme statement that most involved with the IPCC would not support.”34 In
short, Singer was putting words into other people’s mouths, and then using
those words to attempt to discredit them.
The IPCC had contracted with Cambridge University Press to publish the
Working Group 1 report, scheduled to appear in the USA in June 1996. In
May, Santer and Wigley presented their chapter at a briefing in the Rayburn
House Office Building on Capitol Hill, organized by the American
Meteorological Society (AMS) and the US Global Change Research Program.
The scientists were now challenged by William O’Keefe of the Global Climate
Coalition—a fossil fuel industry trade association—and by Donald Pearlman, a
fossil fuel industry lobbyist and registered “foreign agent” of several oil-­
producing nations.35 O’Keefe and Pearlman accused them of “secretly altering
the IPCC report, suppressing dissent by other scientists, and eliminating refer-
ences to scientific uncertainties.”36
“Who made these changes to the chapter? Who authorized these changes?
Why were they made?” Pearlman demanded to know. “Pearlman got up and in
my face, turned beet red and [started] screaming at me,” Santer recalls.
156 N. ORESKES ET AL.

Anthony Socci, an official at the AMS, “finally separated us, but Pearlman kept
following me around.”37 Santer explained that he had been required by IPCC
procedures to make the changes in response to the government comments and
author review, and the chapter had never been out of his control. But the truth
did not satisfy the opposition.38
O’Keefe’s Global Climate Coalition meanwhile had circulated a report enti-
tled “The IPCC: Institutionalized Scientific Cleansing” to reporters, members
of Congress, and some scientists. By chance, anthropologist Myanna Lahsen
interviewed Nierenberg about his “skepticism” about global warming two
weeks before the Working Group 1 report was published, and found that he
had a copy of the Coalition report. He had evidently accepted its veracity, even
though there was no way to compare its claims against the real chapter eight
(since the latter had not yet been released). He quoted its claims to Lahsen,
telling her that the revisions had “just altered the whole meaning of the docu-
ment. Without permission of the authors.” Moreover, he claimed, “Anything
that would imply the current status of knowledge is so poor that you can’t do
anything is struck out.”39 That was preposterous: Santer’s panel had included
six pages of discussion of uncertainty in the final text.
Then Seitz took the attack to the national media. In a letter published in the
Wall Street Journal on June 12, 1996, he accused Santer of fraud. “In my more
than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community, including my
services as president of the National Academy of Sciences and the American
Physical Society, I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the
peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.” Seitz
repeated the Global Climate Coalition’s charges that unauthorized changes to
the report had been made after its acceptance in Madrid. “Few of these changes
were merely cosmetic; nearly all worked to remove hints of the skepticism with
which many scientists regard claims that human activities are having a major
impact on climate in general and on global warming in particular,” Seitz
claimed. If the IPCC could not follow its own procedures, he concluded, it
should be abandoned and governments should look for “more reliable sources
of advice to governments on this important question.”40
Presumably, he meant the Marshall Institute.
Santer immediately drafted a letter to the Journal, which forty of the other
IPCC lead authors signed. At first the Journal would not publish it. After three
attempts, Santer finally got a reply from the Journal’s letters editor; the letter
was finally published on June 25. Santer’s letter had been heavily edited, and
the names of the forty co-signers deleted.
What the Wall Street Journal allowed Santer to explain was that he had
simply been required to make the changes “in response to written review
comments received in October and November 1995 from governments,
individual scientists, and non-government organizations during plenary
sessions of the Madrid meeting.” This was peer review—the very process
that Seitz, as a research scientist, had been a part of all his life—only it was
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 157

even more extensive and inclusive than ordinary peer review, since it
included comments and queries from governments and NGOs as well as
scientific experts. But the changes did not affect the “bottom line conclu-
sion.” Santer also pointed out that Seitz was not a climate scientist, had not
been involved in creating the IPCC report, had not attended the meeting
where the proposed changes were discussed, and had not seen the hundreds
of review comments to which Santer had to respond. In other words, his
claims were hearsay, at best.41
Bert Bolin and Sir John Houghton also responded with a long letter defend-
ing Santer and the IPCC process. “Frederick Seitz’s article is completely with-
out foundation,” they replied unequivocally. “It makes serious allegations
about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and about the scien-
tists who have contributed to its work which have no basis in fact. Mr. Seitz
does not state the source of his material, and we note for the record that he did
not check his facts either with the IPCC officers or with any of the scientists
involved.”42
Well, that is what they had wanted it to say, but the Journal edited that state-
ment out, too, along with three more paragraphs explaining the drafting pro-
cess in some detail. The Journal allowed them to say only that in

accordance with IPCC Procedures, the changes to the draft of Chapter 8 were
under the full scientific control of its convening Lead Author, Benjamin Santer.
No one could have been more thorough and honest in undertaking that task. As
the responsible officers of the IPCC, we are completely satisfied that the changes
incorporated in the revised version were made with the sole purpose of producing
the best possible and most clearly explained assessment of the science and were
not in any way motivated by any political or other considerations.43

We know exactly how the Journal edited the letters because Seitz’s attack
and the Journal’s weakening of the response so offended the officials of the
AMS and of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
that their boards agreed to publish an “Open Letter to Ben Santer” in the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The AMS republished the let-
ters in their entirety, showing how the Journal had edited them. They voiced
their support of Santer and the effort it had taken all the authors to put the
report together, and categorically rejected Seitz’s attack as having “no place in
the scientific debate about issues related to global change.”44 They began,
slowly, to realize what they were up against.

[There] “appear[ed] to be a concerted and systematic effort by some individuals

to undermine and discredit the scientific process that has led many scientists
working on understanding climate to conclude that there is a very real possibility
that humans are modifying Earth’s climate on a global scale. Rather than carrying
out a legitimate scientific debate through the peer-reviewed literature, they are
waging in the public media a vocal campaign against scientific results with which
they disagree.”45
158 N. ORESKES ET AL.

But the attack was far from over. On July 11, the Wall Street Journal pub-
lished three more letters reprising the charges, one from Fred Seitz, one from
Fred Singer, and one from retired physicist Hugh Elsaesser. Singer and Seitz
simply repeated the charges they had already made; Singer also took the oppor-
tunity to turn the IPCC’s caution against it. The IPCC had bent over back-
ward to be judicious, arguing at length to choose just the right, reasonable,
adjective—“discernible.” Singer dismissed the IPCC conclusion as “feeble,” at
the same time insisting paradoxically that it was being used to frighten politi-
cians into believing that a climate catastrophe is about to happen.46
Santer and Bolin responded a second time to the attacks in letters that the
Journal published July 23, prompting another attack by Singer.47 This time,
the Journal would not publish it; Singer circulated it by email instead. Santer
responded by email, too. Singer claimed that there was no “evidence for a cur-
rent warming trend.” According to Singer, chapter eight had been based pri-
marily on Santer’s “unpublished work,” and the panel should have included as
a lead author “Professor Patrick J. Michaels, who, at the time, had published
the only refereed paper on the subject” of climate fingerprinting. And he
repeated the charge of “scientific cleansing.” Santer rejected all of Singer’s
charges. Chapter eight was based on more than 130 references, not just Santer’s
two papers. The claim that Michaels had published the only “refereed paper on
the subject” of pattern-based recognition before mid-1995 was incorrect:
Hasselmann’s theoretical paper on the subject had been published in 1979,
and Tim Barnett and Mike Schlesinger had published a “real-world” finger-
print study as early as 1987. Michaels had been invited to be a contributing
author to chapter eight but had refused. Finally, Santer noted, chapter eight
contained several paragraphs discussing Michaels’ paper, but when Wigley had
approached Michaels for comments, “Prof. Michaels did not respond.”48
Singer’s claims were not only false but had been shown to be false. Still, he
was not finished repeating them. Joined by Bill Nierenberg, Patrick Michaels,
and a new ally—MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen—Singer then attacked
the AMS/UCAR Open Letter. After repeating the refuted charges of “sub-
stantial and substantive” deletions of uncertainty, Singer cast the deletions as a
conspiracy that Santer was now trying to cover up. “Santer … has not been
forthcoming in revealing who instructed him to make such revisions and who
approved them after they were made. He has, however, told others privately
that he was asked [prevailed upon?] to do so by IPCC co-chairman John
Houghton.” Singer continued, “You may not have seen the 15 November
[1995] letter from the State Department instructing Dr. Houghton to ‘prevail
upon’ chapter authors ‘to modify their texts in an appropriate manner follow-
ing discussion in Madrid.’” To Singer and his collaborators, this was evidence
of political meddling in the chapter. His presentation of it as some sort of clan-
destine conspiracy was also absurd. By the time this letter was published in
January 1997, Bolin and Houghton had already identified themselves months
before as the source of Santer’s instructions to revise the chapter and explained
that it was a required procedure.
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 159

One might dismiss this whole story as infighting within the scientific com-
munity, except that the Marshall Institute claims were taken seriously in the
Bush White House, and their claims were published in the Wall Street Journal,
where they would have been read by millions of educated people, and influ-
enced American public opinion. Members of Congress also took them seri-
ously. Proposing a bill to reduce climate research funding by more than a third
in 1995, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher called it “trendy science that is
propped up by liberal/left politics rather than good science.”49 And in 1997,
the US Senate voted 95–0 to reject the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change.50 Scientifically, global warming
was an established fact. Politically, in the USA, global warming was dead.

14.5   How Disinformation Took Hold

Over the next twenty years, disinformation about climate science would be
spread far and wide. In July 2003, Senator James Inhofe called global warming
“the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”51 In 2007, vice
president Richard Cheney commented in a television interview, “Where there
does not appear to be a consensus, where it begins to break down, is the extent
to which that’s part of a normal cycle versus the extent to which it’s caused by
man, greenhouse gases, et cetera,” exactly the question Santer had answered a
decade before.52 And throughout the late 1990s and through the 2000s, polls
consistently showed that a very large proportion of the American public—
including more than half of all Republicans—thought that scientists were still
arguing about the reality of human-made climate change.
How did such a small group come to have such a powerful voice?
Seitz, Jastrow, Nierenberg, and Singer had access to power—all the way to
the White House—by virtue of their positions as physicists who had won the
Cold War. They used this power to support their political agenda, even though
it meant attacking science and their fellow scientists, and evidently believed
that their larger end justified their means. Perhaps this, too, was part of their
professional legacy. During the Manhattan Project and throughout the Cold
War, for security reasons many scientists had to hide the true nature of their
work. All weapons projects were secret, but so were many other projects that
deal with rocketry, missile launching and targeting, navigation, underwater
acoustics, marine geology, bathymetry, seismology, weather modification; the
list goes on and on.53 These secret projects frequently had “cover stories” that
scientists could share with colleagues, friends, and families, and sometimes the
cover stories were true in part. But they were not the whole truth, and some-
times they were not true at all. After the Cold War, most scientists were relieved
to be freed of the burdens of secrecy and misrepresentation, but Seitz, Singer,
and Nierenberg continued to misrepresent science if it served their ends.
Perhaps after four decades of telling lies to serve a greater good, they had
become used to it. After all, during the Cold War, it was necessary; perhaps
they similarly justified it as necessary now.
160 N. ORESKES ET AL.

But the story of American rejection of climate science goes far beyond the
efforts of a small group of anti-environmentalists. During the early 1980s, anti-­
environmentalism had also taken root in a network of conservative and liber-
tarian think-tanks in Washington. These think-tanks—which included the
CATO Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation,
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and, of course, the Marshall Institute—
variously promoted business interests and “free market” economic policies,
and the rollback of environmental, health, safety, and labor protections. They
were supported by donations from businessmen, corporations, and like-minded
conservative foundations.54
Much of the funding for these groups came from the fossil fuel industry.
One of the most important of these funders was Exxon Mobil. In 2006, the
UK Royal Society identified thirty-nine different organizations promoting dis-
information about climate science that had received funds from the corporate
giant, and wrote a letter asking them to cease and desist such funding.55 In
2015, the non-profit news group Inside Climate News documented in fine
detail that even while Exxon Mobil was casting doubt in public about the reli-
ability of climate science, in private they were well aware of its robustness.
Indeed, the reporters found that during the 1970s and into the 1980s, Exxon
Mobil had funded some early but important climate change research, cooper-
ating with scientists at the US Department of Energy and leading universities.56
But as potential regulation of fossil fuels began to be discussed, the company
shifted its emphasis toward disinformation and denial. It joined the Global
Climate Coalition, and became a major donor to the think-tank network that
the Royal Society would later identify, spending more than $22 million between
1998 and 2004.57 Recipients of Exxon’s largess included the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage
Foundation: all economically libertarian in outlook, all promoting environ-
mental skepticism.
This network of right-wing foundations, the corporations that fund them,
and the journalists who echo their claims throughout the US media landscape
created an enormous problem for US science. One academic study found that
of the fifty-six “environmentally skeptical” books published in the 1990s, 92%
were linked to these right-wing foundations (only thirteen were published in
the 1980s, and 100% were linked to the foundations).58 Science and scientists
faced an ongoing rewriting of history that branded them as public enemies:
communists, conspirators, even mass murderers.
There are many ironies in this story, but the most profound is the way in
which self-appointed defenders of liberty adopted the tactics of totalitarianism.
One of the great heroes of the anti-communist political right—and of the clear-
est, most reasoned voices against the risks of oppressive government, in gen-
eral—is George Orwell, whose famous novel 1984 portrayed a government
that manufactured fake histories to support its political program.59 Orwell
coined the term “memory hole” to denote a system that destroyed inconve-
nient facts, and “Newspeak” for a language designed to constrain thought
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 161

within politically acceptable bounds. The network of US climate denial became

a memory hole into which the facts of both science and history disappeared.
The mass media played a role, as well, as a wide spectrum of the media—not
just unabashedly conservative newspapers like the Washington Times but main-
stream outlets, too—felt obligated to treat the think-tanks on a par with
research scientists. Journalists were pressured to grant the professional deniers
equal status—and equal time and newsprint space—and they did. Eugene
Linden, once an environment reporter for Time magazine, commented in his
book Winds of Change that “members of the media found themselves hounded
by experts who conflated scientific diffidence with scientific uncertainty, and
who wrote outraged letters to the editor when a report didn’t include their
dissent.”60 Editors succumbed to this pressure, and reporting on climate in the
USA became biased toward the skeptics and deniers because of it.

14.6   The Debate in Europe

In Germany (and Switzerland), the public greenhouse debate began earlier and
had a different effect on politics, to conclude from a sociological analysis by
Peter Weingart and colleagues in 2000.61 A group of concerned scientists,
including Wilfried Bach, Hans Oeschger, and Hermann Flohn, had already
initiated discussion within the scientific community by the 1970s. Flohn in
particular issued a prophetic warning published in a German scientific journal,
which had little effect at the time: “The [greenhouse] problem … is not a topic
for an election campaign on the short-sighted time-scale of politics. It threat-
ens the future of the children and grandchildren on the earth as a whole.”62 A
“working group on energy” in 1986 was more successful. Their public warning
that “the emission of greenhouse gases should urgently be reduced to avoid a
climate disaster” was picked up by the opinion-leading magazine Der Spiegel
under the heading “Die Klimakatastrophe” (“The Climate Catastrophe”). It
became the buzzword for the entire discourse in the German-speaking world
for the next thirty years, and the article illustration (Fig. 14.1) became an icon.
Eventually, politicians in Germany and other European countries framed poli-
cies to reduce greenhouse gases at both the national and the international
levels.
In Weingart’s analysis, the character of environmental risk communication
differs among science, politics, and the media. In this framework, it falls to
scientists to suggest options for problem-solving by producing reliable
knowledge. Fearful of losing their credibility, scientists tend to emphasize
­
uncertainties. Politicians have to frame issues as a problem that can be solved
by political decision-making. However, making decisions based on uncertain
scientific foundations risks losing votes and power. The media cannot effec-
tively communicate uncertainties. In order to keep their public and their mar-
ket share, they need to convert complex interrelations into simple causalities.
In both Germany and Switzerland, the political system created specific path-
ways of problem-solving. These focused on the role of scientific advisory ­bodies
162 N. ORESKES ET AL.

Fig. 14.1 Front cover of the magazine Der Spiegel 33/August 11, 1986. The photo-
montage shows the Cologne cathedral half under water as a result of sea-level
rise. Credit: ©1986 Der Spiegel. Reproduced with permission of Der Spiegel

and the creation of institutes to study the issue from both a scientific and policy
perspective. The German government founded the Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research in 1992 as an advisory body on climatic change; the
Swiss Academy of Sciences, supported by the federal government, established
an official Advisory Body on Climate Change (OCCC) in 1996, composed of
a network of researchers in universities and the administration. Since 1988, this
network has also set up a specific interface with the news media named Proclim.
Something similar occurred in the UK, with the establishment in 2000 of the
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.63
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 163

Discussions between “skeptics” and experts fueled by popular lay books and
movies were and are still waged in the (social) media. The issue of climate
change is so complex and seemingly inconsistent with personal experience that
many people even in Europe have turned to the kind of simplistic mono-causal
explanations offered by skeptics.64 However, the skeptics’ impact on political
decision-making in Europe has been marginal. Climate skepticism is not wide-
spread in Britain.65 Prominent American skeptics tried in vain in 1994 to influ-
ence European climate policy through the creation of a European Science and
Environment Forum (ESEF), but it was ultimately dissolved in 2005.66
Likewise, the European offices of the Nongovernmental International Panel
on Climate Change (NIPCC) never achieved any political relevance.
Unlike that in the USA, climate skepticism in Europe has not relied on
industry funding. Its support has come from individuals of different back-
grounds—including journalists, geologists, physicists, and meteorologists—
whose personal or political worldviews and interests clash with the consequences
of accepting human-made climate change. One of the best-known European
skeptics has been Danish statistician Björn Lomborg, who initiated many dis-
cussions on climate policy with his books The Skeptical Environmentalist and
Cool It.67 Lomborg first downplayed the importance of climate change and
subsequently criticized climate policies. Yet he gradually underwent a remark-
able change of opinion. In 2010, in interviews with newspapers, he admitted
the importance of climate change and asked for specific actions, such as a car-
bon dioxide tax, investments in renewable energy, and research on
geo-engineering.68
In Germany, the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources
even published climate skeptic reports; and German coal companies played a
role in some US-based skeptical activities. These included the production in
the 1990s of a film, The Greening of Planet Earth, which claimed that increased
atmospheric carbon dioxide would be a net benefit to society because of its
(alleged) positive impact on agricultural productivity.69
Skeptics in Europe have not organized political and media institutions like
those in the USA, with the exception of the European Institute for Climate and
Energy (EIKE). Lobbying by interest groups within the political process has
been more effective in preventing climate action, at least in Austria.70 Although
less organized, the activities and especially the content of skeptic articles in the
media—supported by skeptical or conservative journalists—are still occasion-
ally included in political discussion by conservative politicians and parties. In
France, well-known climate skeptics have acted as political advisors to conser-
vative parties. However, even in Austria, climate skepticism has only played a
minor role in public discussion, as the research project on skepticism
(CONTRA) has shown; and in Germany, it appears mainly among politically
inactive people.71 In the Czech Republic, one climate skeptic (Vaclav Klaus)
served as prime minister and for many years as state president, but his influence
on European climate policy was negligible.
164 N. ORESKES ET AL.

14.7   The Debate in Australia

In Australia, there have been dramatic and frequent changes in public debate
and government policy on climate change over the last three decades.72 In
1987, the government research agency CSIRO ran a major conference on the
topic. The resulting book, Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change, demon-
strated the breadth of Australian research on climate change science and
impacts.73 In 1990, prior to the establishment of the UNFCCC, the Australian
Government announced a target of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emis-
sions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, with the proviso this should be at no
cost to the economy.74 Soon after, in 1992, Australia ratified the UNFCCC.75
During the 1990s, developed countries faced growing expectations to com-
mit to emission reductions under the UNFCCC. At the same time, mining
industries and the business sector lobbied that any emissions reductions in
Australia should not impact the economy.76 The mining industry supported a
climate change denier group, the Lavoisier Group, to question the scientific
evidence on human-caused climate change. Their members included a small
group of Australian scientists, including Bob Carter, Bill Kininmonth, Garth
Paltridge, and Ian Plimer, all of whom regularly contributed opinion pieces to
newspapers to spread doubt about the science.77 Carter also testified in the US
Congress, making the misleading claim that observed increases in carbon diox-
ide followed—rather than preceded—increases in temperature, and therefore
could not have caused them.
In 2007, there was a change of government in Australia while a long-term
drought affected the country. The new government was committed to act on
climate change by introducing an emissions trading system. This commitment
provoked even stronger action from industry and the media to combat the
scheme, and led to the establishment of a new climate change denial group, the
Galileo Movement.78 This outfit involved the same Australian climate change
deniers as the Lavoisier Group but with better funding, including support from
the Heartland Foundation in the USA, and advice from American climate
change deniers, including Tim Ball, Dick Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, and Fred
Singer.
Despite these efforts, a national pricing mechanism on greenhouse gas emis-
sions was eventually introduced in 2012. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. media
actively campaigned against this carbon price and for a change of government.79
This change took place in 2013, and the carbon price was revoked. The new
government strongly supported the coal industry, with Prime Minister Tony
Abbott stating that coal was “good for humanity.”80
Yet another shift in climate policy occurred in mid-2015, when Tony Abbott
was removed as prime minister by his party, and a more moderate leader,
Malcolm Turnbull, was elected. At the Paris UNFCCC meeting in December
2015, Turnbull committed Australia to meet an emissions reduction target of
26–28% below 2005 levels by 2030. At present, Australia is the only country
to have successfully introduced a national carbon price, and then abandoned it.
It remains to be seen whether it will be reintroduced.
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 165

14.8   Conclusion
In 2015, world leaders gathered once more, this time in Paris, to try to forge an
effective international agreement to control the greenhouse gases that are driving
disruptive climate change. The meeting resulted in an accord by nearly 200 coun-
tries to act decisively to control climate change.81 The agreement affirms that
“climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human
societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all
countries, and their participation in an effective and appropriate international
response, with a view to accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas
emissions.” It recognizes “that deep reductions in global emissions will be
required in order to achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention,” which to
is to maintain climate change to below 2 °C, and to strive to keep it below 1.5 °C.
But in 2017, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, and
declared the US intention to withdraw from the Paris agreement. He also
appointed known climate change deniers to major government positions, includ-
ing Secretary of Energy and head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The impacts of President Trump’s decisions are not yet clear. But even if the
US returns to the international fold, climate change denial and resistance to
action has led to significant delay in acting on the intentions expressed at Rio
in 1992. And that delay has been costly. In 1988, atmospheric carbon dioxide
was just about 350 parts per million—now it is over 400. Many aspects of cli-
mate change that were still just predictions in 1988 are now observed facts.
The Arctic is melting at an accelerating rate; within our lifetime, there may be
no summer Arctic ice. Greenland and the West Antarctic are also melting, and
some scientists think that the great stores of ice in the West Antarctic are now
certain to disintegrate, possibly within the foreseeable future, bringing meters—
if not tens of meters—of sea-level rise. Heat waves, droughts, floods, fires, and
other extreme events have worsened. Coral reefs are threatened. Many species
have already changed their geographic distribution. The list of consequences is
long and sobering.
Will we act to stop climate change before it brings more disasters? Will we
prevent the “Klima-Katastrophe”? No one knows. But there is no question that
resistance—particularly US resistance—to acting on climate change has sub-
stantially contributed to the delay in achieving meaningful global action. And
because of this delay, at best, the job is going to be much harder and much
costlier than it needed to be. And at worst—well, that hardly bears discussing.

Notes
1. Roach, 2004.
2. Solomon et al., 2007, 8.
3. Oreskes, 2004, 1686.
4. Time, March 26, 2006. Contrast this with the results of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report, which states unequivocally
that average global temperatures have risen. IPCC, 2001.
166 N. ORESKES ET AL.

5. Langer, 2006. For a related poll, see also Pew Center, July 12, 2006.
6. Fleming, 1998, 2007; Weart, 2008.
7. Kerr, 1989, 1041–43.
8. Jastrow et al., 1990.
9. Roberts, 1989, 992–93.
10. Roberts, 1989, 992–93.
11. Roberts, 1989, 992–93.
12. Houghton et al., 1990; see also Weisskopf and Booth, May 26, 1990, 1.
13. Houghton et al., 1990, 63.
14. Bolin, 2007, 72; Nierenberg described the Marshall Institute’s estimate as cli-
mate sensitive (1991, 10).
15. Deborah Day, personal communication with Naomi Oreskes 2008.
16. Bill Kristol to Sam Skinner et al., Attachment—Chart B, April 23, 1992, Jeffrey
Holmstead, file “Global Warming Implications,” OA/ID CF01875, Counsels
Office, George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, College Station, Texas.
17. Robert Jastrow to Terry Yosle, February 22, 1991, WAN papers, Accession
2001-01, 60: file label “Marshall Institute Correspondence, 1990–1992,” SIO
Archives.
18. United Nations, 1992; “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change,” UNFCC, http://unfccc.int/2860.php (accessed July 4, 2009).
19. Bush, 1993, 924–25.
20. Ramanathan, 1988, 293–99.
21. Santer et al., 1994, 267–85, 1995, 10693–726, 1996, 77–100; Santer and
Taylor, 1996, 39–46.
22. Santer and Taylor, 1996, 39–46; Santer writes: “I checked on this. We submit-
ted our paper to Nature in April 1995.” Benjamin Santer, email communication
with Naomi Oreskes, October 4, 2009; Santer, interview with Conway, February
20, 2009; Houghton, 1996.
23. Michael Oppenheimer as quoted in Stevens, 1999.
24. IPCC Second Assessment Report; Bolin, 2007.
25. Stevens, 1999; Stevens, September 10, 1995.
26. Jaquith, August 10, 2006.
27. Michaels, 1984, 143–56, 1983, 1296–303.
28. Michaels, 1991, 1992.
29. New Hope Environmental Services, http://www.nhes.com/ (accessed October
9, 2009); see discussion in Gelbspan, 1997, 41–43; Oreskes, 2011. According
to Gelbspan, Michaels’ publication started as World Climate Review, then
became World Climate Report.
30. Oreskes, 2011.
31. Bill Nierenberg to Fred Seitz (handwritten), November 27, 1995, WAN papers,
Accession 2001-01, 70: file label “Frederick Seitz, 1994–1995,” SIO Archives;
Schneider and Edwards, 2001, 219–96; Bolin, 2007, 113; Stevens, 1999, 229;
Santer interview with Conway, February 20, 2009.
32. Singer, 1996a.
33. Wigley and Singer, 1996, 1481–82.
34. Wigley and Singer, 1996, 1481–82.
35. Gelbspan, 1997; Leggett, 2001. On Pearlman, see Gelbspan, 1997, 119–20.
36. Stevens, 1999, 231.
37. Santer interview with Conway, February 20, 2009.
 THE DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING 167

38. Santer interview with Conway, February 20, 2009.

39. Lahsen, 1999, 111–36.
40. Seitz, June 12, 1996.
41. Avery et al., 1996, 1961–65.
42. Avery et al., 1996, 1963–65.
43. Avery et al., 1996, 1966.
44. Avery et al., 1996, 1961–65.
45. Avery et al., 1996, 1961; see also Bolin, 2007, 129.
46. Singer, July 11, 1996b; see also letters by Frederick Seitz and Hugh Ellsaesser
in the same section.
47. Santer, July 23, 1996; see also letter by Bert Bolin and John Houghton in the
same section.
48. Gelbspan reprinted this email exchange: Gelbspan, 1997, 230–36.
49. Faxed copy of statement in: Edward Frieman papers, MC 77, 123:7, SIO
Archives; see also Mooney, 2005, 62–64.
50. McCright and Dunlap, 2003; Byrd-Hagel Resolution, July 25, 1997, The
National Center for Public Policy Research, http://www.nationalcenter.org/
KyotoSenate.html (accessed July 1, 2009).
51. James M. Inhofe, “Climate Change Update: Senate Floor Statement by US
Senator James M. Inhofe,” January 4, 2005, Floor Speeches, http://inhofe.­
senate.gov/pressreleases/climateupdate.htm (accessed February 19, 2007).
52. Cheney, 2007.
53. Seidel, 1995; Edwards, 1996; Sontag et al., 1998; Craven, 2001; Westwick,
2003; Oreskes, forthcoming.
54. Hays and Hays, 1987, 491. Rothman prefers to call it a backlash: Rothman,
2000, 158.
55. https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2006/royal-society-exx-
onmobil/; https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/­policy/
publications/2006/8257.pdf.
56. Banerjee et al., 2015.
57. http://exxonsecrets.org/em.php, accessed November 1, 2015.
58. Jacques et al., 2008, 349–85.
59. Orwell, 1949.
60. Linden, 2006, 222–23.
61. Weingart et al., 2000.
62. Flohn, 1981, 190.
63. Hulme and Turnpenny, 2004.
64. Neu, 2009.
65. Poortinga et al., 2011.
66. Rahmstorf and Schellnhuber, 2007; http://www.tobaccotactics.org/index.
php/European_Science_and_Environment_Forum.
67. Lomborg, 2001, 2007.
68. Jowit, 2010.
69. Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, 2004; Oreskes, 2011.
70. Brand and Pawloff, 2014.
71. CONTRA, http://projects.fas.at/CONTRA/; Engels et al., 2013.
72. Talberg et al., 2015; Hamilton, 2007.
73. Pearman, 1988.
74. Talberg et al., 2015.
75. Talberg et al., 2015.
168 N. ORESKES ET AL.

76. Hamilton, 2007.

77. Lavoisier Group, http://www.lavoisier.com.au/index.php; Enting, 2011.
78. Galileo Movement, http://www.galileomovement.com.au/galileo_movement.
php.
79. Manne, 2011.
80. Pearse et al., 2013.
81. https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf.

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 PART II

Historical Climatology: Periods and

Regions
 CHAPTER 15

The Holocene

John L. Brooke

15.1   Introduction
Human history has been fundamentally shaped by the climate of the Holocene,
the warm interval since the last ice age. The Holocene encompasses roughly
the past 12,000 years, during which human societies emerged from hunter-­
gatherer origins, developed agriculture, and then cities and states. On a global
scale, the Holocene is divided into three broad phases: the Early Holocene
(from the end of the Younger Dryas Period to c. 6200 bce), the Middle
Holocene (c. 6200–3000 bce), and the Late Holocene (since c. 3000 bce).
However, European Holocene climates are traditionally broken into five peri-
ods: Preboreal (9700–8500 bce), Boreal (8500–5700 bce), Atlantic
(5700–3700 bce), Subboreal (3700–600 bce), and Subatlantic (600 bce–pres-
ent). This chapter provides a general overview of origins and trajectory of
Holocene climates and their role in shaping the human condition, particularly
before around 3000 bce.

15.2   The Early Holocene

The Holocene is only the most recent warm interglacial period since the
Pleistocene ice ages began about 2.6 million years ago. There have been eight
similar interglacials in the last 800,000 years. Patterns in the Earth’s orbit
around the sun—the famous Milankovitch cycles—affect the impact of solar
radiation on the Earth’s surface. These include cycles in the “eccentricity” (or
stretch) of Earth’s orbit, the “obliquity” (or tilt) of Earth’s axis, and the “pre-
cession” (or wobble) of Earth’s axis. Taken together, these cycles influence

J. L. Brooke (*)
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 175

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_15
176 J. L. BROOKE

how much solar radiation the Earth receives during different seasons. Operating
at multiple timescales (100,000, 41,000, and 23,000 years, respectively) and
working in complex feedback loops with each other and with land-surface and
atmospheric conditions, these orbital cycles have been the dominant large-scale
climate forcing agents during the past million years.1
The warmest period of the Holocene—the “Holocene Thermal
Maximum” of around 9000–5000 bce—occurred when the Northern
Hemisphere summer lined up with shortest orbital distance to the sun.
However, the transition from the last ice age to the warm Early Holocene
followed a complex oscillation that began around 14,000 years ago. The
warming influences of orbital cycles had to overcome the cooling influences
of glacial meltwater events. Huge bursts of cold fresh water from melting
glaciers poured into the North Atlantic. These outbursts slowed the sinking
of warm salty water that drives the Gulf Stream (the “thermohaline pump”),
and with it, the entire oceanic circulation system. (Such a meltwater event,
improbably sped up to take place in weeks, was featured in the movie The
Day After Tomorrow (2004).) An initial warming known as the Bølling-
Allerød (c. 12,700–10,900 bce) was broken by a major meltwater event
that caused a millennium of near glacial cold, the Younger Dryas period (c.
10,900–9700 bce).2
Following the Younger Dryas, orbital patterns of obliquity and precession
brought a near peak in Northern Hemisphere summer irradiance, setting con-
ditions for the warmest period in Earth’s history in the last 100,000 years.
Global climatic patterns changed. During ice ages, the polar regions generated
intense stormy winters reaching well toward the equator. The Intertropical
Convergence Zone (ICTZ) (the band of convection and rainstorms driven by
direct sunshine in the tropics) and its associated monsoon rains were weaker
and never moved far from the equator. The very warm Northern Hemisphere
summers of the early Holocene reversed these conditions: the ITCZ and its
associated monsoon systems moved well north of the equator every summer,
reaching far into the Middle East and as far as Central Asia, and turning the
Sahara into a green savannah (Fig. 15.1).
A short meltwater event around 8200 bce known as the “Preboreal
Oscillation” brought a brief interruption to the warm Early Holocene. This
draining of a vast glacial lake in Canada brought roughly two centuries of cold
to the Northern Hemisphere. After 7000 bce, the orbital influences of preces-
sion and obliquity and the resulting strong solar insolation began to fade, and
the Northern Hemisphere very slowly began to cool. The entire suite of global
climatic systems shifted south, most importantly the ITCZ and the far reach of
Northern Hemisphere monsoon rains. The South Asian Monsoon gradually
withdrew from the Middle East after 7500 bce. North Atlantic winter wester-
lies shifted south with the advancing polar jet stream, bringing more winter
rain to the Mediterranean and snow to Asia and North America.
 THE HOLOCENE 177

Fig. 15.1 Climate in the Holocene. The transition to Holocene climates was driven by
changing patterns in the Earth’s orbit, which by 18,000 years ago had begun to raise the
level of solar influence, or insolation [A], on the Northern Hemisphere summer. Since the
Northern Hemisphere has the bulk of the Earth’s land mass, and land surface warms faster
than oceans, this rising Northern Hemisphere summer insolation was the Holocene driver.
This warming influence was accelerated by feedbacks with greenhouse gases and, on occa-
sion, suddenly reversed by meltwater events [B], in which fresh glacial waters stopped the
action of the salt-density pump driving ocean circulation. After 9700 bce, these major oscil-
lations ended, and the Early Holocene brought a general increase in Northern Hemisphere
temperature [C]. This rising temperature shaped the northward movement of the
Intertropical Convergence Zone [D] and the African and Asian monsoons [E, F], and
encouraged La Niña conditions of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) [G] across
the Pacific. The northern warmth was interrupted twice by short meltwater events, the
Preboreal event at 8200 bce and the Laurentine event at 6200 bce, manifested in spikes in
the GISP2 glacial and Siberian High proxies [B]. After 7000 bce, as orbital forcing weak-
ened Northern Hemisphere insolation [A], the entire global circulation shifted slowly
south [D] and the monsoons weakened, including a sudden weakening at ~3700 bce in the
case of West Africa [E, F]. Conversely, the ENSO system shifted suddenly toward the El
Niño mode around 3000 bce [G]. Very broadly, the Middle Holocene was shaped by the
waning of this peak northern warmth, running roughly from the seventh millennium to the
fourth millennium bce, followed by the Late Holocene starting in the third millennium bce
178 J. L. BROOKE

15.3   Middle Holocene

The final collapse of the glacial Laurentine ice sheet in Canada around 6200
bce, and the meltwater event that followed, conventionally mark the transition
from the Early to the Middle Holocene. Despite the 6200 bce meltwater crisis
and the slow ongoing retreat of the monsoons, the next two millennia were still
generally a global climate optimum, and Northern Hemisphere temperatures
remained high until roughly 5300 bce.
These conditions came to an end in the fourth millennium bce, a period
sometimes called the Mid-Holocene Crisis or Mid-Holocene Transition, as the
declining orbital forcing of the Earth’s climate system reached a tipping point
toward a cooler Late Holocene world. The intensity of the North African
Monsoon declined and then dropped dramatically around 3700 bce. The cli-
mate of the Mediterranean, which had been quite humid for several thousand
years, turned sharply and permanently drier. In the Americas, the El Niño sys-
tem, which had been essentially switched off during the entire post-glacial
period, became increasingly active from 4000 bce and suddenly peaked around
3000 bce, at exactly the same time as several droughts struck the Levant and
East Africa. North America turned sharply cooler, and glaciers advanced
throughout the world.
Dramatic evidence of the transition into the Late Holocene is now emerging as
glaciers around the world melt under the impact of modern global climate change,
uncovering biological material buried in ice for five millennia. At the Quelccaya
glacier in the Andes, ancient plants buried under glacial advances over 5000 years
ago are emerging as the ice retreats. High in the Tyrolian Alps, an even more dra-
matic find emerged from melting ice: a Neolithic warrior or shaman, now known
as Ötzi, who died of an arrow wound sometime between 3300 and 3100 bce.
It may well be that the Mid-Holocene cooling was shaped by the effects of
both the long-term orbital shift and a millennial-scale super-minimum in solar
activity. Clearly, with the transition to the Late Holocene, the direct action of
solar cycles became a dominant factor in global climatic change. These solar
cycles are caused by convection cycles flowing within the fluid solar dynamo, and
appear on the surface of the sun as sunspots. In recorded history, grain prices
have varied closely with solar cycles, and over the longer term, solar maxima and
minima lasting decades and centuries correlate with periods of general prosperity
and adversity in ancient populations. Volcanic eruptions have been another
important source of Late Holocene climatic variability, emitting high volumes of
sulfates that reflect solar radiation and cool the climate. Volcanic action generally
has effects that last a year or two, but it is possible that extremely large eruptions
may have triggered long-term changes in the climatic system.

15.4   Late Holocene

The final section of this chapter provides a brief overview of long-term
global systems and changes, and the following chapters of this handbook
will provide more detailed reconstructions for different regions and periods
 THE HOLOCENE 179

of Late Holocene climate. Three central elements of the global circulation

system—the Pacific El Niño system, the Northern Hemisphere westerlies,
and the tropical monsoons—appear to have varied in a common pattern.
The warm phase of this Late Holocene pattern presents a weaker version of
conditions during the Early Holocene. During warmer phases, the Northern
Hemisphere summer draws the ITCZ northward, a warmer western Pacific
drives stronger Asian monsoons and creates dry La Niña effects in the
Americas, and finally, a stronger and north-running winter jet stream pulls
strong winter westerly systems to the north. The cooler phases reverse this
pattern, keeping the ITCZ to the south, weakening the Asian Monsoons as
ocean heat shifts to the eastern Pacific and drives strong El Niños, and
finally shifting the winter westerlies slightly to the south, which brings more
winter rain and snow to otherwise arid mid latitudes.
On three occasions over the last 6000 years, powerful outbursts of
extreme winter weather have dominated the Northern Hemisphere: around
4000–3000 bce, around 1200–700 bce, and around 1400–1700 ce (see
Fig. 15.2). These “neoglacials”—manifested in extremes in the winter
Siberian High, as measured by the volume of Asian dust chemistry in the
Greenland ice cores—are aligned with, and appear to have been caused by,
solar super-minima that are part of the Hallstatt solar cycle. Solar cycles
occur on a regular pattern, but their major effects seem to have been masked
during the peak orbital insolation during the Early Holocene. There are
many solar cycles, the most widely known being the eleven-year cycle of
solar maxima and minima. The largest and most powerful of these cycles is
the 2000–2200-year Hallstatt cycle, during which the weakened solar out-
put was manifested in a series of super-­minima. While there is active debate
regarding which cycle or combination of cycles had the determining forcing
role on global climate, the Hallstatt cycle seems to have played a powerful
role, since it is aligned with both major outbursts of the winter Siberian
High and with a well-known pattern of ice-rafting in the North Atlantic
known as the Bond Cycle. It is also clear that an irregular half-cycle of lesser
solar minima (~2500–2100 bce, 550–700 ce), aligned with the ice-rafting
pattern but not the Siberian High, has also played a role in less intense epi-
sodes of global cooling. The potential cooling effects of the two Hallstatt
super-minima centering at 7500 bce and at 5400 bce seem to have been
masked by the warming effects of orbital cycles. But during the fourth mil-
lennium, orbital warming forces had declined enough for the Hallstatt solar
minimum to influence global climates. Between 4000 and 3000 bce, 1200
and 700 bce, and 1400 and 1725 ce, deep solar minima line up with major
pulses in the Siberian High, which sent cold outbursts deep into the mid
latitudes.3
These three grand climatic reversals and their intervening optima shaped
human conditions over the Late Holocene. The entire Eurasian Bronze Age,
for example, took place in the inter-Hallstatt optimum of 3000 to 1200 bce.
Fig. 15.2 Solar forcing in the middle to late Holocene. Orbital forcing of Northern
Hemisphere insolation, punctuated by episodic meltwater crises, shaped the climatic
patterns of the Early to Middle Holocene. After roughly 4000 bce, orbital forcing
reversed the high level of insolation in the northern summer, allowing cycles of solar
activity to play a dominant role in the pattern of global climate change. Very broadly,
the ~2200-year Hallstatt cycle, and an irregular ~1000-year half-cycle, drove three
epochs of “neoglacial” cold conditions: in the fourth millennium bce, after 1200 bce,
and after 1400 ce. These are expressed most dramatically in patterns of the winter
Siberian High system [B]. Episodes of significant ice-rafting in the North Atlantic [C]
correlate with numerous proxies of abrupt climatic change throughout the world; they
may be associated with the irregular half-cycle of the Hallstatt cycle, such that ice-raft
episodes occur with each Hallstatt minimum and with each intermediate solar down-
turn, most dramatically in the Dark Ages of around 500–900 ce. The gradual south-
ward drift in the summer latitude of the Intertropical Convergence Zone [D] also
reflects both impacts of the orbital shift away from the interglacial maximum and cycli-
cal Hallstatt solar minima from 3600–2900 bce, 1200–900 bce, and after 1400 ce
 THE HOLOCENE 181

Over the last two millennia, solar forcing reinforced by volcanic eruptions
shaped several commonly recognized climatic periods:

• The Roman–Han Imperial Optimum, around 200 bce–500 ce (solar

maximum)
• The Dark Ages, around 500–950 ce (solar minina, ice-rafting)
• The Medieval Climate Anomaly, around 950–1300 ce (solar maximum)
• The Little Ice Age, around 1300–1800 ce (Hallstatt cycle solar minima,
ice-rafting, Siberian High outbreaks)

While it is generally agreed that the periodicity of Late Holocene climate

change is shaped by solar patterns, questions remain about the trend and inten-
sity of these changes. Some have argued that the Little Ice Age cold shift was
stronger than the previous two Hallstatt cold epochs, and that it may have been
the coldest period since the Younger Dryas. If it indeed was—and this is by no
means settled—these conditions might have been shaped by the ongoing influ-
ence of orbital forcing. It is widely accepted that orbital shifts shaped the Mid-­
Holocene transition by reducing Northern Hemisphere insolation. Work is
ongoing to determine whether orbital forcing has driven a general cooling
trend in the Late Holocene, a cooling trend dramatically reversed by the forces
of anthropogenic global warming in the past century.4

Notes
1. Bradley, 2015, 36–46; Cronin, 2010, 113–47.
2. Roberts, 2014, 96–107; Cronin, 2010, 185–214.
3. Rohling et al., 2002; Nussbaumer et al., 2011; Brooke, 2014, 166–82, 276–78.
For important reviews of Mid- to Late Holocene climates, see Wanner et al.,
2015, and Mayewski et al., 2004.
4. Esper et al., 2012.

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Eastern North America.” Archaeology of Eastern North America 29 (2001): 143–86.
Berger, A., and M.F. Loutre. “Insolation Values for the Climate of the Last 10 Million
Years.” Quaternary Science Reviews 10 (1991): 297–317.
Bradley, Raymond S. Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary.
Third edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2015.
Brooke, John L. Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Cronin, Thomas M. Paleoclimates: Understanding Climate Change Past and Present.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
deMenocal, P. et al. “Abrupt Onset and Termination of the African Humid Period:
Rapid Climate Responses to Gradual Insolation Forcing.” Quaternary Science
Reviews 19 (2000): 347–61.
182 J. L. BROOKE

Dykoski, Carolyn A. et al. “A High-Resolution, Absolute-Dated Holocene and

Deglacial Asian Monsoon Record from Dongge Cave, China.” Earth and Planetary
Science Letters 233 (2005): 71–86.
Esper, Jan et al. “Orbital Forcing of Tree-Ring Data.” Nature Climate Change 2
(2012): 862–66.
Fowler, Brenda. Iceman: Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in
an Alpine Glacier. New York: Random House, 2000.
Grootes, P.M., and M. Stuiver. “Oxygen 18/16 Variability in Greenland Snow and Ice
with 10^3 to 10^5-Year Time Resolution.” Journal of Geophysical Research 102
(1997): 26.
Haug, Gerald H. et al. “Southward Migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone
Through the Holocene.” Science 293 (2001): 1304–08.
Marcott, Shaun A. et al. “A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the
Past 11,300 Years.” Science 339 (2013): 1198–201.
Mayewski, Paul A. et al. “Holocene Climate Variability.” Quaternary Research 62
(2004): 243–55.
Moy, C.M. et al. “Variability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation Activity at Millennial
Timescales during the Holocene Epoch.” Nature 420 (2002): 162–65.
Nussbaumer, Samuel U. et al. “Alpine Climate during the Holocene: A Comparison
between Records of Glaciers, Lake Sediments and Solar Activity.” Journal of
Quaternary Science 26 (2011): 703–13.
Roberts, Neill. The Holocene: An Environmental History. Third edition. New York:
Wiley Blackwell, 2014.
Roberts, N. et al. “The Mid-Holocene Climatic Transition in the Mediterranean:
Causes and Consequences.” The Holocene 21 (2011): 3–13.
Rohling, E. et al. “Holocene Atmosphere-Ocean Interactions: Records from Greenland
and the Aegean Sea.” Climate Dynamics 18 (2002): 587–93.
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Irradiance Leads to Large Historical Solar Forcing.” Astronomy and Astrophysics 529
(2011): A67.
Wanner, H. et al. “Holocene Climate Variability and Change: A Data-Based Review.”
Journal of the Geological Society 172 (2015): 254–63.
 CHAPTER 16

Mediterranean Antiquity

Peregrine Horden

16.1   Introduction
“If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which
the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would,
without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of [Emperor]
Domitian [96 ce] to the accession of [Emperor] Commodus [180 ce].” The
famous verdict of the historian Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) on the age of the
Antonine emperors in the third chapter of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire (1781), however qualified or ironic, finds some endorsement from a
surprising new direction, the history of ancient climate. Various new sources of
information have taken scholars of the ancient world well beyond the literary
texts—and beyond inscriptions, papyri, and familiar types of archeology. Data
from climate proxies could potentially surpass all these in sheer quantity and
attain great significance for our general understanding of antiquity. This chap-
ter attempts first to convey the least controversial narrative of climate history
that this data supports, and second to review some of the problems any such
narrative presents.

16.2   Narrative
The first question is when does antiquity begin? The recognizably Mediterranean
climate of hot dry summers and cold wetter winters, along with the general
desertification of the Sahara, was established by the end of the third millen-
nium bce, and that millennium closed with an especially arid phase (see Chap.
15).1 The supposed “4.2kya event” (2200 bce), the beginning of a period of
global cooling and drying, is evident in only some records and, strikingly, does

P. Horden (*)
Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 183

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184 P. HORDEN

not seem to coincide with any macro-historical development in the

Mediterranean.2 The collapse of palace states around the Aegean has some-
times been attributed directly to another lengthy period of drought beginning
around 1200 bce. The evidence for famine relief in that period is, however,
perhaps more a sign of burgeoning connectivity and of disaster averted, than of
catastrophe itself, and the patchy texts that gave rise to that misleading
nineteenth-­century construct, the Sea Peoples, point in the same direction.
The eastern Mediterranean was becoming more integrated, and the older pal-
ace states could no longer control this enhanced mobility, a mobility to which
climate change was only one among several stimuli.3
More plausibly, climate has been brought into the narrative of the begin-
nings of archaic Greece from the eighth century bce onward. The period from
the eighth to fifth centuries seems to have been one of wetter and cooler
weather in the Mediterranean than before, thus friendlier to farming, demo-
graphic growth, and (it is suggested) to those cultural and political develop-
ments, including the first stirrings of Greek colonization, that seem to bring us
firmly into the ancient world. Possibly the largest solar minimum (absence of
sunspots) of the last 3000 years is datable to around 765 bce. This has been
linked to a long phase of cooler weather in the ninth to eighth centuries bce,
known to prehistorians of Europe as the Iron Age Cold Period. In much of the
Mediterranean, precipitation increased in the aftermath of the minimum,
encouraging longer and more productive growing seasons.4 Very little can be
determined about Greek climate between that early phase and around 200 bce.
In the Levant, a short dry period around 600 was followed by a more humid
period until about 200 bce.5
From Greece we turn to Rome. What might be labeled the long Roman
period is currently the most intensely and thoughtfully studied period of pre-
modern climatic history apart from the Little Ice Age.6 This period sits within
a millennium of relative solar stability (between minima of c. 360 bce and c.
685 ce). It contains an unusually stable and climatically favorable period from
around 200 bce to 135 ce: the Roman Climate Optimum or Roman Warm
Period, perhaps “the most humid by far of the past 4000 years.”7 Here is the
unexpected vindication of Gibbon’s view of the age of the Antonine emperors.
Alpine glaciers retreated; according to Spanish speleothems, 150 to 50 bce was
a peak warm period with stable rainfall; and volcanoes (even Vesuvius) were
exceptionally quiet from around 40 bce to 150 ce. Improved conditions were
widespread. Greenland ice cores suggest temperatures as warm as at the end of
the second millennium ce, and possibly warmer than the Medieval Climate
Anomaly. Rainfall across northeast France was stable and beneficial for agricul-
ture until about 250 ce; viticulture spread across Roman Britain. Crucial to the
grain supply of Rome, Nile floods of the right timing and volume generated
propitious agricultural conditions in Egypt from around 30 bce to 155 ce.
Particularly good floods came on average once every five years.8
Of course, the benefits within the Greco-Roman world were not universal.
At the least, we must allow for the well-known East–West contrast in the
 MEDITERRANEAN ANTIQUITY 185

Mediterranean region. For example, the oxygen isotope record from Lake Van
in eastern Turkey indicates aridity from the end of the third millennium bce
through to a peak in about 110 bce, followed by a moister and cooler phase
and then a trend toward dryness again from the first century ce onward.9 Some
other studies have shown that the aridity persisted for centuries to come, while
the southern Levant may have become moister.10
In contrast to the four centuries of (broadly) agriculturally favorable cli-
matic stability that mark out the Roman optimum, Late Antiquity presents
itself in surprisingly clear relief. The distinguishable phases are shorter and,
overall, less favorable. Spanish data suggests continued moistness in the third
century, but elsewhere there seems to have been a change to drier conditions
across Central and parts of Southern Europe and across the eastern
Mediterranean generally.11 The period 250–550 ce is described as one of
“exceptional climatic variability” across Europe.12 There was a sharp downturn
in solar activity around 200–260, which was then reversed. Nile floods were
favorable less than once a decade.
The fourth century saw far greater regional divergence than for many cen-
turies previously. Central European tree rings indicate cooling and increased
precipitation. However, readings from Austria and northern Spain imply warm-
ing, reaching a peak at the end of the century. Anatolia continued to be dry,
but the southern Levant was wetter and cooler, especially toward the end of the
century. Solar activity was high from about 300 ce until about 370, when there
began an overall downward trend, with reversals and plateaus, toward a mini-
mum in 685 ce.
The mid- to late fifth century saw Central Europe becoming a little drier and
warmer, and at least parts of Anatolia and the southern Levant turning wetter.
The first half of the sixth century was markedly colder and very much drier in
Central Europe—the driest period there for centuries. Several, but not all, data-
yielding sites in Anatolia became wetter, while the southern Levant by contrast
turned drier. This phase is cut off by one or perhaps two very large volcanic
eruptions in 535/6 and 539/40, producing “years without summer,” and,
probably, a run of harvest failures (see Chap. 32).13 There followed a long and
unusually cool period overall, reaching into the mid-seventh century, which has
been likened to the worst of the Little Ice Age (see Chap. 23). In environmen-
tal and climatic terms, it is tempting to see antiquity as ending with a bang.

16.3   Problems and Conclusion

A narrative of this sort smooths away numerous problems. First, much of the
data is contradictory. Perhaps it has not been read accurately: many new and
exciting techniques have still to be refined and made reliable. Moreover, infor-
mation on ancient Mediterranean climates often relies on extrapolation from
neighboring regions. A climatic regime inferred from, say, a Greenland ice core
can have different consequences in the eastern than the western Mediterranean
or in the Near East or Northern Europe. Highly localized anthropogenic
186 P. HORDEN

effects on climate cannot be ruled out for any of the period under review.14
Many of the chronologies proposed are very imprecise, making it hard to
match one kind of climatic data with another or to match climatic and histori-
cal evidence without risking circularity of argument.
The greatest challenges, however, come from the problem of climate deter-
minism and the related question of what history to bring into the picture. The
ancient world has an environmental history now, with climate as a major part
of it. The proponents of that climatic history want their efforts to be seen as an
essential element in any general view of the period. So, they relate a phase of
cooling to the expansion of the Celts across Europe or periods of intense
drought on the Eurasian steppes to the irruptions of Huns and Avars onto the
European and Mediterranean stages.15 On the other hand, they do not want to
be accused of simplistic climatic determinism. Thus, the role of climate is left
vaguely as a “contributing factor.”
Climate historians also tend to focus on periods of environmental decline or
disaster, since superficially they align with the course of human affairs. The
climatic vagaries of Late Antiquity, for example, loosely correlate with the col-
lapse of the (Western) Roman Empire, the turbulence of early “barbarian”
Europe, and major shifts in the economic landscape.16 But of course, correla-
tion is not explanation, and some of the major relevant climatic phenomena
began earlier, in the third century bce. As for the Eastern Empire, the sixth
century and especially the age of Justinian can be seen as one of transition from
late Rome to the very different world of Byzantium and early Islam. That it can
also be seen as a disaster-prone period, politically as well as environmentally,
does not prove that a deteriorating climate was the primary cause of change.17
The Roman Climate Optimum provides a great counter-example to this
preoccupation with climatic stress, and shows how much is left out by merely
correlating climatic affairs and the fortunes of empires. A strong supply of grain
from Egypt was clearly significant for Roman governments and armies. Yet
how exactly did a climatic regime favorable to agriculture further Roman impe-
rialism? Would the Romans have made little headway in a climatic downturn in
the Mediterranean? The counter-factual is worth exploring to test current
thinking about the role of the Roman Optimum in Roman history.
Still more desirable is the integration of climate, not into a rather old-­
fashioned historiography that divides up the past according to the waxing and
waning of empires, but into a comparative ecological historiography of pri-
mary production. For instance, if Horden and Purcell are right that
Mediterranean farmers and pastoralists characteristically handled their chang-
ing micro-­ecologies to insure against the risk of bad years,18 then Mediterranean
populations should have been more resilient to climatic change, whether posi-
tive or negative, than those in neighboring regions of Europe or the Near
East. Technology could also mitigate environmental pressures, especially the
provision of water in arid locations. Much remains to be investigated, not only
on the side of climate science but also on the side of human economic and
cultural history.
 MEDITERRANEAN ANTIQUITY 187

Notes
1. Broodbank, 2013, 601.
2. Finné et al., 2011, 3154.
3. Broodbank, 2013, 459, 470–1; Cline, 2014, 142–7; Kaniewski et al., 2015.
4. Manning, 2013, 112–14, 132.
5. Issar, 2003, 24.
6. McCormick et al., 2012; McCormick, 2013; Manning, 2013.
7. Nieto-Moreno et al., 2011, 1404–5.
8. McCormick, 2013, 78.
9. Manning, 2013, 158, 163.
10. Manning, 2013, 160, 163.
11. Manning, 2013, 163–5.
12. Büntgen et al., 2011, 580.
13. Gunn, 2000.
14. Manning, 2013, 106, n. 3.
15. Büntgen et al., 2011, 580; Cook, 2013.
16. Cheyette, 2008.
17. Meier, 2003.
18. Horden and Purcell, 2000.

References
Broodbank, Cyprian. The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from
the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. London: Thames and Hudson,
2013.
Büntgen, Ulf et al. “2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human
Susceptibility.” Science 331 (2011): 578–82.
Cheyette, Frederic L. “The Disappearance of the Ancient Landscape and the Climatic
Anomaly of the Early Middle Ages: A Question to Be Pursued.” Early Medieval
Europe 16 (2008): 127–65.
Cline, Eric. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2014.
Cook, Edward. “Megadroughts, ENSO, and the Invasion of Late-Roman Europe by
the Huns and Avars.” In The Ancient Mediterranean Environment between Science
and History, edited by William V. Harris, 89–102. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Finné, Martin et al. “Climate in the Eastern Mediterranean, and Adjacent Regions, dur-
ing the Past 6000 Years: A Review.” Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011):
3153–73.
Gunn, Joel., ed. The Years without Summer: Tracing A.D. 536 and Its Aftermath.
Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000.
Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
Issar, Arie S. Climate Changes during the Holocene and Their Impact on Hydrological
Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Kaniewski, David et al. “Drought and Societal Collapse 3200 Years Ago in the Eastern
Mediterranean: A Review.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 6
(2015): 369–82.
188 P. HORDEN

Manning, Sturt W. “The Roman World and Climate: Context, Relevance of Climate
Change, and Some Issues.” In The Ancient Mediterranean Environment between
Science and History, edited by William V. Harris, 103–70. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
McCormick, Michael. “What Climate Science, Ausonius, Nile Floods, Rye Farming,
and Thatched Roofs Tell Us about the Environmental History of the Roman
Empire.” In The Ancient Mediterranean Environment between Science and History,
edited by William V. Harris, 61–88. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
McCormick, Michael et al. “Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire:
Reconstructing the Past from Scientific and Historical Evidence.” Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 43 (2012): 169–220.
Meier, Mischa. Das andere Zeitalter Justinians: Kontingenzerfahrung und
Kontingenzbewältigung im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2003.
Nieto-Moreno, V. et al. “Tracking Climate Variability in the Western Mediterranean
during the Late Holocene: A Multiproxy Approach.” Climate of the Past 7 (2011):
1395–1414.
 CHAPTER 17

China: 2000 Years of Climate Reconstruction

from Historical Documents

Quansheng Ge, Zhixin Hao, Jingyun Zheng, and Yang Liu

17.1   Introduction
Modern China stretches over ~9,600,000 km2, an area roughly equal to that of
Europe or the USA. Today, the country comprises twenty-two provinces and a
dozen autonomous regions, municipalities, and special administrative units.
Geographically, these vary from rugged mountains to fertile plains, from arid
deserts to humid forests, and from cold continental climates in the north to
subtropical monsoon climates in the south. Historically, the land settled by
Han Chinese and ruled by Chinese imperial dynasties has changed over time.
The center of population and agriculture shifted from the Yellow River to the
Yangtze River valley during the first millennium ce.
While China’s earliest dynastic history dates back more than four millennia,
China was united for the first time in 221–207 bce under the Qin Dynasty (for
a list of dynasties, see Table 17.1). From that time on, successive imperial
administrations left an increasing number of written records about past weather
and climate. Because written Chinese has not fundamentally changed since the
Qin period, present-day scholars with some training in paleography may still
read and understand texts written several hundred years ago.
This chapter explains the variety and uses of historical documentary evi-
dence for climate reconstruction in imperial China. This evidence includes
both institutional and personal sources, both climate proxies and qualitative
descriptions (see Chap. 4). The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of
research on historical climate impacts in China.

Q. Ge • Z. Hao (*) • J. Zheng • Y. Liu

Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Beijing, China

© The Author(s) 2018 189

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
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190 Q. GE ET AL.

Table 17.1 The dynasties of

Xia (c. 2070–1600 bce)
imperial China
Shang (c. 1600–1300 bce)
Zhou (1046–256 bce)
“Spring and Autumn” period (770–476 bce)
Warring States period (475–221 bce)
Qin (221–207 bce)
Han (207 bce–220 ce)
Three Kingdoms (220–280 ce)
Jin (265–420 ce)
Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–589 ce)
Sui (581–618 ce)
Tang (618–907 ce)
“Five Dynasties and Ten States” period (907–60 ce)
Song (960–1279 ce)
Yuan (1271–1368 ce)
Ming (1368–1644 ce)
Qing (1644–1911 ce)

17.2   Sources of Documentary Evidence

With respect to sources, the documentary evidence on weather and climate
can be broken down into four types: classical literature, local gazettes, docu-
ments of the central administration, and private diaries. Apart from private
personal diaries, these documents are mostly institutional records (see
Chap. 6). They were commissioned by emperors eager to learn about local
conditions and local history, and compiled by knowledgeable grand secretari-
ats. Therefore, most of the records are of high quality and relatively objective
and reliable.
Classical literature, called Jing Shi Zi Ji in Chinese, includes the canonical
texts of history, philosophy, science, and medicine. Of the forty-four categories
of classical literature compiled in the Si Ku Quan Shu (“The Complete
Collection in the Four Branches of Literature”) published in 1787, twenty-
eight categories representing 1531 books contain some climatic information,
including indications of temperature, precipitation, droughts and flood, and
other meteorological events.
The relevant volumes covering the period 30 bce–1470 ce have been found
to contain 22,567 items providing climatic information with definite times and
locations (see Fig. 17.1).1 In addition, the Ming Shi Lu (“Veritable Records of
the Ming Dynasty”) and Qing Shi Lu (“Veritable Records of the Qing
Dynasty”), compiled during the Ming and Qing dynastic periods respectively,
recorded important political and social affairs, as well as natural disasters and
abnormal climatic events. The Qing Shi Gao (“Manuscript of History of the
Qing Dynasty”), compiled during the early republican period, also contains
much information about climate.
 CHINA: 2000 YEARS OF CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM HISTORICAL… 191

Fig. 17.1 The number of records in Chinese documents containing climate informa-
tion for each decade (30 bce–1470 ce). Reproduced from Q.-S. Ge et al., “Coherence
of Climatic Reconstruction from Historical Documents in China by Different Studies,”
International Journal of Climatology 28 (2008): 1007–24, with permission from John
Wiley & Sons

Local gazettes are official histories reporting both the natural and human
events of a particular administrative unit (county, prefecture, or province).
Gazettes first appeared during the Zhou and Qin Dynasties; they became stan-
dardized during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 ce); and they reached their peak
in the Ming and Qing dynasties, when they were edited and revised almost
every thirty years. According to statistics in the United Catalogue of China’s
Local Gazettes, some 8264 local gazettes have survived since around 960 ce,
including 5685 from the Qing Dynasty alone, and they represent almost every
county in China.2
Their climatic information focuses on droughts and flood, frosts and snow
cover, severe cold, plant and ice phenology, agricultural conditions, changes in
river systems, and natural disasters such as plagues and locusts. The times and
locations of climatic events were clearly recorded and their impacts were
described in detail (Fig. 17.2). We estimate that there may be more than
200,000 items of accurately located and dated climatic information contained
in China’s local gazettes for the past millennium.
Archives of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. There are about 10
million files of Qing Dynasty archives in the Chinese First Historical Archive in
the Beijing Palace Museum. These include ~600,000 files of Zou Zhe (memori-
als) with written comments by the emperors, and more than 2 million other
memorials; ~400,000 files of the Royal Family Office; ~2.2 million files of the
Palace Internal Affairs Office; ~1.5 million folders belonging to the six major
government ministries; and ~2 million files concerning imperial decrees and
other important government affairs.
192 Q. GE ET AL.

Fig. 17.2 An example of climatic information recorded in a local gazette (from Gazettes
of Yangzhou Prefecture, published in 1874). The two pages list disasters and abnormal
events in the region for the period 1842–74 (from right to left), dated in the Chinese
lunar calendar. The numbers in brackets indicate descriptions of disasters. For example,
[1] indicates that in the sixth (lunar) month of the twenty-eighth year (of Daoguang—
that is, 1848), there were strong winds and heavy rain, and the Yangtze River overflowed;
in the seventh month, there were strong winds and thunderstorms, leaving fields and
houses submerged. Reproduced from Q.-S. Ge et al., “Coherence of Climatic
Reconstruction from Historical Documents in China by Different Studies,” International
Journal of Climatology 28 (2008): 1007–24, with permission of John Wiley & Sons

Two series are particularly important for climate reconstruction. The

Records of Sunny or Rainy Days (Qing Yu Lu) provide daily observations
about the state of the sky, wind direction, and the type, intensity, and duration
of precipitation events (e.g., clear skies, light rain, snow, etc.). For Beijing,
these observations have been preserved for the period 1724–1903 with only six
missing years, and the records have proven consistent with the instrumental
meteorological record that began in 1841. Besides Beijing, officials in Nanjing
(1723–98), Suzhou (1736–1806), and Hangzhou (1723–73) all reported
daily weather to the central administration.
The Records on Rainfall Infiltration and Snowfall (Yu Xue Fen Cun) contain
measurements on how deep each precipitation event infiltrated into the soil.
These measurements followed standard criteria in all eighteen provinces down
to the level of prefectures, from 1693 to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.
Local officials recorded them in the Chinese units of fen (≈3.2 mm) and cun
(≈3.2 cm), and submitted them directly to the emperor (see Fig. 17.3).3
 CHINA: 2000 YEARS OF CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM HISTORICAL… 193

Fig. 17.3 This example from the Records on Rainfall Infiltration and Snowfall (Yu
Xue Fen Cun) contains the first and last pages (right to left) of an original twelve-page
memo prepared by Gao Bin, Governor of Zhili Province (near Beijing) dated on the
twentieth day of the fifth (lunar) month of the eighth year of the Qianlong Reign (July
11, 1743). Reproduced from Q.-S. Ge et al., “Coherence of Climatic Reconstruction
from Historical Documents in China by Different Studies,” International Journal of
Climatology 28 (2008): 1007–24, with permission from John Wiley & Sons

Private diaries. As of 2016, researchers had located about 200 private dia-
ries containing records of everyday weather conditions or weather-­related nat-
ural phenomena. The Diary of Gengzi-Xinchou (1180–1181 ce) by Lü Zuqian
(1137–1181 ce) is among the earliest. These diaries often made clear and
detailed descriptions of the timing, location, and conditions of climate events,
which could be used for reconstruction.4

17.3   Types of Documentary Evidence

With respect to content, these records can be further divided into two
categories:
The first category consists of more or less objective observations of natural
proxies, particularly plant-phenological observations and ice- and snow-­
phenological data (see Chap. 4). The former includes observations on the
development of wild and domesticated plants; the distribution and northern
boundary of subtropical cash crops, such as sugar; and the dates of agricultural
activities, which in China includes the location and timing of double (twice-
yearly) rice crops. The latter comprises records of the dates of the first and last
frosts and snowfalls; the duration of frost and snow; and the freeze and thaw
dates of rivers, lakes, and seas.
194 Q. GE ET AL.

The second category of documentary evidence consists of qualitative

descriptions of weather and discussions of weather and society, particularly the
impacts of extremes and meteorological disasters. This evidence provides
information especially about relative changes in temperature (e.g., that a par-
ticular season was “rather cold,” or a particular location enjoyed a “warm
winter”).5
Since the 1970s, researchers have undertaken several reconstructions of
Chinese historical climate using documentary sources.6 These studies have
quantified documentary information into annual or seasonal indices, then cali-
brated it to modern instrumental data in order to establish a statistical relation-
ship and thereby to reconstruct temperature and precipitation at different
temporal and spatial resolutions (see Chap. 11). Based on these results, this
chapter outlines the main variations in temperature and precipitation in eastern
China during the last 2000 years.

17.4   Temperature Reconstructions

In 1973, Chu created the first temperature series from historical documents,
covering the past five millennia. The series provided an approximate tempera-
ture change profile, indicating that the temperatures were ~2 °C higher around
3000–1000 bce than in the 1950s reference period, and that temperatures
showed 2–3 °C amplitude since around 1000 bce. Three remarkable cold peri-
ods were centered at about 400, 1200, and 1700 ce, while the period around
500–1000 ce was generally warm. Following this pioneering work, researchers
found more and more climate-related information and developed statistical
methods to convert the many qualitative descriptions into quantitative series.
Based on the described intensity of frosts, snows, and rains, the dates of the
river and lake freezings, cold-related disasters, and other information, R. Wang
and S. Wang reconstructed the winter temperatures in eastern China (25–35°N,
115–120°E) during the 1470s–1970s ce.7 They identified two cold stages,
during the 1450s–1690s and 1790s–1890s ce. Later, S.-L. Wang and collabo-
rators reconstructed a decadal temperature series beginning in the 1380s for
each of ten regions across China. This study identified three cold periods—the
1450s–1510s, 1560s–1690s, and 1790s–1890s ce—covering most of the
Little Ice Age (LIA) (see Chap. 23).8
Other studies during the 1990s reconstructed decadal winter tempera-
tures in southern China and Shandong Province during the 1470s–1970s, as
well as the Taihu Basin (around modern Shanghai) during the 1100s–1970s,
by calculating the frequency of cold and warm years recorded in historical
documents.9 In 2000, Wang and Gong catalogued historical records of
abnormal meteorological and hydrological phenomena, and reconstructed a
winter cold index series for every fifty-year period in eastern China during
800–2000 ce.10
 CHINA: 2000 YEARS OF CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM HISTORICAL… 195

In 2003, Ge and colleagues reconstructed winter half-year (October–April)

temperatures for the past 2000 years in the central region of eastern China
(25–40°N, 110–120°E) at a resolution of ten to thirty years. Their reconstruc-
tion was based on the frequency and intensity of cold and warm events revealed
by plant- and ice-phenological evidence in Chinese historical documents. From
the beginning of the Common Era, average temperatures fell at a rate of 0.17
°C per century; then the winter half-year abruptly warmed up from the 570s to
the 1310s at a rate of 0.04 °C per century. After that decade, temperatures
dropped at a rate of 0.1 °C per century, a change that coincides with the onset
of the LIA in the Northern Hemisphere. Since the start of the twentieth cen-
tury, and particularly since the 1980s, temperatures in the winter half-year have
increased.11
More recently, researchers have used historical documents to create tem-
perature series with an annual resolution. In 2012, Hao and colleagues recon-
structed mean annual winter (December–February) temperatures over the
middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River (24°N–34°N, 108°E–123°E)
extending back to 1736, based on information regarding snowfall days in the
Records on Rainfall Infiltration and Snowfall (Yu Xue Fen Cun) archive (see
Sect. 17.2). They found that the eighteenth century was 0.76 °C colder and
the nineteenth century 1.18 °C colder than the reference period of 1951–2007.
However, since the twentieth century, winter temperatures have been
increasing.12
In spite of this considerable effort to reconstruct China’s historical tempera-
tures at high resolution, researchers sometimes produced different results even
when using similar documents. In a 2008 review, Ge and colleagues compared
various temperature series and found that a thirty-year temporal resolution
might be reasonable for studying temperature changes using Chinese docu-
mentary data. They also found that the spatial patterns among the different
time series showed high coherence.13
Building on these studies and other proxy climate data, subsequent stud-
ies investigated the general characteristics of climate changes, regional dif-
ferences, and uncertainties in Chinese climate reconstruction over the past
2000 years (see Fig. 17.4).14 Relative to 1851–1950 mean values, the cli-
mate in China during the Common Era showed four warm intervals—
roughly 1–200 ce, 551–760, 951–1320, and after 1921—and four cold
intervals—201–350, 441–530, 781–950, and 1321–1920 (covering the
entire LIA period). Temperatures from 981 to 1100 and again from 1201
to 1270 were comparable to those of the present warm period but with an
uncertainty of ±0.28 °C to ±0.42 °C at the 95% confidence interval. Since
1000 ce—the period covering the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), LIA,
and the present warm period—temperature variations over China have typi-
cally been in phase with those of the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. In
contrast, the warm period in China during 541–740 ce has not been found
elsewhere.
196 Q. GE ET AL.

Fig. 17.4 An ensemble of temperature reconstructions based on partial least squares

(red lines) and principal components regression (blue lines) methods at decadal (thin
lines) and centennial timescales (solid lines; smoothed by a five-point fast Fourier trans-
form filter), along with the 95% confidence interval (shading). The reference value is the
mean temperature from 1851 to 1950. The green line indicates the observed average
air temperature. Image reproduced without changes from Q. Ge et al., “Temperature
Changes Over the Past 2000 Yr in China and Comparison with the Northern
Hemisphere,” Climate of the Past 9 (2013): 1153–60, doi:10.5194/cp-9-1153-2013,
under a CC-BY 3.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

17.5   Precipitation Reconstructions

China possesses a rich legacy of documents describing drought and flood disas-
ters with direct impacts on agriculture and society, particularly for the last two
millennia. In 1981, these documents were used to reconstruct annual precipi-
tation since 1470, by converting the qualitative descriptions found in historical
sources for each of 120 stations into a quantitative grade from 1 (wetness) to 5
(dryness).15 Using this dataset, a 2006 study reconstructed an annual Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (PDO) series for the pre-instrumental period.16
So far, the longest drought/flood proxy dataset drawn from Chinese his-
torical documents covers sixty-three stations from 137 bce to 1469 ce using
22,567 written descriptions.17 Employing the two above-mentioned datasets,
Zheng analyzed the severity, duration, and spatial patterns of droughts and
floods from 101–1900 ce, and reconstructed a 1500-year regional dry/wet
index series for the North China Plain (approximately 34–40°N), the Jianghuai
area (approximately 31–34°N), and the Jiangnan area (approximately
25–31°N).18 The results show extended droughts in eastern China from the
twelfth to fourteenth centuries; however, since the middle of the seventeenth
century, eastern China has been more subject to flooding. Flood severity dur-
ing the twentieth century was comparable to that of historical times, but the
droughts were usually less severe.
 CHINA: 2000 YEARS OF CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM HISTORICAL… 197

Nevertheless, strong regional differences should not be overlooked, such

as opposite trends in the Jiangnan and Jianghuai areas during the eleventh–
thirteenth centuries or in the North China Plain and Jiangnan area since the
sixteenth century. Hao studied the spatial patterns of precipitation anomalies
in eastern China during both warm and cold periods over the past 2000
years.19 This study showed that there has been no one fixed spatial pattern of
precipitation anomalies during either cold or warm periods. During most of
China’s warm periods, a coherent spatial pattern of dry conditions only
occurred north of the Yangtze River. Precipitation during cold periods
showed various spatial patterns; similarities were only present during the sev-
enteenth and nineteenth centuries, when there was a meridional (north–
south) gradient in precipitation. Compared with the warm twentieth century,
the period 440–540 demonstrated an opposite spatial pattern of precipita-
tion, but the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries both showed similar pat-
terns (see Fig. 17.5).
Since 2005, the Records on Rainfall Infiltration and Snowfall (Yu Xue Fen
Cun) archive has also been used in precipitation reconstructions. A study by
Q.-S. Ge and colleagues combined these records with modern field measure-
ments that followed the same ancient methods.20 Starting with experiments at
Shijiazhuang—which demonstrated the potential for high-resolution recon-
struction back to the early eighteenth century—they followed up with an
expanded field measurement program in eastern China, and developed models
fitting the relationship between rainfall infiltrations recorded in the Yu Xue Fen
Cun and observed precipitation at each site. A subsequent study by Zheng and
colleagues used this method to create a precipitation series for the middle and
lower reaches of the Yellow River during the period 1736–1910.21 Further
research has reconstructed the initial/final dates and duration of the meiyu (the
East Asian June–July rainy season) for the middle and lower reaches of the
Yangtze River, as well as the northwestern part of the East Asian Summer
Monsoon.22

17.6   Extreme Events

Historical climatologists have also employed documentary evidence to recon-
struct extreme events. For example, a 2012 study identified fifty extremely cold
winters during 1650–1949, based on 4000 pieces of verifiable information
extracted from local gazettes in southern China. The authors’ criterion was
winters in the coldest tenth percentile of the probability density function.
These were seasons characterized by the freezing of lakes and rivers, snow and
ice storms, or widespread damage to subtropical crops from the cold. The
study found that the frequency of extreme winters has varied since 1650. The
most frequent occurrences came during the late seventeenth and the nine-
teenth centuries (including the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima) when
extreme winters were twice as common as in 1950–2000. By contrast, extreme
winters during the eighteenth century were almost as rare as in the second half
198 Q. GE ET AL.

Fig. 17.5 Spatial patterns of precipitation anomalies over eastern China (with refer-
ence to the average values of the past 2000 years) during the four warm (“W”) and cold
(“C”) periods, on a centennial timescale. The shaded area exceeds the 90% significance
level based on a chi-square test. Reproduced from Z. Hao, J. Zheng, X. Zhang, H. Liu,
M. Li, and Q.-S. Ge. “Spatial Patterns of Precipitation Anomalies in Eastern China dur-
ing Centennial Cold and Warm Periods of the Past 2000 Years.” International Journal
of Climatology 36 (2015): 467–75 with permission of John Wiley & Sons

of the twentieth century. The intensities of some historical cold events, as in

1653–54, 1670, 1690, 1861, 1892, and 1929, exceeded those of the coldest
winter events since 1951.23
Based on annual precipitation indices derived from historical sources, as well
as the reconstructed wet/dry index series for eastern China, historical clima-
tologists have identified extreme drought and flood events during the past two
millennia in three regions of the North China Plain (34°N–40°N), as well as
Jianghuai (31°N–34°N) and Jiangnan (25°N–31°N).24 The highest frequency
 CHINA: 2000 YEARS OF CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM HISTORICAL… 199

of extreme flood and drought events occurred during roughly 100–150,

550–650, 1050–1100, and 1850–1900 in the North China Plain; 250–450
and 1600–1850 in Jianghuai; and 350–400, 1100–1200, and 1900–50 in
Jiangnan. Over the whole of eastern China, higher frequencies of extremes
came during 100–150, 250–350, 750–850, 950–1000, 1050–1150, 1400–50,
1550–1650, and 1800–1950. During the late twentieth century, the frequency
and intensity of extremes was close to the mean level of the past 2000 years.
Furthermore, a comparison between drought/flood events and temperature
series over eastern China suggests that global warming over recent decades did
not bring more frequent extreme events. In addition, a 2008 study found that
the anomalous precipitation events reconstructed from Chinese historical doc-
uments mainly occurred at periods of high solar forcing, active volcanic erup-
tion, and large anthropogenic forcing (the twentieth century).25

17.7   Climate Change Impacts

The human element in past and present climate change remains a controversial
topic, which scholars may best approach by synthesizing climate reconstruction
and historical narrative and analysis. Historical climate impact research in China
has so far drawn three principal conclusions:

1. Historically, climatic change impacts tended to be negative in cold peri-

ods and positive in warm ones. For example, twenty-five of the thirty-­
one most prosperous periods in imperial China during the past 2000 years
occurred during periods of warmth or warming.
2. Long-term cooling trends often coincided with social and economic
decline. Population growth and expanded land use supported by an
expanded resource base during warm periods tended to increase vulner-
abilities when the climate turned colder.
3. Throughout Chinese history, both the rulers and ruled adopted strate-
gies and policies to cope with climate change, as geography and circum-
stances permitted. Government decisions and initiatives were often
decisive in the outcome of climate-related challenges.26

Notes
1. Zhang, 1996.
2. Beijing Astronomical Observatory, 1985.
3. Ge et al., 2005. For examples from these series, see the study of volcanic weather
and its effects in China following the Tambora eruption of 1815 (Zhang et al.,
1992).
4. Gong et al., 1984; Gong and Hameed, 1991.
5. Ge et al., 2003.
6. Zhu, 1973.
7. Wang and Wang, 1990.
200 Q. GE ET AL.

8. Wang et al., 1998.

9. Zhang, 1980; Zheng and Zheng, 1993; Shen and Chen, 1993.
10. Wang and Gong, 2000.
11. Ge et al., 2003.
12. Hao et al., 2012.
13. Ge, 2008.
14. Ge et al., 2010, 2013.
15. Academy of Meteorological Science of China Central Meteorological
Administration, 1981.
16. Shen et al., 2006.
17. Zhang, 1996.
18. Zheng et al., 2001, 2006.
19. Hao et al., 2016.
20. Ge et al., 2005.
21. Zheng et al., 2005.
22. Ge et al., 2008, 2011.
23. Zheng et al., 2012.
24. Hao et al., 2010.
25. Shen et al., 2008.
26. Ge et al., 2014.

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 CHAPTER 18

Climate History of Asia (Excluding China)

George C. D. Adamson and David J. Nash

18.1   Introduction
As the largest landmass on Earth, Asia’s climatic history is of paramount impor-
tance. However, with the exception of China (see Chap. 17), research on the
historical climatology of the continent remains in its infancy. Instrumental
observation of weather in Asia began earlier than in many other parts of the
world. In Siberia, observations date back to the formation of the Russian
Central Physical Observatory in 1849, while the genesis of the Japanese
Meteorological Agency began with the founding of the Tokyo Meteorological
Observatory in 1875.1 Systematic meteorological observation in India and
Indonesia began shortly after the establishment in 1854 of national meteoro-
logical services in the UK and the Netherlands, the colonial countries who then
governed these regions. The Magnetisch en Meteorologisch Observatorium in
Batavia (Jakarta) was established in 1866, and the Indian Meteorological
Department in 1875.
Reconstruction of climate for periods prior to the mid-nineteenth century
using documentary sources is only just commencing, although it is further
advanced in Japan than in other regions of the continent (excluding China).
Reconstructions using tree rings are common in the Himalayas, the Mongolian
steppes, northern Japan, and parts of Siberia. Coverage in tropical regions is

G. C. D. Adamson (*)
Department of Geography, King’s College London, London, UK
D. J. Nash
School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

© The Author(s) 2018 203

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_18
204 G. C. D. ADAMSON AND D. J. NASH

much weaker due to the general absence of trees producing annual growth
rings, although researchers have begun to derive climatic data from teak
(Tectona grandis).2
As the climate of Asia is extremely diverse—ranging from subarctic in Siberia
(Df in the Köppen classification) to tropical rainforest in Indonesia (Af)—the
continent will be divided into five regions for the purposes of this chapter.
These are Arabia and West Asia; the Indian subcontinent; Japan and Korea;
Southeast Asia and Indonesia; and Siberia and Central Asia.

18.2   Arabia and West Asia

The documentary record of the Islamic world has been identified as a poten-
tially fruitful source of historical climate information. Arabic (and other) lan-
guage documents have been used substantially for information on historical
astronomical occurrences.3 However, climate reconstruction has as yet been
either preliminary or focused on the Iberian peninsula.4 The documents avail-
able for climate reconstruction are predominantly ta’rikh (history) chronicles,
which require careful interpretation for climatic information. Moreover, many
have been lost, existing now only in copies or abridged formats.5 (On North
Africa and the Nile Valley, see also Chaps. 20 and 34.)
Nevertheless, some reconstruction has been undertaken for the period
800–1500 ce, notably for Iraq, Syria, and Palestine. Using references to freez-
ing conditions, Ricardo Domínguez-Castro and colleagues identified that the
tenth century ce in Iraq witnessed a greater frequency of cold winters than the
twentieth century. Steffen Vogt and colleagues have further demonstrated that
winters from 900–50 and 1020–70 ce were particularly wet. At a coarser reso-
lution, using documents from the late Roman Empire, Michael McCormick
identified droughts in Palestine from 210–20 and 311–13 ce, a return to wet-
ter conditions around 400 ce, and further droughts from 523–38 ce. Available
information on the Arab world becomes more limited after 1500 ce, a reversal
of the situation in most other parts of the world. This is likely related to a shift
in the focus of the chronicles at the turn of the sixteenth century, from accounts
of events to biographical data and anecdotes.6
The climate history of Anatolia has received somewhat more attention than
that of the Arab world. Several scholars have undertaken studies assembling
and mapping historical references to climatic and meteorological events during
Hellenistic and Roman times.7 Byzantine historians have compiled more
extensive descriptions of climate (particularly extremes such as drought and
freezing winters) from the fourth to fifteenth centuries ce. Some researchers
have recently begun to integrate those descriptions with archaeological finds as
well as palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, with the goal of formulating a
more comprehensive interdisciplinary climate history of Byzantine Anatolia.
So far, this research has identified probable periods of colder, drier climate dur-
ing the fourth–fifth and late eighth–ninth centuries, and possibly warmer, wet-
ter climate during the tenth to early eleventh centuries.8 The Ottoman period
 CLIMATE HISTORY OF ASIA (EXCLUDING CHINA) 205

(c. 1300–1923 ce) offers further potential for detailed documentary-based

climate reconstruction, including, among other sources, numerous chronicles,
travel narratives, records from the imperial archives in Istanbul, and European
diplomatic dispatches. So far, only a handful of studies have analyzed particular
episodes in Ottoman climate history, including Sam White’s study of drought,
rebellion, and crisis during the late sixteenth–seventeenth centuries.9

18.3   The Indian Subcontinent

Substantial written information on the climate of the Indian subcontinent
becomes available from around 1700 ce onward. This is predominantly due to
the knowledge-production project of various European colonial and mission-
ary groups, particularly the British East India Company.10 In recent years,
scholars have begun to explore the documentary record of the East India
Company to reconstruct the historical intensity of the monsoon and extreme
meteorological events. The earliest reconstructions derive from records of the
Royal Danish Lutheran-Protestant Mission in Tranquebar, which date from
1710.11 In western India, the records of the East India Company have been
used to reconstruct monsoon duration and intensity from 1780 to 1860.12
These reconstructions have demonstrated a change in the average date of mon-
soon onset over time (Fig. 18.1), and have been used to explore the long-term
relationship between the Indian monsoon and the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
Using a selection of personal diaries from early nineteenth-century Bombay,
George Adamson has also demonstrated that monthly maximum temperatures
were then around 5 °C lower than today, likely a result of the urban heat-island
effect.13
For the pre-colonial period, G.B. Pant and colleagues reviewed a number of
different types of written source material to uncover broad-scale monsoon vari-
ability for the past ~1000 years. This work revealed a twelve-year drought
between 1397 and 1408 and a random distribution of droughts from 1600 ce
onwards. Recorded drought before this date was relatively low, likely due to a
lack of preserved documentary evidence.14

18.4   Japan and Korea

Japan is one of the best-served regions for documentary climate reconstruction
in Asia. Written evidence of climatic phenomena extends back to 55 ce.15
Historical sources for climate reconstruction are reviewed in Takehiko Mikami’s
2008 paper “Climatic Variations in Japan Reconstructed from Historical
Documents.”16 The longest and possibly most robust record available is that of
the “cherry blossom festivals,” which coincided with the date of spring flower-
ing of cherry trees at Kyoto, recorded regularly in diaries and chronicles.
Flowering was found to correlate closely with average February–March tem-
peratures, allowing springtime temperature to be reconstructed back to 801
ce.17 Similar studies have been undertaken for Tokyo.18 Likewise, the dates of
 206
G. C. D. ADAMSON AND D. J. NASH

Fig. 18.1 Reconstructed date of monsoon onset over Bombay for 1781–1878 (with error bars). Positive values indicate a later date of
monsoon onset. (Reproduced from George C.D. Adamson and David J. Nash, “Long-term variability in the date of monsoon onset over
western India,” Climate Dynamics 40 (2013): 2589–603. With permission of Springer)
 CLIMATE HISTORY OF ASIA (EXCLUDING CHINA) 207

ceremonies for the Omiwatari on Lake Suwa (a crack in the ice running the full
length of the lake, caused by diurnal temperature variations) reach back to the
fifteenth century. The date of freezing was found to be highly correlated with
mean December–January temperatures, allowing reconstruction of these tem-
peratures back to 1444 ce. A large number of weather diaries from the eigh-
teenth century onward have been digitized in the Historical Weather Database
of Japan, also enabling reconstruction of summer temperatures. These show a
general increase in temperatures from around 1800 onward, although this
increase is not uniform.19 Other studies have used references to typhoons in
documentary materials to reconstruct northwest Pacific typhoon frequency
and tracks during the nineteenth century.20
Woo-Seok Kong and David Watts have undertaken a coarse-grained recon-
struction of precipitation, frost, droughts, and floods for Korea using docu-
mentary evidence.21 This reconstruction demonstrates major cold phases from
1001 to 1400 ce, dry phases during 201–600, 701–900, and 1001–1300 ce,
and humid phases from 400 to 500 and 1000 ce to the present. Famine seems
to have been associated with the cold phases. Gyo-Ho Lim and Tae-Hyeon
Shim additionally used the Annal of the Chosun Dynasty to reconstruct
extreme weather events from around 1400 ce, indicating extreme droughts
around 1440, 1600, and 1680, and wet periods around 1410, 1520, and
1660.22 The authors are unaware of any other such studies in Korea, although
some may be available in the Korean language.

18.5   Southeast Asia and Indonesia

Southeast Asia and Indonesia have generally been understudied with regards to
documentary climate analysis, although tree ring reconstruction has been
undertaken in parts of Java and Thailand. The authors are aware of no precipi-
tation or temperature reconstructions, despite a wealth of documentary mate-
rials available from the records of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and
Dutch colonial government, as well as in local languages. More work has been
done on cyclones (typhoons), particularly in the Philippines. Ricardo García-­
Herrera and colleagues reconstructed landfalling typhoons over the Philippines
from 1566 to 1900, particularly using records compiled by the Spanish Jesuit
Miguel Selga in 1935.23
Research by historians not specifically designed to reconstruct climatic vari-
ability has uncovered evidence of extreme events, particularly drought. Victor
Lieberman has outlined evidence for drought in Burma, Cambodia, and
Vietnam during the fourteenth century, a period that saw the concurrent
decline of Pagan, Angkor, and Dai Viet.24 Brendan Buckley and colleagues
reviewed evidence for climate extremes in central Vietnam from the thirteenth–
eighteenth centuries using historical chronicles.25 They note in particular a
period of heavy climate-related mortality associated with the seventeenth-­
century “crisis.”26 In general, such analysis has been only descriptive, and sys-
tematic climate reconstruction from documentary sources in the region remains
elusive.
208 G. C. D. ADAMSON AND D. J. NASH

18.6   Siberia and Central Asia

Despite the availability of a number of sources of documentary evidence, most
notably historical chronicles and Russian governmental documents and grade
books, documentary-based climate reconstructions in Siberia and Central Asia
also remain very limited. Much of the early work on the historical climatology
of the former Soviet Union east of the Urals is reviewed by Borisenkov. Of
particular note are the relatively mild climate conditions reconstructed in
Siberia during the early to mid-seventeenth century—at the heart of the Little
Ice Age—when conditions were sufficiently favorable to allow Russian vessels
to sail from the Kola Peninsula to Chukotka in northeast Siberia and through
the Bering Straits, opening up a trade route to the Pacific.27 The authors are
aware, though, of no other significant studies.

18.7   Conclusion
Despite its size, Asia’s climate history (outside China) remains far less studied
than that of Europe or North America. The chief source for historical climate
patterns in much of the continent is the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas, deriving
predominantly from tree rings.28 However, this work is constrained by the geo-
graphical spread of the growth-ring producing trees (mostly located in the
Himalayas) and has been found to be unreliable in places.29 Documentary cli-
mate reconstruction that has been undertaken has shown the importance of
such approaches for understanding long-term climate variability, and the influ-
ence of climate on social change. Other work not specifically designed for cli-
mate reconstruction has demonstrated the potential of the written record in
the region, and it is hoped that the climate history of the continent will con-
tinue to be revealed in the future.

Notes
1. Fleming, 1998.
2. Cook et al., 2010.
3. Domínguez-Castro et al., 2012.
4. Grotzfeld, 1991, 1995; Bulliett, 2009; Weintritt, 2009; Vogt et al., 2011;
Domínguez-Castro et al., 2012, 2014; de Miguel, 1988.
5. Domínguez-Castro et al., 2014.
6. Grotzfeld, 1995.
7. e.g., McCormick et al., 2012a, 2012b.
8. Telelis, 2008; Haldon et al., 2014; Xoplaki et al., 2016.
9. White, 2011; Xoplaki et al., 2018.
10. Grove, 1998.
11. Walsh et al., 1999.
12. Adamson and Nash, 2013, 2014.
13. Adamson et al., 2014.
14. Pant et al., 1993.
 CLIMATE HISTORY OF ASIA (EXCLUDING CHINA) 209

15. Ingram et al., 1981.

16. Mikami, 2008.
17. Aono and Omoto, 1994; Aono and Kazui, 2008; Aono and Saito, 2010.
18. Aono, 2015.
19. Mikami, 2008.
20. Grossman and Zaiki, 2009.
21. Kong and Watts, 1992.
22. Lim and Shim, 2002.
23. Ribera et al., 2004, 2008; García-Herrera et al., 2007.
24. Lieberman, 2011.
25. Buckley et al., 2014.
26. Reid, 1990; Boomgaard, 2001.
27. Borisenkov, 1995.
28. Cook et al., 2010.
29. Adamson and Nash, 2014.

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 CHAPTER 19

Climate History in Latin America

María del Rosario Prieto and Facundo Rojas

19.1   Pre-Colonial Records

In Latin America, written information about climate and related topics begins
shortly before the Spanish conquest. The Americas were previously populated
by groups with different degrees of social, political, and economic integration,
from bands of hunter-gatherers to urban states with a high degree of political
development, social stratification, and division of labor. In Mesoamerica, the
Maya and the Aztec states developed pictographic and ideographic writing sys-
tems on paper made from tree bark. The texts as we know them began with the
fourth king of the Mexica, named Itzcoatl (c. 1380). He ordered the destruc-
tion of previous records to create a new Aztec history distinct from that of their
old enemies, the Toltec people. Most historical authors are anonymous, but
they were likely priests trained as scribes or tlahcuilo, the “artists” of the famous
Aztec picture books.1 The surviving manuscripts and ritual calendars cover a
range of topics, including pictographs of natural disasters and descriptions of
historic events. These codices have information on large snowfalls, frosts,
droughts, and their consequences, such as epidemics, plagues, and famine,
accompanied by precise dates for each event. This type of information is most
abundant in the Aztec codices, which cover the twelfth through seventeenth
centuries. Prehispanic codices are considerably less common than those written
during the colonial period, as many of the prehispanic ones were destroyed by
the Spanish conquerors. Most surviving codices were written during the early
colonial period in the Valley of Mexico.2

M. d. R. Prieto (*) • F. Rojas

IANIGLA/CONICET Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina

© The Author(s) 2018 213

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_19
214 M. d. R. PRIETO AND F. ROJAS

19.2   Colonial and Modern Records

Christopher Columbus arrived in the Antilles in 1492 on an expedition spon-
sored by the Spanish crown. This marked the beginning of Spanish voyages of
exploration and conquest in the north and south of what would later be called
the Americas. In 1494, Pope Alexander VI and the Treaty of Tordesillas divided
the Americas between Spain and Portugal.3 A few years later, in 1500, the
Portuguese Pedro Álvares Cabral, among other Europeans, arrived on the
Brazilian coast and began the conquest and colonization of those lands. Ferdinand
Magellan crossed the strait that bears his name in 1520, opening a sea route to
the Pacific.4 At the same time, Hernán Cortés landed on the Mexican coast; his
army and native allies overthrew the Aztec state after fierce resistance. They cap-
tured its capital Tenochtitlan in 1521 and founded Mexico City in its place. This
began a period of expansion into not only Central and South America but also
parts of the current southwestern USA.5 A decade later, Francisco Pizarro led
another expedition into Peru and confronted the Inca Empire, already facing a
civil war. They captured and killed the emperor Atahualpa, leading to the fall of
that great state. From this point on, the Iberian conquest advanced rapidly,
although peripheral areas were not dominated until later.
The colonial regime saw extensive cultural and biological mixing with indig-
enous populations, as well as high mortality and environmental disruption from
European invasive animals, plants, and microbes. Colonial governments were
installed, first as governorships and later viceroyalties. The first viceroyalties were
New Spain (Mexico), Peru, and New Granada (modern Ecuador, Colombia,
and Venezuela), followed in 1776 by the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
(Argentina) (see Fig. 19.1).6
Of the evidence left by the Spanish, the city council documents (Actas
Capitulares) stand out. They came out of weekly city council meetings held in
most cities throughout the Spanish empire until the early nineteenth century.
In addition to collections of such documents preserved by national archives in
Latin America, the holdings of the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville
are fundamental. This archive brings together all documents sent to and
received from the Americas, including correspondence on events affecting the
regional economy, such as droughts, floods, and heavy rains. The Spanish colo-
nial presence in Latin America has strongly influenced the sources used in stud-
ies of climate history. The large majority of written documents—from Spain as
well as the Americas—are colored by the particularities and idiosyncrasies of
those who produced them.
Of the more recent documentary sources, newspapers are especially impor-
tant. Most Latin American newspapers began during the nineteenth century.
Many are still in print, such as Los Andes in Mendoza (Argentina), founded in
1885. Since instrumental data for snowfall in the Argentine–Chilean Andes
began only in 1951, M. Prieto and colleagues included information from
newspapers from 1885 to 2000.7 They were able to determine the number of
annual snowfalls, the beginning and end of the annual snow cycles, and their
relationship with the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
 CLIMATE HISTORY IN LATIN AMERICA 215

Fig. 19.1 Cities and places mentioned in the text

Climate reconstructions through the 1700s are based only on proxy data
and historical documents. More objective data becomes available during the
nineteenth century with the start of instrumental measurements (see
Table 19.1). At the end of the eighteenth century and during the nineteenth,
non-professional meteorologists began to record some data. A paradigmatic
example is Francisco José de Caldas, who began to record the first systematic
data on temperature and atmospheric pressure in the first decade of the 1800s
in Popayán (currently in Bogotá, Colombia).8
216 M. d. R. PRIETO AND F. ROJAS

Table 19.1 Starting dates for instrumental data in Latin American countries
Current Start of City Person or institution Source
country observations9 recording the data
(Sporadic/
continuous)

Colombia 1735 Cartagena Juan de Ulloa Pabón Caicedo, 2008

1799 Popayán, F.J. de Caldas,
Santa Fé Observatorio
(Bogotá) Astronómico
Nacional10
1866 Bogotá Observatorio
Meteorológico
Nacional
Peru 1753 Lima Cosmógrafos Seiner Lizárraga, 2004
Mayores
1892 Observatorio Universidad Católica del
Meteorológico Perú, 2015
Hipólito Unánue
Mexico 1769 Mexico City José Antonio de Comisión Nacional del
Alzate y Ramírez Agua, 2012
1877 Observatorio Jáuregui Ostos, 2000
Meteorológico y
Astronómico de
México
Brazil 1781 Rio de Francisco de Oliveira Neto and Lima, 2004;
Janeiro, San Barbosa and Bento Farrona et al., 2012
Pablo Sanches Dorta
1808 Rio de Janeiro Marinha do Brasil Oliveira and João, 2005
Web page: Observatório
Nacional (Brasil);
Cuba 1794 Havana Captain Tomás Ramos Guadalupe, 1996
Ugarte
185811 Real Colegio de Udías, 2003
Belen
Argentina 1804 Buenos Aires Pedro Cerviño Prieto, 2016
1872 Córdoba Observatorio
Meteorológico
Nacional
Ecuador 1825 Quito Colonel Hall Hall, 1838
1864 Colegio Nacional de Aguilar, 1865
Quito
Chile 1850 Santiago, La J.M. Gillies- Anales de la Universidad de
Serena, I. Domeyko Chile, 1851
1868 Copiapó, Oficina Central Anales de la Universidad de
Valparaiso Meteorológica, Chile, 1870; Web page:
Universidad de Chile Servicio Meteorológico de
la Armada de Chile
 CLIMATE HISTORY IN LATIN AMERICA 217

19.3    The Development of Climate History in Latin

America
The development of climate history as a discipline in Latin America began only
two years after E. Le Roy Ladurie’s pioneering study Histoire du climat depuis
l’an mil (1967). Enrique Florescano’s 1969 thesis became the first scientific
examination of relationships between climate and society in Latin America.12
Several studies, including a critical review of sources, have appeared since the
year 2005, covering South America, Colombia, Peru, and southern Chile.13
Usually, there is more information on the scarcity or abundance of water than
on temperature, except in temperate areas where early or late freezes affected
harvests.14
Mexico has been a country of pioneering studies in climate history. Extreme
droughts predominate in Mexico, which has influenced the choice of research
topics. A study by G. Garza Merodio divides Mexican researchers into two
groups: on the one hand, scholars from various disciplines who emphasize cli-
mate reconstruction (the “strict climate” or “climate first” approach); on the
other hand, historians and social scientists who incorporate climatic events as
an explanatory factor in specific historical processes (the “case-study approach”).
Generally, the latter address a specific extreme event such as an extraordinary
drought or flood that is interpreted using concepts of risk, disaster, and vulner-
ability.15 A two-volume compilation by García Acosta has brought together
case studies covering 2000 years of Latin American history, up to the end of the
nineteenth century.16 These are landmarks in the study of Latin American cli-
mate history.
Pioneering studies such as those by G. Padilla, S. Metcalfe, and colleagues
anticipated methodologies and topics that climate historians have since devel-
oped more fully.17 Thanks to their wide-reaching compilation of data on
droughts, floods, and heavy rains, they contributed to the development of
long-term regional climate data series. Besides classic studies of Mexican
droughts, other studies appeared in force during the 1990s, including those of
D. Liverman and the already classic work by E. Florescano and S. Swan, in
which the authors systematized some of the principal sources on droughts.18
These studies are contemporaneous and follow the same approaches as O’Hara
and Metcalfe, and as Tortolero.19
More recently, a number of new authors have gained prominence. These
include G. Garza Merodio, who has looked for regional signals of the Little Ice
Age and created indices for droughts in the Valley of Mexico from the end of
the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth centuries based on an analysis of
rain ceremonies (pro pluvia) (see Chap. 4).20 We agree with Garza Merodio,
who pointed out that long-term regional climate studies that use documentary
sources to develop continuous and homogeneous data series “have been uti-
lized very little in Mexico toward the end of the twentieth century.”21 Further
studies have analyzed colonial Spanish and Nahuatl sources to reconstruct
Mexican climate variability and impacts at local scales, incorporating compara-
tive case studies and indigenous perspectives (see Chap. 30).22
218 M. d. R. PRIETO AND F. ROJAS

19.4   Studies of Climate Forcings

19.4.1  
El Niño Southern Oscillation, Droughts, and Floods
The northern coast of Peru and the southern coast of Ecuador are the areas
most directly affected by increases in sea-surface temperature during El Niño
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, which result in heavy precipitation.
William Quinn and colleagues have written the most complete—but some-
times controversial—documentary chronology of ENSO events, based princi-
pally on secondary sources.23 In 2000, Luc Ortlieb revised Quinn’s chronology,
addressing some ambiguities in Quinn’s work.24 More recently, Ricardo García
Herrera and colleagues have developed a new ENSO chronology based mainly
on primary sources from the municipal archive of Trujillo, Peru.25 ENSO has
also been studied in the southern Pacific Ocean through information in the
ship logbooks of the Manila galleon fleet, which traveled between Acapulco
(Mexico) and the Philippines.26
There are fewer studies of ENSO in Chile, even though its signal is clear and
it brings copious rainfall. Ortlieb has connected rains in central Chile with El
Niño years and has also published a detailed compilation of rains in northern
Chile during the nineteenth century.27 Further studies have traced connections
between ENSO and years with increased snowfall in the Argentine–Chilean
Andes and fluctuations in the flow volumes of the Mendoza River.28 The rivers
of northeastern Argentina are intimately tied to ENSO. M. Prieto examines
flooding of the Paraná River during 1590–1805.29 In terms of ENSO-related
droughts, historical climatologists have reconstructed rainfall variability in the
Andean puna grassland, particularly in Potosí and La Paz, and have also con-
nected ENSO to historical droughts in central Mexico.30 Blanca Mendoza and
colleagues have studied the frequency and duration of droughts in the Valley of
Mexico and been able to tie them to ENSO, the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation, and Southern Oscillation Index in the Yucatán Peninsula.31

19.4.2  
Caribbean Cyclones
Climate historians in Caribbean countries have principally focused on hurri-
canes, given their importance in the region. Cyclone frequency has been stud-
ied through historical documents beginning with the earliest data on cyclones
in 1500.32 García Herrera and colleagues have undertaken a significant study of
historical hurricanes in the Caribbean based on logs of Spanish and English
ships.33

19.4.3  
Ship Logs, Maritime Climate, and Southern Glaciers
Unlike in Europe, old drawings and paintings of glaciers are scarce in South
America, and so research is based more on historical documents (cf. Chap. 8).34
Logbooks from ships, mainly from Spain, have provided valuable information
 CLIMATE HISTORY IN LATIN AMERICA 219

Fig. 19.2 Iceberg sightings from the Diamante during the voyage from Lima, Peru
to Cádiz, Spain. AGI, Maps and Charts of Peru and Chile, May 1770. (Reproduced
from M.R. Prieto, R. García Herrera, and E. Hernández, “Early Records of Icebergs in
the South Atlantic Ocean from Spanish Documentary Sources,” Climatic Change 66
(2004): 29–48. With permission of Springer)

on the southern maritime climate, principally in the Strait of Magellan between

1520 and 1619, in addition to descriptions of nearby glaciers.35 For instance,
Prieto and colleagues have described five sightings of iceberg clusters prior to
those recorded by Captain Cook in 1772–75 (Fig. 19.2).36

19.4.4  
Hydroclimatic Variability in South America
Researchers studying climate variability in Argentina have focused on regional
precipitation and the run-off of rivers that originate in the Andes. Some have
concentrated on determining fluctuations in the flow of the Mendoza River
and their correlations with glacial advances in the Andes during the Little Ice
Age.37 Rivers of northern Argentina have also received attention, such as
research on the flow of the Salí Dulce River, and a data series incorporating an
ordinal index of very low flow (−2) to exceptional floods (2) for the Bermejo
River.38 Other studies have examined climate variability, droughts, and heavy
rainfall in the same region.39 Studies of Brazil have emphasized droughts in the
northeast and their connection to social problems.40 In Brazil, R. Araki has
done a historical reconstruction to interpret the climate in São Paulo.41
220 M. d. R. PRIETO AND F. ROJAS

19.5   Conclusion
Latin American historical climatology has seen significant growth in recent
decades, but it remains focused on certain regions and topics. Most research cov-
ers Mexico, Argentina, and the Pacific coast of South America. A few principal
themes have emerged, such as the compilation of long data series (precipitation,
river flows, and ENSO events) used to verify the impact of climate variations on
people and institutions. There has also been an intense amount of work directed
at interpreting relationships between droughts and social processes, principally in
Mexico and Brazil. We believe that there have been important advances in the
discipline toward more quantitative perspectives, in tune with developments in
Europe by researchers of the Pfister and Brázdil schools (see Chap. 11).42

Acknowledgment Thank you to Erik Marsh for translating this chapter.

Notes
1. Bethell, 1984.
2. González Álvarez, 2006.
3. Morales Padrón, 1963.
4. Pigafetta, 1954.
5. Morales Padrón, 1963.
6. See Fig. 19.1 for modern place names in the text.
7. Prieto et al., 2001.
8. Pabón Caicedo, 2008.
9. Dates refer to key times. In most cases, the first year of observations marks the
beginning of a brief period of instrumental data. Continuous datasets began
later, and usually were recorded by an institute of meteorology organized by the
state or the Jesuits. The table does not include data from sailors from coastal
areas, which in some cases was even earlier.
10. Some authors consider this to be the first meteorological station in the Americas.
11. From 1858 to 1961, discontinuous instrumental data was recorded in Havana.
This is an important data series because of the early start date and because the
series extends for more than 100 years.
12. This thesis studies agricultural crises (in terms of the price of corn and droughts)
that led to famine, migrations, and social conflict in Mexico between 1708 and
1813; Florescano, 1969.
13. Prieto and García Herrera, 2009; Pabón Caicedo, 2008; Carcelén Reluz, 2009;
Prieto et al., 2012.
14. Prieto, 1983.
15. Garza Merodio, 2007.
16. García Acosta, 1996, 1997.
17. Padilla et al., 1980; Metcalfe, 1987.
18. Liverman, 1990; Florescano and Swan, 1995.
19. O’Hara and Metcalfe, 1995; Tortolero, 1996.
20. Garza Merodio, 2002, 2007.
21. Garza Merodio, 2002, 106.
22. Endfield, 2008; Skopyk, 2010.
23. Quinn et al., 1987; Quinn, 1992.
 CLIMATE HISTORY IN LATIN AMERICA 221

24. Ortlieb, 2000.

25. García Herrera et al., 2008.
26. García Herrera et al., 2001.
27. Ortlieb, 1994.
28. Prieto et al., 1999, 2001.
29. Prieto, 2007.
30. Gioda and Prieto, 1999; Gioda, 1999; Mendoza et al., 2005.
31. Mendoza et al., 2005, 2007.
32. Walsh and Reading, 1991; Rappaport and Fernández-Partagás, 1997;
Fernández-Partagás and Díaz, 1996; García Herrera et al., 2007.
33. García Herrera et al., 2001.
34. Guerrido et al., 2014.
35. Prieto et al., 2004; Araneda et al., 2007.
36. Prieto et al., 2004. To calibrate and verify these data series, a set of statistical
calculations was used, following Neukom et al. (2009).
37. Prieto and Rojas, 2012; Gil Guirado et al., 2016.
38. Herrera et al., 2011; Prieto and Rojas, 2015.
39. Prieto et al., 2000, 2001.
40. Villa, 2000.
41. Araki, 2012.
42. Pfister et al., 2001.

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 CHAPTER 20

A Multi-Century History of Drought

and Wetter Conditions in Africa

Sharon E. Nicholson

20.1   Introduction
Africa contains the world’s largest expanse of arid and semi-arid land. Its peo-
ple have contended with its harsh conditions over millennia, developing a close
relationship with the environment and climate. Droughts cause famine, eco-
nomic hardship, mass migration, and death. Extraordinary rains cause dwell-
ings to collapse, flood low-lying areas, and prevent travel and commerce. The
close relationship between people and climate has figured prominently in the
development of a climatic history for the continent. A nearly continuous record
of the Nile extends back to the year 622 ce. Historical empires were chroni-
cled, so that records of famine and drought exist in many parts of the continent
as of the eighth century or earlier.1 When the Portuguese began exploration of
sub-Saharan Africa commencing in the fifteenth century, additional informa-
tion concerning its climate history came to light. By the seventeenth century,
Holland, Denmark, and Sweden had established a presence on the continent.
Africa was a hub of European activity in the nineteenth century, the focus of
dozens of explorers and geographical expeditions, as various European coun-
tries fought for power. Colonies, settlements, forts, trading posts, and missions
were variously established by the French, Belgians, British, Portuguese, Italians,
Spanish, and Germans. Climate, especially droughts, was of great interest to
them, and a wealth of meteorological information resulted. The diverse sources
include maps, meteorological diaries and observations, geographical studies,
missionary reports, and travelers’ journals.

S. E. Nicholson (*)
Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Florida State University,
Tallahassee, FL, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 225

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_20
226 S. E. NICHOLSON

Historical references to drought and wetter conditions allow for the recon-
struction of climate over several centuries. In most cases, absolute certainty
cannot be established. However, “convergence of evidence” from numerous
sources is used to create a chronology of the most likely conditions that pre-
vailed. By the nineteenth century, enough information was available to allow
for the development of semi-quantitative annual records for the whole conti-
nent since 1800.2

20.2   Multi-Century Drought Chronologies

Figure 20.1 presents “drought” chronologies commencing in the sixteenth
century for several African regions. These include Sahelian West Africa, the
Cape Verde Islands, the Guinea Coast, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, coastal
Angola, and the western Cape of South Africa (see also Fig. 20.2). They are
constructed from documentary evidence in the early centuries, then rain gauge
records beginning in the mid- to late nineteenth century.
The chronologies should be interpreted with caution, as information is not
available for every year. However, historical information is plentiful enough in
these regions, that the absence of mention of drought is a likely indication of
adequate conditions of rainfall. Reports of very wet years appear, but references
to drought are much more frequent. This contrast exists for three reasons.
First, in the semi-arid regions that prevail over Africa, dry years occur more
frequently than wet years. Second, drought is a broad, regional phenomenon
while intense rainfall is often more localized in nature. Third, drought tends to
have more human impact than wetter conditions and thus more importance
may be placed upon it.

20.2.1  
Equatorial Regions
Perhaps the longest and most complete equatorial chronology is that for
Angola, commencing in 1550, from Miller.3 Major droughts occurred in
the 1580s, the 1610s, and the 1710s, while dry conditions were frequent
in the 1640s and 1650s. There was a near absence of drought throughout
most of the eighteenth century, until the mid-1780s and 1790s. Numerous
dry years also occurred in the 1810s.
Historical records for the Guinea Coast derive mostly from southern Ghana,
particularly from the Cape Coast castle or the Danish fort at Christiansborg
(modern Accra).4 Relatively good conditions prevailed throughout most of the
eighteenth century until the late 1770s, when several dry or drought years
occurred consecutively. Good rainfall returned in the 1780s and continued
until at least the turn of the century. References to drought are common in the
nineteenth century, except for a sequence of wet years around 1840 or 1850.
Sediment cores from various equatorial lakes, particularly Lakes Bosumtwi and
Kamalete, support these broad trends.5
 A MULTI-CENTURY HISTORY OF DROUGHT AND WETTER CONDITIONS… 227

Fig. 20.1 Climatic chronologies for select regions of Africa (see Fig. 20.2 for loca-
tion). Negative numbers indicate dry conditions or drought. The length of the bar is
arbitrary, but −1 is generally indicative of dry conditions, −2 an actual drought, and −3
severe drought. Similarly, positive numbers indicate good to very good conditions of
rainfall. The dashed horizontal lines indicate general periods of wetter or drier condi-
tions. The chronologies for Algeria, Senegambia, the Guinea Coast, and Angola stop at
the point where reliable gauge data becomes available. Widespread intervals of anoma-
lous conditions are shaded.

For East Africa, most of the currently available information lacks good tem-
poral resolution. The exception is the Nile flood information available for sev-
eral centuries, but it is difficult to interpret in terms of annual precipitation.6
References to drought and famine are often described as occurring during the
reign of a particular ruler and are generalized.7 Lake level information is rela-
tively plentiful for the last few hundred years, but it generally does not have
228 S. E. NICHOLSON

Fig. 20.2 Location of regions in Fig. 20.1: Niger Bend (NB), Senegambia (S), north-
ern Nigeria (N), Chad (C), Cape Verde Islands (CV), Guinea Coast (GC), coastal
Algeria (CA), Tunisia (T), Morocco (M), coastal Angola (A), western Cape of South
Africa (W), East Africa (EA), Central Namibia (CN)

annual resolution. The lakes with useful records include Naivasha, Edward,
Baringo, Tanganyika, Victoria, Malawi, Turkana, Duluti, and Challa.8
These tend to support the observation that the fluctuations in the eastern
equatorial regions tend to be out-of-phase with those in the western. However,
dry conditions at the end of the eighteenth century and the first few decades of
the nineteenth century appear to have been ubiquitous. In East Africa they
were calamitous, especially in the 1830s.9 Reports from European travelers in
East Africa indicated a famine had prevailed in the Pangani Valley of Tanzania
and around Mombasa, Kenya for some twenty years.10 In the mid-1830s, a
Ukerewe chief had been deposed because he could not stop the multiyear
drought that caused widespread starvation.11 Lakes Chibwera and Kanyamukali
in western Uganda and Baringo in central Kenya became completely desiccated
 A MULTI-CENTURY HISTORY OF DROUGHT AND WETTER CONDITIONS… 229

in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and other lakes fell con-
tinuously during this time.12 During the period 1785–1835, rainfall over the
Lake Victoria basin was probably about 15% lower on average than during the
twentieth century.13

20.2.2  
Sahelian West Africa
In the Sahel, rainfall conditions were good throughout most of the sixteenth
century to the mid-seventeenth century.14 However, drought affected
Senegambia and northern Nigeria around 1610 and Senegambia and the Niger
Bend from around 1639 to 1643.15 Prolonged and widespread drought epi-
sodes occurred in the 1680s, the 1710s, and around 1738–56.
The Cape Verde Islands, just west of the Sahel, experienced many of the
same droughts as the Sahel.16 Drought was an infrequent occurrence from the
1550s to the late seventeenth century. However, drought occurred in the early
1600s, in the 1680s, in the 1710s, and in the late 1730s to mid-1750s. Rainfall
was plentiful early in the 1780s, but drought prevailed again from about 1785
to 1792.

20.2.3  
Southern Africa
Some of the longest historical records from the low-latitude portions of south-
ern Africa come from Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa.17 Figure 20.1
shows an example of a drought chronology from Namibia, where droughts
tend to occur synchronously throughout most of the country. The most exten-
sive period of drought may have been in the 1830s and 1840s. An extended
period of good rainfall prevailed in the 1870s, but a severe drought com-
menced in the late 1880s. Elsewhere in southern Africa, such as the Kalahari
and summer-rainfall regions of South Africa, drought conditions were com-
mon in the 1820s and 1830s.18 Extensive dry conditions in the 1840s affected
the Kalahari and parts of Zimbabwe.19

20.2.4  
Extratropical Margins
Unlike the rest of Africa, the North African coast and the Cape region of South
Africa receive predominantly winter rainfall and are generally governed by mid-­
latitude meteorological processes. Thus, the rainfall trends in these regions
show little relationship to each other or to those of the African tropics.
In Tunisia, good conditions prevailed from about 1600 to 1760. Only three
drought years occurred within that period.20 Several drought years occurred in
the mid-1700s, but a stretch of good years ensued until the 1810s. From that
time onward, drought occurrence was relatively frequent.
In Algeria, drought occurred frequently from the mid-1500s to the early
1600s, but from 1630 to 1700, the region appears to have been drought-free.
230 S. E. NICHOLSON

Drought occurred frequently from the 1710s to around 1820, after which time
good conditions of rainfall set in.
In Morocco, historical records indicate that catastrophic drought and fam-
ine occurred in 1519–21, 1626–8, and 1651–3. Analysis of sediments suggests
further drought episodes in the six years 1776–82 and in the three-year periods
1815–18 and 1822–5.21 On a timescale of centuries, drought occurrence in
Morocco appears to be roughly out of phase with drought occurrence in
Algeria. During the mid-eighteenth-century Sahel drought, Morocco experi-
enced good rainfall.
Historical information implies that drought episodes occurred in the winter-­
rainfall region of the western Cape around the 1690s and in the 1760s and
1770s.22 Good seasons prevailed early in the eighteenth century and in the
1780s. Tree rings from the southwestern Cape confirm these wetter condi-
tions, but not the period of drought.23

20.3   The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

With the plentiful information available for the nineteenth century, more
detailed and reliable climatic records could be constructed. Combining this
material with rain gauge measurements, Nicholson and colleagues were able to
construct semi-quantitative time series of annual rainfall for ninety regions of
the continent from 1800 to present (Fig. 20.3).24 The basis of the method is
the use of regions that are homogeneous with respect to interannual variability.
That is, important wet or dry years tend to affect the entire region.
Because so much of the available material is descriptive, a seven-class system
is used to describe the “wetness” of the season. (For more on the conversion
of descriptive material into quantitative indices, see Chap. 11.) The values −1
to −3 represent dry conditions, drought, and severe drought, respectively. A
zero denotes normal conditions and +1 to +3 indicate a range from good rains
to anomalously wet then very wet. Statistical methods were used to convert
rain gauge data to these same categories and to create spatial detail.
The resultant dataset for each region and year is depicted in Fig. 20.4. The
lowest region numbers commence in the northern extreme of Africa and the
highest are generally for the southern extreme. However, there is no strict
geographical correspondence to the numbering. The Sahel/Soudan zone
includes roughly regions 9–22 and equatorial Africa is roughly regions 23–40
(see Fig. 20.3).
The most striking feature is the extensive period of aridity on a continental
scale in the 1820s and 1830s. It is also evident in the two-century-long time
series derived from this dataset (Fig. 20.5), in the Nile flood record, and in the
sediments of numerous lakes in East and southern Africa, some of which were
completely desiccated at this time.25 The 1830s, in particular, was one of the
most severe drought episodes experienced by the peoples of East Africa.26
 A MULTI-CENTURY HISTORY OF DROUGHT AND WETTER CONDITIONS… 231

Fig. 20.3 Map of ninety regions depicted in Fig. 20.4

These conditions often provoked famine, migrations, and, in many places, dec-
imation of the population.
Another important climatic episode occurred late in the nineteenth century
(Fig. 20.4). During the 1880s, rainfall was continually good throughout the
Sahel and much of the area to the north of it. Unfortunately, though, it was a
period of intense drought throughout many of the equatorial regions, particu-
larly in East Africa.27

20.4   Summary
From the evidence presented, two firm conclusions can be drawn. One is that
major episodes of drought tend to affect large portions of the continent, thus
tying them into large-scale and perhaps global patterns of climate. Examples
include the 1640s, the 1680s, the 1710s, the late 1730s to the mid-1750s, and
232 S. E. NICHOLSON

Fig. 20.4 Semi-quantitative dataset. The dataset includes several categories, indicat-
ing a range of conditions from extreme drought (−3) to very wet (+3). All wet catego-
ries are indicated by a dot.

the 1780s. The droughts of the 1680s and mid-1700s were evident across the
east–west extent of the Sahel and appeared to include the Guinea Coast in
many years as well.28 The second conclusion is that a period of major aridity
affected nearly the entire continent in the early nineteenth century, leaving its
mark on Africa’s inhabitants.
Africa, with its predominantly arid and semi-arid environments, may be the
continent most affected by projected global climate change. In view of the
climatic teleconnections across the continent, this could mean continent-wide
impacts. Thus, future climate change could be disastrous for Africa.
 A MULTI-CENTURY HISTORY OF DROUGHT AND WETTER CONDITIONS… 233

Fig. 20.5 Select regional time series based on the data in Fig. 20.4

Notes
1. Nicholson et al., 2012a.
2. Nicholson et al., 2012b.
3. Miller, 1982.
4. Norrgård, 2013; Nicholson, 1996.
5. Shanahan et al., 2009; Ngomanda et al., 2007.
6. Popper, 1951.
7. Spinage, 2012.
8. Ricketts and Johnson, 1996; Verschuren et al., 2000, 2009; Verschuren, 2004;
Russell et al., 2007; Nicholson, 1998, 1999; Kiage and Liu, 2009; Wolff et al.,
2011; Öberg et al., 2013; Russell and Johnson, 2005.
9. Hartwig, 1979.
10. Ajayi and Crowder, 1972.
11. Spinage, 2012.
12. Bessems et al., 2008; Nicholson, 2001.
13. Nicholson and Yin, 2001.
14. Nicholson, 1978.
15. Becker, 1985; Nicholson, 2001.
16. Almeida, 1997; Brooks, 2006; Patterson, 1988.
234 S. E. NICHOLSON

17. Vogel, 1989; Nash and Endfield, 2008; Nash and Grab, 2010; Kelso and Vogel,
2007; Neukom et al., 2014.
18. Nicholson et al., 2012a, 2012b.
19. Neukom et al., 2014.
20. Bois, 1944.
21. On Algeria: Marchika, 1927; on Morocco: Abdelhadi, 1987.
22. Nicholson, 1981.
23. Nicholson, 1996.
24. Nicholson et al., 2012a, 2012b.
25. Hartwig, 1979; Nicholson, 2001; Verschuren et al., 2000; Bessems et al., 2008.
26. Hartwig, 1979.
27. Hartwig, 1979.
28. Nicholson, 1980; Norrgård, 2013, 2015.

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 CHAPTER 21

Recent Developments in Australian Climate

History

Joëlle Gergis, Linden Ashcroft, and Don Garden

21.1   Introduction
Despite Australia being home to one of the world’s oldest cultures, an under-
standing of its climate history is still emerging. While Australian Aboriginal
culture is intricately linked to the environment and landscape, the oral nature
of indigenous history means that quantitative data on interannual climate vari-
ability is limited to European arrival on the continent in 1788 (for more on
climate history and indigenous peoples, see Chap. 30).1
The Sydney region of modern New South Wales (NSW) was Australia’s only
colony from 1788 until 1803, when settlement expanded to the island of Van
Diemen’s Land, now known as Tasmania (Fig. 21.1).2 European settlement
began in what became the modern states of Queensland (1824), Victoria
(1834), and South Australia (1836), and reached most of the western and
northern parts of the continent by the mid-nineteenth century.3 As such, our
understanding of early Australian climate history is predominately confined to
the geographical areas of south-eastern Australia (SEA) and locations in and
around the Sydney region of NSW until the middle of the nineteenth
century.4
Early explorers and nineteenth-century polymaths were fascinated by the
Australian climate, and several historical compilations of instrumental and
­documentary weather and climate information date back to that time.5 Similarly,

J. Gergis (*)
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
L. Ashcroft
Centre for Climate Change, University Rovira i Virgili, Tortosa, Spain
D. Garden
School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

© The Author(s) 2018 237

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_21
 238
J. GERGIS ET AL.

Fig. 21.1 (a) A map of Australia showing the south-eastern Australia (SEA) study region. The states of South Australia (SA), Victoria
(VIC), New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), and Tasmania (TAS) are marked, as well as the city of Sydney and the eastern NSW
region (east of the vertical dashed line). (b) Wet and dry years for eastern NSW identified using a nine-station instrumental rainfall network
described in Gergis and Ashcroft (2013) (1860–2008, purple), the documentary chronology of Fenby and Gergis (2013) (1788–1860, grey),
and historical rainfall for Sydney (1841–60, blue). The median rainfall reconstruction of Gergis et al. (2012) (G12; 1788–1988) is plotted as
anomalies (mm) relative to a 1900–88 base period (dashed line), as well as long-term Sydney rainfall anomalies (1832–2008) relative to
1910–50 (solid line).
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE HISTORY 239

dedicated individuals recorded information on the weather and climate condi-

tions that they experienced in the southern colony.6 However, until recently,
these Australian historical records remained virtually untapped for use in
­contemporary climate research. The vast majority of scientific climate studies
focus on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, once the Australian Bureau
of Meteorology was formed and instrumental observations became more read-
ily available.7
The climate of SEA is dominated by high rainfall variability, due in large part
to the impact of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation phenomenon (ENSO).8
Consequently, the majority of environmental history research has focused on
the influence of rainfall variability and water availability on the landscape and
psyche of European settlers in Australia.9 The impacts of ENSO events have
also been the focus of contributions to the fields of Australian environmental
history and modern climatology.10

21.2   The South Eastern Australian Recent Climate

History Project
Until recently, research in the fields of climate science and environmental his-
tory in Australia took place largely in isolation from one another. From 2009
to 2012, an initiative known as the South Eastern Australian Recent Climate
History (SEARCH) project (www.climatehistory.com.au) addressed this lack
of disciplinary interaction and engaged palaeoclimatologists, meteorologists,
and historians to consolidate the region’s early instrumental and documentary
climate records back to first European settlement in 1788.11
A 2013 study by C. Fenby and J. Gergis examined twelve documentary-­
based rainfall chronologies for SEA comprising colonial archive reports, per-
sonal diaries, and newspaper accounts that contained detailed information
about past drought, floods, and other significant weather events since first
European settlement. This study identified twenty-four new drought years in
SEA and seventeen previously undescribed wet periods in eastern NSW between
1788 and 1900 (Table 21.1).
This analysis was then expanded by J. Gergis and L. Ashcroft, who used
recovered historical rainfall records, modern rainfall data, and the documentary
compilation by Fenby and Gergis to develop an eastern NSW drought and wet
year index over the 1788–2008 period. This series now represents Australia’s
first comprehensive drought and wet period chronology, combining an unprec-
edented analysis of Australian colonial documentary records with newly recov-
ered and homogenized instrumental climate data (see Chap. 7 on early
instrumental measurements and Chap. 9 on homogenization).12
Table 21.1 lists a total of seventy-one wet and eighty-one dry years identified
for eastern New South Wales spanning the 1788–2008 period.13 Given that the
majority of Australian drought studies begin in the late nineteenth century,
here we focus on highlighting a few of the more significant, largely undescribed
dry and wet years experienced in eastern NSW from 1788 to 1899 (Fig. 21.1).14
240 J. GERGIS ET AL.

Table 21.1 Dry and wet

Dry years Wet years
years for eastern NSW iden­
tified from documentary 1790–1 1788
(1788–1860 for dry, 1788– 1798 1793
1840 for wet, italic font) 1802–3 1796–7
and instrumental rainfall 1809–11 1804–5
records (1860–2008, plain 1813–15 1808
font) 1824 1816
1826–8 1829–31
1835 1836
1837–8 1839–40
1842 1859–60
1845 1863–4
1849 1866
1857–8 1869–70
1861–2 1872–4
1865 1879
1868 1886
1871 1889–93
1875 1900
1880–1 1903
1883 1913
1885 1916–17
1888 1920–1
1894–6 1925
1898 1930
1901–2 1933–4
1904–9 1947
1915 1949–52
1918–19 1954–5
1922 1958–63
1924 1966
1926 1969–71
1928–9 1973–6
1932 1978
1935–6 1983
1938–9 1987–9
1941–2 1991
1944 1998–9
1946 2007
1956–7
1964–5
1968
1979–80
1982
1986
1990
1992
Adapted from Gergis and Ashcroft. Note that documentary information for 1994
the wet phase of the eastern NSW rainfall index is not available over the 1997
1841–60 period. Instead we use instrumental rainfall data from Sydney to clas- 2000
sify wet and dry years, as described in Gergis and Ashcroft (2013). This 2002–3
accounts for the inclusion of the 1859–60 wet event listed here, and its omis-
2005
sion from Table 3 of Gergis and Ashcroft (2013).
2008
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE HISTORY 241

21.3   Australian Droughts, 1788–1899

The newly developed eastern NSW drought chronology presented in Table 21.1
reveals twenty-four largely unknown drought periods during the pre-1900
period. Ten of these dry periods lasted for at least two years: 1790–1, 1802–3,
1809–11, 1813–15, 1826–8, 1837–8, 1857–8, 1861–2, 1880–1, and 1894–6.
The longest drought period in eastern NSW occurred in 1809–15, with
only one average rainfall year occurring in 1812. According to the 2013 study
of Fenby and Gergis, dry weather resulted in crop failures and severe water
shortages. By October 1813, around 5000 cattle and 3000 sheep had died
from lack of pasture and water brought by the prolonged drought conditions.
The primary water storage basins of Sydney were empty for the first time since
they were constructed during the first settlement drought of 1790–1.15
The most widespread drought, recorded across every SEA state, took place
in 1837–41. According to documentary records, the period from 1835 to
1841 was dominated by drought conditions in mainland SEA, with the excep-
tion of a few periods of good rainfall.16 Water shortages resulted in a general
failure of agricultural crops in NSW and widespread loss of cattle, particularly
during 1837–9.17 In Victoria, drought conditions were recorded from 1837 to
1840, converting the landscape “into an arid waste, destitute of either grass or
water”.18 Interestingly, instrumental rainfall data for western Tasmania sug-
gests that the island state was wet during 1836–8, with drought not recorded
until the early 1840s.19 The spatial variability of the 1837–41 drought is typical
of modern SEA rainfall variations, as a variety of large-scale circulation features
can affect climate in the region.20

21.4   Australian Wet Periods, 1788–1899

Historically there has been a focus on Australian drought, with little attention
paid to the impact pronounced wet periods can have on society. Table 21.1 lists
seventeen previously undescribed wet events from eastern NSW that occurred
during the pre-1900 period. Nine of these wet periods lasted two or more
years: 1796–7, 1804–5, 1829–31, 1839–40, 1859–60, 1863–4, 1869–70,
1872–4, and 1889–93.
European settlement of NSW in the year 1788 was characterized by high
rainfall that hampered efforts to establish infrastructure in the new penal col-
ony.21 Heavy rain and storms influenced life during the early days in Sydney
Cove, making the establishment of the colony very difficult. This early period of
European settlement was characterized by cool, wet conditions associated with
the 1788–90 La Niña event recorded in palaeoclimate records (see Chap. 34).22
Early nineteenth-century records contain a number of dramatic accounts of
severe flooding on the Hawkesbury River in the Sydney region. These events
culminated in the “Great Flood” of March 1806, which is believed to have been
the most destructive flood experienced since first settlement of Australia. During
this event, flood damage is estimated to have caused severe crop losses in the
colony’s “food bowl” that brought the settlement to the brink of famine.23
242 J. GERGIS ET AL.

The early 1830s stand out as a notable wet period in Table 21.1 and
Fig. 21.1. In 1836, NSW farmers described the recent harvest as “one of the
most plentiful seasons ever remembered in the Colony”. The 1836–7 summer
was reportedly wet, with heavy rains soaking the dry pastures typical of
Australian summer conditions.24 This prolonged pluvial is the most prominent
feature of a palaeoclimate reconstruction of southern SEA rainfall developed by
Gergis and colleagues. It is also captured by a range of historical rainfall data,
providing independent verification of the wet period reported in the documen-
tary record (Fig. 21.1).25
The late nineteenth century in eastern NSW was also dominated by very wet
conditions associated with a number of La Niña events, particularly during
1869–74 and 1889–93.26 The findings presented in Table 21.1 correspond
well to other analyses of early instrumental rainfall, as well as documentary and
palaeoclimate studies.27 Together, these lines of evidence strengthen the devel-
opment of a reliable historical rainfall chronology for eastern NSW.

21.5   Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter has been to highlight recent advances in the devel-
oping field of Australian climate history. Despite the geographical biases associ-
ated with the location of population settlement, it is clear that historical
documentary and instrumental records play an important role in understand-
ing pre-twentieth-century rainfall variations in the SEA region. Recent inter-
disciplinary research by the SEARCH project has identified twenty-four new
drought events and seventeen wet periods from eastern NSW during the
1788–1899 period. It is important to note that these years have been classified
for eastern NSW only, and may not reflect nuances in the wider SEA region,
individual rainfall stations, or local historical documents.
This study confirms that SEA has experienced significant rainfall variability
that has shaped the development of Australian societies since first European
settlement in 1788. This research is the first study of its kind in the Australasian
region to combine documentary, early instrumental, and modern meteorologi-
cal rainfall observations using internationally comparable techniques.28 It rep-
resents a significant advance in historical climatology for the region. The results
presented in this study now provide the opportunity for Australia to be included
in cross-regional drought comparisons from the Indo–Pacific regions of the
Southern Hemisphere.29

Acknowledgments JG acknowledges funding from Australian Research Council

(ARC) Projects LP0990151 and DE130100668. LA received support from ARC proj-
ect LP0990151 and thanks Claire Fenby for advice that helped to improve the
manuscript.
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE HISTORY 243

Notes
1. Webb, 1997.
2. Macintyre, 1999.
3. Macintyre, 1999.
4. Fenby and Gergis, 2013.
5. Strzelecki, 1845; Jevons, 1859; Russell, 1877.
6. Kingston, 1879; Foley, 1957; Nicholls, 1998; Clarke and Moyal, 2003; Ashcroft
et al., 2014a.
7. Day, 2007; Jones et al., 2009.
8. McBride and Nicholls, 1983; Risbey et al., 2009.
9. Sherratt et al., 2005; Morgan, 2013; Beattie et al., 2014.
10. Nicholls, 1988; Garden, 2009.
11. Gergis et al., 2009, 2010, 2018; Ashcroft et al., 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2015;
Fenby and Gergis, 2013; Gergis and Ashcroft, 2013.
12. Ashcroft et al., 2014a.
13. Gergis and Ashcroft, 2013.
14. Murphy and Timbal, 2008; Ummenhofer et al., 2009; Verdon-Kidd and Kiem,
2009.
15. Gergis et al., 2009, 2010; Fenby and Gergis, 2013; Gergis, 2018.
16. Fenby and Gergis, 2013.
17. Fenby and Gergis, 2013.
18. Fenby and Gergis, 2013.
19. Ashcroft et al., 2014a, 2016.
20. Risbey et al., 2009.
21. Gergis et al., 2010; Gergis, 2018.
22. Gergis and Fowler, 2009; Gergis et al., 2010.
23. Fenby and Gergis, 2013.
24. Fenby and Gergis, 2013.
25. Ashcroft et al., 2014a.
26. Gergis and Fowler, 2009.
27. Timbal and Fawcett, 2013; Garden, 2009; Gergis et al., 2012.
28. Brázdil et al., 2005.
29. Nash and Endfield, 2008; Neukom et al., 2009; Nash and Grab, 2010; Gergis
and Henley, 2017; Gergis, 2018.

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Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal 62 (2012): 227–45.
Ashcroft, Linden et al. “A Historical Climate Dataset for Southeastern Australia,
1788–1859.” Geoscience Data Journal 1 (2014a): 158–78.
Ashcroft, Linden et al. “Southeastern Australian Climate Variability 1860–2009: A
Multivariate Analysis.” International Journal of Climatology 34 (2014b): 1928–44.
Ashcroft, Linden et al. “Long-Term Stationarity of El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Teleconnections in Southeastern Australia.” Climate Dynamics 46 (2016):
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Beattie, James et al. Climate, Science, and Colonization: Histories from Australia and
New Zealand. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
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Climatic Change 70 (2005): 363–430.
Clarke, William Branwhite, and Ann Mozley Moyal. The Web of Science: The Scientific
Correspondence of the Rev. W.B. Clarke, Australia’s Pioneer Geologist. Melbourne:
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Day, David. The Weather Watchers: 100 Years of the Bureau of Meteorology. Carlton, VIC:
Melbourne University Publishers, 2007.
Fenby, Claire, and Joëlle Gergis. “Rainfall Variations in South-Eastern Australia Part 1:
Consolidating Evidence from Pre-Instrumental Documentary Sources, 1788–1860.”
International Journal of Climatology 33 (2013): 2956–72.
Foley, James C. “Droughts in Australia: Review of Records from Earliest Years of
Settlement to 1955.” Bulletin No. 43. Melbourne: Bureau of Meteorology, 1957.
Garden, Donald S. Droughts, Floods & Cyclones: El Niños That Shaped Our Colonial
Past. North Melbourne, VIC: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009.
Gergis, Joëlle. Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in
Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2018.
Gergis, Joëlle, and Linden Ashcroft. “Rainfall Variations in South-Eastern Australia Part
2: A Comparison of Documentary, Early Instrumental and Palaeoclimate Records,
1788–2008.” International Journal of Climatology 33 (2013): 2973–87.
Gergis, Joëlle, and Anthony Fowler. “A History of El Niño–Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) Events Since A.D. 1525: Implications for Future Climate Change.”
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Gergis, Joëlle, and Benjamin J. Henley. “Southern Hemisphere Rainfall Variability Over
the Past 200 Years.” Climate Dynamics 48 (2017): 2087–105.
Gergis, Joëlle et al. “A Climate Reconstruction of Sydney Cove, New South Wales,
Using Weather Journal and Documentary Data, 1788–1791.” Australian
Meteorological Magazine 58 (2009): 83–98.
Gergis, Joëlle et al. “The Influence of Climate on the First European Settlement of
Australia: A Comparison of Weather Journals, Documentary Data and Palaeoclimate
Records, 1788–1793.” Environmental History 15 (2010): 485–507.
Gergis, Joëlle et al. “On the Long-Term Context of the 1997–2009 ‘Big Dry’ in South-­
Eastern Australia: Insights from a 206-Year Multi-Proxy Rainfall Reconstruction.”
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Inclusive. Adelaide, SA: Government Printer, 1879.
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Morgan, Ruth A. “Histories for an Uncertain Future: Environmental History and
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Murphy, Bradley F., and Bertrand Timbal. “A Review of Recent Climate Variability and
Climate Change in Southeastern Australia.” International Journal of Climatology 28
(2008): 859–79.
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Between El Niño and Rainfall Variability in the Kalahari, 1840–1900.” Climatic
Change 86 (2008): 257–90.
Nash, David J., and Stefan W. Grab. “‘A Sky of Brass and Burning Winds’: Documentary
Evidence of Rainfall Variability in the Kingdom of Lesotho, Southern Africa,
1824–1900.” Climatic Change 101 (2010): 617–53.
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Sources.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 69 (1988): 4–6.
Nicholls, Neville. “William Stanley Jevons and the Climate of Australia.” Australian
Meteorological Magazine 47 (1998): 285–93.
Risbey, James S. et al. “On the Remote Drivers of Rainfall Variability in Australia.”
Monthly Weather Review 137 (2009): 3233–53.
Russell, Henry Chamberlaine. Climate of New South Wales: Descriptive, Historical, and
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Organic Remains. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1845.
Timbal, Bertrand, and Robert Fawcett. “A Historical Perspective on Southeastern
Australian Rainfall Since 1865 Using the Instrumental Record.” Journal of Climate
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Droughts in Southeast Australia: Comparison Between the Federation, WWII, and
Big Dry Droughts.” Geophysical Research Letters 36 (2009): L22707.
Webb, Eric K. Windows on Meteorology: Australian Perspective. Collingwood, VIC:
CSIRO Publications, 1997.
 CHAPTER 22

European Middle Ages

Christian Rohr, Chantal Camenisch, and Kathleen Pribyl

22.1   Introduction
This chapter aims to shed light on the historical climatology of the Middle
Ages in Europe. In European history, the Middle Ages are defined as the era
between Late Antiquity (see Chap. 16) and the early modern period (see
Chap. 23), or c. 500–1500 ce. The era conventionally starts with the fall of the
(Western) Roman Empire (476 ce) and the Migration Period (375–568 ce). It
conventionally ends with any number of events used to date the transition
toward modernity: the invention of movable type print in Europe (1450s), the
fall of Constantinople (1453), the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to
America (1492), or the Protestant reformation (1517). Scholars tend to divide
it into “early” (approximately sixth–ninth centuries), “high” (approximately
tenth–twelfth centuries), and “late” (approximately thirteenth–fifteenth centu-
ries) periods; but as this chapter will discuss, the major climatic periods do not
exactly align with this historical periodization.
The Middle Ages witnessed major changes in politics, demography, econ-
omy, and society in Europe. The long-lived Byzantine Empire provides the only
element of political continuity. For most of this period, it covered large parts of
present-day Turkey and the southern Balkans; yet its borders and its fortunes
varied considerably over the course of the centuries.1 During the period c.
1300–1453, the Ottoman Empire conquered Byzantine territory and finally its

C. Rohr (*) • C. Camenisch

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute of History, University of
Bern, Bern, Switzerland
K. Pribyl
Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 247

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_22
248 C. ROHR ET AL.

capital Constantinople. The Frankish Empire and its successors provided the
most influential polities of Central and Western Europe. Under the rule of
Charlemagne (768–814) it also expanded into northern Italy, Hungary, and
Croatia; and in 800 ce Charlemagne received the title of emperor from Pope
Leo III. In the late ninth century this Carolingian Empire was partitioned. The
western part later became the kingdom of France, and the central part would
belong for much of this period to Burgundy. The eastern part developed into
the so-called Holy Roman Empire, but the actual power of its emperors varied
over this period, and its “federal” structure would ultimately create a patch-
work of disparate polities.2 England first saw the consolidation of a number of
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, then the Norman Conquest of 1066, which brought
stronger centralized political authority. During the Hundred Years’ War
(1337–1453) the English kings also ruled large parts of France.3 A number of
relatively wealthy city-states emerged in northern Italy, including the Venetian
Empire, which expanded into the eastern Mediterranean. The Papacy in Rome
established the so-called Papal States, which ruled much of central Italy, while
southern Italy was under the influence of Arab and Norman dynasties.4 Large
parts of Spain came under the rule of Arab Muslim dynasties for most of this
period; and European historical climatology has not conventionally looked
into Arabic (or Ottoman Turkish) source material. Christianity and literacy
spread into Northern and Eastern Europe from the ninth century ce onward,
through conversion and conquest. Some parts of these regions (e.g., Hungary
and Iceland) contain more relevant records and research than others for this
period.5

22.2   The State of the Field

The pioneers of modern historical climatology Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and
Hubert Lamb both helped develop the current understanding of European
climate during the Middle Ages. It was Lamb who in 1965 first described the
European “Medieval Warm Epoch,” or what is now commonly (and appropri-
ately) termed the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), as well as popularizing
the “Little Ice Age” (LIA).6 Two years later Le Roy Ladurie, in his pioneering
book L’histoire du climat depuis l’an mil, presented valuable new methods and
results of historical climate reconstruction, with a strong emphasis on the
Middle Ages.7 Moreover, both scholars continued their research in the field for
several decades (see Chap. 1).8
The subsequent generations of historical climatologists have included sev-
eral notable specialists on the Middle Ages. During the 1970s and 1980s,
Pierre Alexandre improved reconstruction methods, particularly the use of
medieval narrative sources, and delivered an excellent overview of the climate
of Europe (excepting the British Isles) from 1000–1425 ce.9 During the 1990s,
Gabriela Schwarz-Zanetti studied the climate of Central Europe during the
high and late Middle Ages with an emphasis on winter temperatures.10 More
 EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES 249

recent publications that cover wide regions during the Middle Ages include
those of Rüdiger Glaser (for Central Europe) and Heinz Wanner.11
Owing to the number and difficulty of the historical sources, most research
has focused on the regional level. One notable example is the work of Laurent
Litzenburger on medieval climate in France, particularly the climate of
Lorraine and its impacts on the society and economy of Metz.12 Jacques
Berlioz has examined storms and droughts in medieval France.13 Adriaan de
Kraker’s studies of the Netherlands have also included climate during the
Middle Ages.14 For the Low Countries, Jan Buisman has compiled an enor-
mous number of sources, which have in turn formed the basis of long-term
indices of summer and winter temperatures.15 Elisabeth Gottschalk published
extended compilations of floods and storm surges in the Low Countries,
including the Middle Ages, and Chantal Camenisch has generated tempera-
ture and precipitation indices for the fifteenth-century Low Countries at a
seasonal resolution (see Chap. 11).16
Christian Rohr’s research, mostly on floods and avalanches, has focused on
the Alpine region.17 Oliver Wetter and Christian Pfister have employed grain
phenology (see Chap. 5) in temperature reconstructions covering Switzerland
and southern Germany during the later Middle Ages.18 In 2010, Georg Jäger
presented a climate history of Tirol (Austria) that included the high and late
Middle Ages.19 The research of Thomas Wozniak and Paul Edward Dutton has
focused on extreme weather events in the early Middle Ages on continental
Europe.20 An interdisciplinary 2007 study by Michael McCormick, Paul
Edward Dutton, and Paul A. Mayewski examined climate, volcanic activity, and
winter severity in the Carolingian age.21
Longstanding scholarly interest in the historical weather and climate of
Britain has also embraced the medieval period.22 Charles Britton’s 1937
Meteorological Chronology to 1450 drew on weather references in chronicles and
annals. Britton’s work demonstrates a historian’s expertise in collecting climate-­
sensitive information, which sets it apart from most other early compilations.23
Britton’s research provided an important foundation for Hubert Lamb’s sum-
mer wetness and winter severity indices for medieval Britain, published in
1977.24 During the 1960s, Jan Titow compiled weather information from the
manorial accounts of the Bishopric of Winchester, a type of record not previ-
ously used by historical climatologists.25 In 1978, a study by Wendy Bell and
Astrid Ogilvie outlined guidelines for dealing with older weather compilations
and medieval narrative sources.26 On that basis, Ogilvie and Farmer improved
the Lamb indices and extended them using new weather information.27
Kathleen Pribyl has drawn on manorial accounts for grain phenological data,
which form the basis for an April to July temperature reconstruction between
the mid-thirteenth century and c. 1430, and studied the impact of climate on
agriculture, subsistence crisis, and epidemic disease in late medieval England.28
Other historians have continued to uncover and analyze climate-sensitive infor-
mation in local medieval British records.29
250 C. ROHR ET AL.

Astrid Ogilvie has also been a leading figure in the historical climatology of
Northern Europe, particularly Iceland.30 A 2014 study by Dag Retsö collected
documentary evidence for floods and extreme rainfall in Sweden from 1400
onwards.31 Heli Huhtamaa has worked on historical climate variability and its
impacts in Scandinavia, particularly Finland, including the late Middle Ages.32
Rudolf Brázdil and Petr Dobrovolný have led a school of research on the
historical weather and climate of the Czech Lands (see Chap. 23). Although
most of their studies focus on the past five centuries, some have covered the
Middle Ages as well.33 A team led by Dobrovolný recently provided a long-­
term reconstruction of Czech climate since 761 ce based on tree rings and
other proxies.34 For Hungary and the Carpathian Basin, Andrea Kiss has pub-
lished several studies on floods and droughts that focus on, or at least include,
the Middle Ages.35 This research has profited from the relatively rich documen-
tary, archaeological, and proxy evidence for the medieval kingdom of Hungary.
Few researchers have dealt with the medieval climate of Southern Europe.
Dario Camuffo has published a long-term record of the freezing of the Venetian
Lagoon; but his research (with collaborator Silvia Enzi) has focused on the
early modern period.36 Marco Pavese and Giovanni Gregori collected docu-
mentary evidence for weather and climate in the Upper Po Valley from the
twelfth century onwards.37 More recently, Martin Bauch has examined late
medieval climate and its impact on society in Bologna, while Gerrit Jasper
Schenk has carried out comparative research on hydrometeorological extremes
in late medieval Tuscany.38
Climate studies for the eastern Mediterranean and the Byzantine Empire
based on documentary evidence constitute a quickly expanding field of research.
Ioannis Telelis provided the first rich and systematic collection of Byzantine
sources relevant for climate history, and he has outlined a methodological basis
for combining the archives of nature and society.39 A 2012 monograph by archae-
ologist Ronnie Ellenblum argued for widespread climate-driven collapse in the
eastern Mediterranean during the tenth and eleventh centuries, although its
arguments sometimes verge on climate determinism.40 A 2015 study by Johannes
Preiser-Kapeller has discussed the same topic more critically.41 Further recent
research on the historical climatology of Anatolia is discussed in Chap. 18.42

22.3   Evidence
Two major types of sources provide most data for the historical climatology of
medieval Europe. Narrative sources, such as annals, chronicles, memoirs, and
journals, contain descriptions of weather events and (usually sporadic) informa-
tion on climate proxies. Administrative sources—such as municipal account
books and manorial accounts—provide standardized records of expenses and
revenue. These can contain information on climate proxies, as well as direct
weather descriptions.43
 EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES 251

22.3.1  
Narrative Sources
Different types of narrative sources were produced in continental Europe during
the Middle Ages. The tradition of keeping chronicles dates back to antiquity.
During the early and high Middle Ages they were usually compiled in a monastic
or ecclesiastic context. Starting in the late Middle Ages, a growing number of
chronicles were written by laypeople; from the thirteenth century onwards, these
chronicles were frequently written in vernacular languages (rather than Latin).
Medieval chronicles often combined compilations of older texts with new chap-
ters which then catalogued events during the lifetime of the chronicler. Annals,
which originally served as calendars to calculate the date of Easter, also grew to
contain compilations of older events and year-by-year catalogs of recent events.
Memoirs and journals are genres that first appeared during the late Middle Ages.
The former were often composed many years after the events described, whereas
the latter were written much closer to the contemporary events. However, there
were no hard and fast distinctions between these genres during the Middle Ages.
The weather descriptions found in such sources vary. Some are quite exten-
sive, while others provide just a brief mention of prevailing conditions (e.g., “a
cold winter”). Some authors record only occasional extreme weather events.
Others give regular summaries of temperature and precipitation during certain
seasons.44
In England, as in other parts of Europe such as the German-speaking areas,
Italy, France, and the Low Countries, narrative sources such as chronicles and
annals tended to record information about extreme weather events. While nar-
rative sources, such the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, exist for the period before
1200, their information is too poor to allow the construction of a continuous
series of temperature and precipitation extremes.45 Medieval English historical
writing reached its zenith in the thirteenth century, when many monastic
chronicles and annals were composed, supplying dense climate information for
modern researchers. Around 1300, however, the number of narrative sources
begins to diminish, despite the appearance of more municipal (as opposed to
monastic) chronicles. English historical writing reached a nadir around the
mid-fifteenth century.46 Medieval historical narratives for Scotland are sparser.
Irish annals have to be considered with great care, since they are non-­
contemporary texts mostly written in the post-medieval period, and this large
temporal distance generates high potential for dating errors.
Iceland is renowned for its variety and quality of medieval literary sources,
including the narratives known collectively as “sagas.”47 Many of these cannot
be considered reliable for climate reconstruction. Nevertheless, the Sturlunga
and Bishops’ Sagas, concerning twelfth- and thirteenth-century secular and reli-
gious leaders, were for the most part written soon after the events described
and by authors familiar with these events. Other sources for the medieval
period include early Icelandic annals, which contain contemporary information
for the fourteenth century, as well as early works on travel and geography.48
252 C. ROHR ET AL.

22.3.2  
Administrative Sources
The temporal and spatial distribution of administrative records closely mirrors
that of their narrative counterpart. In Europe north of the Alps few of these
sources survive for the period before 1200. During the thirteenth century their
number greatly increases. In England, manorial accounts are of particular
interest to historical climatologists. They describe agricultural activities of
demesne land on individual manors, generally on an annual basis. Weather-­
related information and climate proxy data figure frequently in them. Most
manorial accounts fall into the period from c. 1270 to the late fourteenth cen-
tury. However, the longest series is formed by the accounts of the Bishopric of
Winchester, which run from 1209 until 1450.49 A number of British municipal
accounts containing climate-sensitive information start in the late fourteenth
or fifteenth century, but so far historical climatologists have hardly employed
this vast corpus of records.
On the Continent, municipal records can be used for flood reconstruction
at monthly or even weekly resolution where there are specific accounts dedi-
cated to the maintenance of bridges. Christian Rohr has examined the
Bruckamtsrechnungen (bridgemaster’s accounts) of the city of Wels (Austria),
starting from the mid-fourteenth century.50 Similar accounts have survived
from Bratislava (Slovakia), but they still are under examination. Accounts kept
by medieval landowners may also enable the reconstruction of grain and grape
harvest dates, providing proxies for spring and early summer temperatures (see
Chap. 6).51

22.4   Methods
Most methods of historical climatology developed for the early modern period
can be applied to the medieval period as well. This includes methods of calibra-
tion and verification of time series (see Chap. 10) and the creation of tempera-
ture and precipitation indices from proxy and narrative information (see
Chap. 11). Nonetheless, the Middle Ages pose particular challenges, requiring
some further methodological considerations.

22.4.1  
Dating
Dating errors have a strong influence on the quality of every reconstruction
(see Chap. 4). This is why it is absolutely necessary to deal with the typical
problems of medieval calendar styles before reconstructing the climate of this
era from historical documents. Most high and late medieval sources in conti-
nental Europe date events Anno Domini (that is, from the presumed year of
the birth of Jesus Christ—the basis of the ce dating used in most of the world
today); occasionally medieval sources used regnal years instead. The Julian cal-
endar, employed throughout this era, consisted of a 365-day solar year, with an
extra day every fourth year. However, the solar year actually only lasts 365 days,
 EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES 253

five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty-six seconds, thus leaving a difference
of eleven minutes and fourteen seconds per year. This means that Julian dates
gradually deviated from the actual solar year. This deviation reached six days by
the tenth century, nine days during the fifteenth century, and ten days by the
time the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582.52
Furthermore, medieval sources could start the new year on any of the fol-
lowing dates: January 1 (Circumcision), March 1, March 25 (Annunciation),
Easter, September 1, and December 25 (Christmas).53 In England, documents
concerned with economic and agricultural activities frequently started the new
accounting year at Michaelmas (September 29).54 Within the year, events were
often dated by ecclesiastical feasts, such as those to celebrate a saint or to com-
memorate a certain event in the life of Jesus. Some fell on the same day every
year (e.g., Michaelmas), while “movable feasts” (such as Easter) changed each
year. The importance of particular feasts varied from region to region. All medi-
eval feast days referred, of course, to the Julian calendar dates, which means that
they need to be converted into modern calendar dates before being included in
a reconstruction, in particular when dealing with phenological information.

22.4.2  
Indices
Climate indices constitute an acknowledged method of medieval climate recon-
struction.55 The main advantage of this method is that many different types of
information can be included in the reconstruction and summarized into one
statistic for analysis and comparison (see Chap. 11). For some regions in late
medieval Europe it is possible to produce indices at a seasonal resolution; how-
ever the density of source material varies from region to region and from cen-
tury to century.56 Such a seasonal reconstruction comprises four seasonal
indices for temperature and four indices for precipitation—each index with its
own criteria regarding the scale of values.57

22.4.3  
Phenological Series
Some administrative sources contain proxy data. To serve in a climate recon-
struction, such administrative records must be available in a more or less con-
tinuous centuries-long series.58 Temperature reconstructions reaching back
into the Middle Ages have been achieved using vine harvest dates in Burgundy,
the freezing of the canals and other information in the Low Countries, and
grain harvest dates in Switzerland and England.59 Manorial accounts from East
Anglia (England) between the mid-thirteenth century and c. 1430 record the
grain harvest date, which functions as a proxy for temperature during the
growing season for grain (i.e., April to July), resulting in the earliest documen-
tary proxy-based climate reconstruction for Europe.60 To reconstruct a climate
variable from a proxy, usually there must be an overlap between the proxy data
and instrumental series for that variable; although pseudo-proxies can also be
employed for that purpose (see Chap. 10).61
254 C. ROHR ET AL.

22.5   Results
The Middle Ages can be divided into three climatic phases: (1) the period c.
500–1000, before the Medieval Warm Period (MWP); (2) the MWP, lasting
c.1000–1300; and (3) the transition period between the MWP and the LIA, c.
1300–1500. Note, however, that the temporal boundaries of the MWP and
LIA should not be regarded as fixed, and they are likely to vary across the
globe.

22.5.1  
Before the Medieval Warm Period, or 500–1000
Comparatively few written records exist from the period before c. 1000. The
surviving material makes it possible to analyze times of extreme weather and
their socioeconomic impacts, but not to construct long time series of tempera-
ture or precipitation indices. Most climatic information about this period
comes from proxies drawn from the archives of nature, often at low temporal
or spatial resolution. The period c. 500–1000 is marked by lower temperatures
than those of the preceding “Roman Climate Optimum,” and by wetness, cli-
matic instability, and more continental conditions (i.e., colder winters and
warmer summers).62 Sources from the sixth and seventh centuries and from the
Carolingian period describe a number of severe winters and cold, wet sum-
mers—often coinciding with volcanic eruptions—as well as their resulting
socioeconomic impacts.63

22.5.2  
The Medieval Warm Period, or 1000–1300
The exact dating of the MWP remains debated, and depends on the region
studied and the measurement used. In some long-term climate reconstruc-
tions, the MWP starts as early as 800 and ends by 1250.64 In many areas of
Europe, the number of surviving documentary sources increases during the
MWP, enabling the construction of indices. The dominant pattern of atmo-
spheric circulation in the North Atlantic during these centuries favored a flow
of dry, warm air into Europe, which reduced the frequency of freezing winters
and cold, wet summers that could ruin harvests.65 The warm and settled
weather conditions contributed to a vast expansion of agriculture and settle-
ments that went hand in hand with an increase in population throughout
Europe. It was also during this period that the Vikings started to settle in
Iceland and Greenland.66 Some early research suggested that the period
brought an especially mild and favorable climate to Iceland during the initial
settlement period. The reality was undoubtedly more complex, with a high
level of climatic variability.67 In the Alps the tree line climbed above 2000 meters,
and in England and the southern parts of Scotland, Norway, and the Baltic it
was possible to produce wine.68
 EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES 255

22.5.3  
After the Medieval Warm Period, or 1300–1500
Around 1300 the climatically favorable MWP came to an end and a period of
transition began. This transition was characterized by increased short-term
climatic variability. Decades of relatively high April–July temperatures alter-
nated with decades of cool conditions. These were superimposed on a long-
term trend of decreasing spring and summer temperatures.69 In England,
spring and early summer temperatures decreased compared with those of the
thirteenth century. Weather conditions during the second decade of the four-
teenth century were exceptionally awful in many parts of Europe, and this
climatic anomaly was a major factor in the Great Famine of the years 1315–22
(see Chap. 33).70
The Spörer Minimum—a period of reduced solar activity beginning in about
1420—again brought cooler temperatures and unstable weather conditions.
During the 1430s there occurred a remarkable temperature anomaly marked
by prolonged and severe winters, which generated food shortages and fam-
ine.71 The 1480s and 1490s also brought an unusual cluster of cold, wet sum-
mers. Nevertheless, temperatures during the Spörer Minimum were not
uniformly low: there were a number of years with very hot and dry weather
conditions, such as 1473.72

22.6   Conclusion
The Middle Ages constitute a long and diverse period of European history.
Climatically, it makes sense to divide the era into three parts: before, during,
and after the MWP. Whereas research is already advanced for some areas—
including the British Isles, the Low Countries, Iceland, Hungary, and the
Byzantine Empire—historical climatology is still in its infancy for other areas.
Narrative and administrative sources from southern Italy, Spain, and medieval
Russia may offer promise for further research, but such investigations will
almost certainly prove difficult and will be time-consuming work.
Given the limits of the evidence, most studies of medieval European climate
have focused on extreme weather, including river floods, storm surges, extraor-
dinarily strong winds, and droughts, or on extremes of temperature and pre-
cipitation during summers and winters. This tendency to report extremes could
prove useful, however, in further studies of volcanic impacts on medieval cli-
mate and society. Series of continuous spring and fall temperatures remain dif-
ficult or impossible to reconstruct before the late Middle Ages, and then only
in a few regions with a high density of narrative and/or administrative sources,
such as the Low Countries and East Anglia.
In the past few years, several studies have tried to explain medieval human
history by long-term climatic developments identified in the archives of nature.73
However, these attempts have often lacked adequate specificity and historical
256 C. ROHR ET AL.

context, and have therefore fallen into climate deterministic, monocausal

approaches to political, social, and economic crises (see Chap. 29). Climate
changes and extreme weather—particularly the impacts of volcanic eruptions,
such as during the 530s–540s—certainly contribute to human crises; but they
are definitely not their only causes (see Chap. 32). Further high-­resolution cli-
mate reconstruction drawing on the sources and methods described in this
chapter can help shed light on the connections between climate, weather,
human impacts, and historical changes in medieval Europe.

Acknowledgment We thank Gerrit J. Schenk (Technical University of Darmstadt) for

important information concerning literature on medieval climate reconstruction and
climate impacts.

Notes
1. Browning, 1992; Gregory, 2010; Mango, 2002.
2. Bradbury, 2007; Costambeys et al., 2011; Wilson, 2016.
3. Keen, 2005.
4. Kleinhenz, 2004.
5. Kiss, 2011.
6. Lamb, 1965.
7. Le Roy Ladurie, 1967.
8. E.g., Le Roy Ladurie and Baulant, 1980; Le Roy Ladurie, 2004; Le Roy Ladurie
et al., 2006; Lamb, 1977, 1982.
9. Alexandre, 1977, 1987.
10. Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998; Pfister et al., 1996, 1998a, 1998b.
11. Glaser, 2013; Wanner, 2016.
12. Litzenburger, 2015.
13. Berlioz, 1996, 1998; Berlioz and Quenet, 2000.
14. De Kraker, 2005, 2006, 2013.
15. Buisman and Van Engelen, 1995–1998; Van Engelen, 2006; Van Engelen et al.,
2001; Shabalova and Van Engelen, 2003.
16. Gottschalk, 1971–1977; Camenisch, 2015a, 2015b.
17. Rohr, 2006, 2007, 2013.
18. Wetter and Pfister, 2011.
19. Jäger, 2010.
20. Wozniak, 2017; Dutton, 1995, 2008.
21. McCormick et al., 2007.
22. Pribyl, 2014, 2017.
23. Britton, 1937.
24. Lamb, 1977.
25. Titow, 1960, 1970.
26. Bell and Ogilvie, 1978.
27. Ogilvie and Farmer, 1997.
28. Pribyl et al., 2012; Pribyl, 2017.
29. E.g., Brandon, 1971; Stern, 2000; Addison, 2006; Schuh, 2016.
 EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES 257

30. E.g., Ogilvie, 1984, 1991; Ogilvie et al., 2000.

31. Retsö, 2014.
32. E.g., Huhtamaa, 2015, 2017.
33. E.g., Brázdil and Kotyza, 1995.
34. Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
35. Kiss, 2009, 2011; Kiss and Laszlovszky, 2013; Kiss and Mikulić, 2015.
36. E.g., Camuffo, 1987; Camuffo and Enzi, 1995.
37. Pavese and Gregori, 1985.
38. Bauch, 2016a, 2016b; Schenk, 2012.
39. Telelis, 2000, 2004.
40. Ellenblum, 2012.
41. Preiser-Kapeller, 2015.
42. E.g., Haldon et al., 2014; White, 2011.
43. Pribyl et al., 2012; Camenisch, 2015a.
44. Camenisch, 2015a.
45. Pribyl, 2014.
46. Grandsen, 1982.
47. Hartman et al., 2016.
48. Storm, 1977.
49. Titow, 1960, 1970; Schuh, 2016.
50. Rohr, 2006, 2007, 2013.
51. Wetter and Pfister, 2011; Daux et al., 2012; Labbé and Gaveau, 2013.
52. Rohr, 2015.
53. Grotefend, 2007.
54. Cheney and Jones, 2000; Titow, 1970.
55. E.g., Lamb, 1977; Alexandre, 1987; Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998; Glaser, 2013;
Shabalova and Van Engelen, 2003; Litzenburger, 2015; Camenisch, 2015a,
2015b; Pfister, 1999.
56. Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998; Litzenburger, 2015; Camenisch, 2015b.
57. Camenisch, 2015b.
58. Pfister et al., 2009.
59. Van Engelen et al., 2001; Wetter and Pfister, 2011; Daux et al., 2012; Labbé
and Gaveau, 2013.
60. Pribyl et al., 2012; Pribyl, 2017.
61. Brázdil et al., 2010.
62. Hoffmann, 2014.
63. Büntgen et al., 2016; McCormick et al., 2007.
64. E.g., Wanner, 2016.
65. Hoffmann, 2014.
66. Fagan, 2000; Behringer, 2010.
67. Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001.
68. Hoffmann, 2014.
69. Pribyl et al., 2012.
70. Jordan, 1996; Aberth, 2013; Pribyl, 2017.
71. Jörg, 2008; Camenisch, 2015a; Camenisch et al., 2016.
72. Camenisch, 2015b.
73. E.g., Büntgen et al., 2011, 2016.
258 C. ROHR ET AL.

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 CHAPTER 23

Early Modern Europe

Christian Pfister, Rudolf Brázdil, Jürg Luterbacher,

Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, and Sam White

23.1   Introduction
The most intensive research in historical climatology has concentrated on
Europe in the early modern period (c. 1500–1800), and has established many
of the methods and procedures that have become standard in this discipline.
Research for this area and time period benefits from abundant material that can
be found in archives and libraries. This material includes both unpublished
manuscripts and early printed materials, as well as the greatest density of early
instrumental measurements to use for calibration (see Chaps. 4 and 7).

C. Pfister (*)
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland
R. Brázdil
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
J. Luterbacher
Department of Geography, Climatology, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change,
Centre of International Development and Environmental Research, Justus Liebig
University, Giessen, Germany
A. E. J. Ogilvie
Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri, Iceland
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado,
Boulder, CO, USA
S. White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 265

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_23
266 C. PFISTER ET AL.

Moreover, European geography departments and centers of research have been

at the forefront of investigations in both paleoclimatology and historical clima-
tology. In this regard, an important development was the insistence by climate
historians that historical sources needed to be carefully evaluated for reliability in
order to ensure their suitability for climate reconstruction (see Chap. 1).1
Nevertheless, the historical climatology of early modern Europe also pres-
ents challenges, particularly when compared with China, the other leading
region in the field. Europe’s many languages and its many and shifting political
boundaries mean that the coverage of evidence and research is often inconsis-
tent and incomplete. Some countries (e.g., the Czech Lands, Germany,
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Iceland) are much better studied than oth-
ers. Europe’s geographic and climatic diversity also means that results for one
part of the continent are not necessarily relevant for another. Thus ongoing
research continues to expand the scope and detail of historical climatology for
early modern Europe. This chapter provides an overview of the topic, includ-
ing the available evidence, the state of research, and summaries of major trends
and anomalies in the climate of the period.

23.2   Geography
Europe, the westernmost extension of Eurasia, has been called a “peninsula of
peninsulas.” At its heart are the European plain and the Alpine mountain
chains. The European plain is a fertile and largely unbroken expanse of low-
lands, stretching west from the Urals through Russia, the Ukraine, Belorussia,
the Baltic countries, and Poland, across northern Germany, the Low Countries,
and into northern France. The Alpine mountain chains are highlands ranging
from the Pyrenees through southern France, Switzerland, Austria, northern
Italy, southern Germany, and the Carpathians to the Black Sea. Between lies a
hilly zone of plateaus and ridges. Reaching outward into the surrounding seas
are several peninsulas. The largest, to the north, is Scandinavia, a worn-down
plateau of highlands with varying soil types. To the west is Iberia, with a high,
semi-arid plateau ringed by mountains and fertile river valleys. The southern
perimeter, extending into the Italian and Greek peninsulas, is formed by the
coastlands of the Mediterranean, consisting of a succession of plains and allu-
vial lowlands of which the largest are the Padan and the Pannonian plains. To
the north-west lie the British Isles and Iceland, and to the south the
Mediterranean islands.
The Alpine system forms the major climatic divide. The region to the
north is dominated by westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean, bringing rains
at all seasons of the year. Northern Europe has a climate of cold winters and
mild summers with short growing seasons.2 South of the Alps, in Mediterranean
Europe, high atmospheric pressure creates hot, dry weather in the summer
months, but dissolves to bring cool, moist winters. In Western Europe, where
the oceanic influence is strongest, maritime westerlies are the “leading role
players” promoting a generally rainy mild climate, except when “zonal”
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 267

(west–east) flows change to “meridional” (north–south) or “blocked” flows.3

Moving eastwards, winters become cooler and drier and summers warmer,
while annual rainfall decreases.
The climate of the island of Iceland is determined by its location at the inter-
section of cold polar air and warmer Atlantic air, and of the relatively warm
Irminger and North Atlantic currents and the colder East Iceland Current.
This situation leaves Iceland sensitive to minor fluctuations in the strength of
these different air masses and ocean currents. The Arctic sea ice brought on the
East Greenland Current is closely correlated with temperatures on land.4

23.3   History and Periodization

The period 1500–1800 in Europe is conventionally called the “early modern”
period in the Anglophone, Germanic, and Slavic scholarly worlds. In the
Romance languages, it is the “modern” (in contrast to “contemporary” his-
tory, which begins with the French Revolution and industrialization). Historians
may criticize the term “early modern” or “modern” for implying some “inevi-
tability of linear progress towards distinctly Western characteristics.” However,
as explained by Hamish Scott, these three centuries do share a number of
salient characteristics, such as renewed demographic and economic growth fol-
lowing the Black Death, growing central governmental power, the cleavage of
Christianity in the West owing to the Reformation, European overseas expan-
sion, and the Scientific Revolution.5 These centuries also witnessed new ways
of observing, understanding, and recording weather, including the introduc-
tion of almanacs in the sixteenth century (see Chap. 6), instrumental observa-
tions in the seventeenth, and early meteorological networks in the eighteenth
century (see Chap. 7).
Throughout this period Europe was politically fragmented into warring
states and empires. Researchers need to be aware of these political shifts in
order to make sense of shifting sources and boundaries of evidence. In the
sixteenth century, Spain emerged as the dominant Western European power,
while France—the most populous European country—suffered recurring reli-
gious conflict and civil war in the latter half of the century. England was already
a unified state although Scotland was still independent; Norway and Iceland
were in a union with Denmark. Italy was divided into more than a dozen prin-
cipalities, with Naples and Sicily ruled by Spain for most of this period. The
multiethnic Holy Roman Empire, the core of future Germany, was fragmented
into a myriad of small polities (e.g., the Swiss cantons) and mid-sized princi-
palities and kingdoms, of which Bohemia (the western part of today’s Czech
Republic) was among the largest. The Polish kingdom, extending far into
present-­day Russia, was by far the largest state in Europe, while the Russian
Empire was just emerging as a major power, its population and territory
expanding eastward into Siberia. The Balkans and Hungary had been ­conquered
by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the Eastern Mediterranean from its capi-
tal in Istanbul. The seventeenth century in particular was a period of intense
268 C. PFISTER ET AL.

conflict and political crisis, including the Thirty Years War, which devastated
present-day Germany. Spain and the Ottoman Empire also suffered from polit-
ical turmoil and economic stasis; yet the newly independent Netherlands
thrived economically. Sweden briefly emerged as a major power in the Baltic
region, and Hungary became part of the Austrian Habsburg domains. During
the eighteenth century France and the United Kingdom (after the political
union of Scotland and England in 1707) emerged as Europe’s major powers.
Poland was partitioned among Russia, Austria, and the rising kingdom of
Prussia, while the Holy Roman Empire recovered economically and demo-
graphically but remained divided politically. This period ends with the French
Revolution and Napoleonic wars, which pitted France against a variety of
opposing coalitions.
The period 1500–1800 also overlaps with the so-called Little Ice Age (LIA).
This term carries different meanings in different fields. Glaciologist François
Matthes originally coined it in 1939 to refer to glacial readvances throughout
the late Holocene.6 Subsequently, it came specifically to refer to the maximum
extent of glaciers in Alaska, Central Europe, and southern Tibet c. 1300–1850.7
Glacier fluctuations are primarily influenced by air temperature, while precipi-
tation is the second most important climatic factor.8 A 2005 study concluded
from a worldwide sample of 169 glacier-length records that the LIA expansion
of glaciers was at its maximum in about 1800.9
In recent decades, paleoclimatologists (such as the authors of the last two
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports) have started using the
LIA to describe cooler global temperatures that began sometime after the
giant explosion of the Samalas volcano in 1257 and that lasted until the onset
of global warming during the nineteenth century (Chap. 25).10 Large-scale
proxy reconstructions have found that annual temperatures on each continent
were on average cooler c. 1400–1850 than in any other long period of at least
the past two millennia. Nevertheless, there is considerable spatial and tempo-
ral variation within this larger trend.11 The cooling began earlier in the
Northern Hemisphere, where it is especially evident in summer temperatures
at high latitudes. The late sixteenth to late seventeenth centuries appears to be
the only significant globally synchronous period of cooling in both the
Southern and Northern Hemispheres (with the notable exception of Iceland).12
The causes remain debated, but the LIA is usually attributed to a combination
of orbital, solar, and volcanic forcings (see Chap. 15). Some recent research
proposes that large volcanic eruptions sustained an ice-albedo feedback loop—
that is, sudden cooling generated more ice cover in the Arctic, which reflected
back more sunlight, which in turn further cooled temperatures at high
latitudes.13
In the climate history of Europe (as in China), the LIA conventionally
begins in either the early fourteenth or mid-sixteenth century and ends in the
late nineteenth century. This periodization has a basis in both climatic and
human circumstances. Alpine glaciers underwent three far-reaching advances,
during the late 1200s–c. 1380, the 1580s–c. 1660, and 1810s–c. 1860.14 These
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 269

events are associated with minima in solar activity—the Wolf (1280–1350),

Maunder (1654–1715), and Dalton (1790–1820) minima—and with the cool-
ing effect of multiple large tropical eruptions.15 With reference to Central and
Western Europe, Heinz Wanner and colleagues have labeled these three glacial
advances and their associated climate “Little Ice Age-Type Events” (LIATES)
and have identified a set of overarching weather patterns underlying these
events.16 Seasonal patterns of LIATES include moist snowy winters, cold
springs, cool and rainy (mid-)summers, and fewer warm anticyclonic situations
during autumn.17 The most extreme years were so-called “years without sum-
mers” immediately following large tropical eruptions (see Chap. 35). As
described in the present chapter, the LIA in Europe was not consistently cold.
Nevertheless, these LIATES did bring exceptionally low summer and spring
temperatures to much of Europe. More importantly, the seasonal patterns
characteristic of LIATES proved especially unfavorable for crops and
livestock.
These LIATES also came at times of high vulnerability for populations in
much of the continent. Europe’s pre-industrial agriculture and husbandry still
depended on seasonal weather, and Europe’s mostly rural population depended
for their lives and livelihoods on the success of each year’s harvests. During the
early fourteenth, late sixteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, demographic
growth and declining incomes left the poor exposed to famine and epidemic
diseases. During the 1310s, 1430s, 1590s, 1690s, 1740s, 1770s, and 1810s,
climatic downturns triggered major subsistence crises and high mortality in
many parts of Europe (see Chaps. 27 and 32). Therefore, among (climate)
historians the LIA has come to be identified as much with human experiences
as with climatic variability and change. Thus the use and the usefulness of the
term LIA, as with any other historical periodization, remains open to discus-
sion and depends on context.18

23.4   Evidence
The quantity and quality of documentary evidence for early modern Europe are
disparate. Moving from east to west, the available evidence for the large terri-
tory of Russia is non-continuous and mostly uncritical. Some three dozen vol-
umes of chronicles provide the greater part of available information prior to the
mid-seventeenth century. In 1657 Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich established a spe-
cial office to record the most important daily events at the court in Moscow,
including weather, and such data were recorded until 1674. Tsar Peter the Great
logged daily weather observations during his campaigns of 1695–1715; and
temperatures in St. Petersburg were recorded continuously from 1743.19 For
Poland, there are a variety of narrative and personal sources for climate recon-
struction, and the historical climatology of the country has recently received
more attention.20 Port records, providing proxies of sea-ice duration, provide
some documentary evidence of winter severity in Riga (Lithuania), Tallinn
(Estonia), and Stockholm throughout this period.21 Geographers in Ireland,
270 C. PFISTER ET AL.

including the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS), have
recently promoted historical climate analyses in that country.22
For south-eastern Europe, only fragmentary data and uncritical compila-
tions of weather descriptions have been made available so far.23 However, this
situation probably reflects not so much an absence of evidence as a shortage of
research, particularly research in the abundant source material in Ottoman
Turkish archives.24 Hungary, however, has received considerably more focus,
including climate histories based on narrative and phenological sources.25
Given its past sensitivity to climate-driven crop failures, Finland has received
some attention from historical climatologists, including reconstructions of
growing-season temperatures based on descriptive and phenological evidence.26
Research on Estonia was promoted by Anders Tarand over the last 25 years.27
Norway and Sweden appear to be rather short of data for the period prior to
1700, despite the pioneering climate history article by the Swedish economic
historian Gustav Utterström in 1955.28 Iceland is well known for its wealth of
medieval documents, many of which contain weather-related information (see
Chap. 22).29 There is a scarcity of Icelandic data for the period c. 1430–1550.30
However, starting c. 1600, there are many different types of documentary evi-
dence, which make it possible to generate seasonal sea-ice and temperature
indices. This evidence includes institutional sources such as government reports
and personal sources such as the later Icelandic annals and weather diaries, as
well as works by local Icelanders and foreign travelers.31 The analysis of all these
varying documentary sources has been undertaken by Astrid Ogilvie through
various projects over a number of years. The analysis of early meteorological
observations for Iceland has been pioneered by Trausti Jónsson.32
Further significant contributions to the field of historical climatology have
focused on Central Europe. Thus a research team led by Rüdiger Glaser at the
University of Freiburg has systematically collected and published data for
Germany and beyond over the last twenty-five years.33 Glaser’s major thematic
focus has been the history of floods in Europe.34 Together with his staff, he has
set up a large historical climatology database named HISKLID, which later
became part of the “climate and environmental history collaborative research
environment” named Tambora (https://www.tambora.org/). In proportion
to its surface and population, Switzerland benefits from a rich legacy of high-­
quality weather and phenological observations, most of which has been evalu-
ated and published over the last forty years by a research team led by Christian
Pfister at Bern University.35 All of this evidence—including almost continuous
daily weather observations in different locations from 1684 to the onset of the
Swiss Weather Service in 1864—has been published in the Switzerland Module
of the new Euro-Climhist database (http://www.euroclimhist.unibe.ch/en/).
Similarly, the Czech Lands possess a rich documentary record that includes
a broad variety of sources: personal papers, (weather) diaries, plant- and ice-­
phenological observations, pamphlets and newspapers, early scientific journals,
and visual art as well as state and church records, municipal receipts and
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 271

expenses, and epigraphic sources (see Chaps. 5 and 6). This abundant informa-
tion was systematically collected, analyzed, and published during the past
twenty-five years by a team led by Rudolf Brázdil at Masaryk University (Brno,
Czech Republic) working together with colleagues trained in Czech history.
The Brno research team published no fewer than eleven books in English as
well as countless articles in reviewed journals.36 They have also systematically
collected and analyzed narrative documentary data during the instrumental
period, thus creating the conditions to apply the calibration-verification
approach described in Chap. 10.
The Netherlands, too, has a rich documentary record, particularly a high
density of personal sources and printed materials beginning in the late six-
teenth century. Much of this evidence has been reproduced and analyzed in a
large Dutch publication.37 Based on these sources, researchers have generated
temperature indices for the period 764–2003 (see Chap. 11).
Italy also possesses a rich historical record, but research so far has been more
limited.38 The northern part of the country, particularly Venetian territory, is
perhaps the best documented and most closely studied. Thus, for example,
Dario Camuffo has generated long series of freezing winters and sea-level
changes for the Venetian Lagoon, as well as temperature indices for north-­
eastern Italy covering 1500–1759 (albeit with major gaps).39 Venetian records
can also contribute to the historical climatology of eastern Mediterranean
islands including Crete and Cyprus, although most documentation for their
early modern climate history remains in local and Ottoman archives, and has
yet to be adequately explored.40
French scholars, including the historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, paved
the way for historical climatology through their pioneering work during the
mid-twentieth century. During the past two decades, Le Roy Ladurie and col-
leagues have returned to French climate history, with French-language publi-
cations detailing narrative- and proxy-based temperature and precipitation
histories as well as climate and weather impacts from decade to decade through
early modern and modern French history.41 French historical climatology has
drawn in particular on plant-phenological observations such as grape harvest
dates (see Chap. 5).42 In 2014, Georges Pichard and colleagues presented an
elaborate study of climate and floods in lower Provence since 1300.43
England is particularly rich in early modern personal and printed materials
for climate and weather, such as almanacs, pamphlets, and diaries. The British
Isles were also home to pioneering research in historical climatology, including
the work of Hubert Lamb, who in 1971 established the Climatic Research
Unit (CRU) (see Chap. 1).44 The historical climate work of the CRU has con-
tinued through the research of Astrid Ogilvie, Phil Jones, and John Kington,
who compiled available weather evidence for Britain starting in the Middle
Ages.45 Another British pioneer, Gordon Manley, published a temperature
reconstruction for central England based on early instrumental measurements.
This reconstruction, extending back to 1659, is the longest instrumental
record in existence.46
272 C. PFISTER ET AL.

Both Spain and Portugal have received significant attention from historical
climatologists.47 For the early modern period, there are often fewer printed
materials than elsewhere in Western Europe, but more abundant state and
church records, providing useful climate proxies such as rogation ceremonies
(see Chap. 5).
The first instrumental weather network in Europe was the Medici network
based in Florence. It operated from 1654 until religious authorities shut it
down in 1670.48 Over time, instruments and measurement practices improved;
nevertheless their use in climate reconstruction still requires historical and sta-
tistical analysis (see Chaps. 7 and 9). Philip Jones of the CRU, UK, has under-
taken pioneering work on the reconstruction of early European instrumental
temperature and precipitation records over a period of many years.49 Some of
the earliest continuous series of monthly temperature measurements come
from the following: Paris from 1658; central England from 1659; Berlin from
1701; DeBilt (Netherlands) from 1706; Bologna (Italy) from 1715; Uppsala
(Sweden) from 1722; and Padova (northern Italy) from 1725.50 A team at the
Central Institution for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) in Vienna has
created a long composite temperature series (from 1774) and precipitation
series (from 1800) for the Greater Alpine Region.51 Regular observations in
Iceland and Greenland started in the late eighteenth century,52 but are not
continuous.
Compared with temperature series, early instrumental precipitation series
are fewer and cover smaller areas, because precipitation patterns vary more
locally. The longest precipitation records without any gaps are those for Ireland
(1711–2016) and the London suburb of Kew (1697–1970).53 The Paris series
(from 1688) is a few years longer but includes several gaps; and the Padua
(northern Italy) series runs almost without gaps since 1725.54 Shorter series are
available from Tallinn (Estonia) from 1751; Geneva from 1760; and Bern from
1760.55 Fernando S. Rodrigo and Mariano Barriendos generated rainfall indi-
ces in Spain from 1500 onwards, based on evidence in municipal acts from six
cities representing the major climatic regions of the country.56 Further precipi-
tation indices have been generated for the Czech Lands from 1500 (seasonal
resolution); southern Portugal from 1600 (annual resolution, combining doc-
umentary and tree-ring evidence); and Europe as a whole from 1500 to 1900
(combining instrumental, documentary, and proxy evidence).57
In conclusion, the spatial and geographic coverage of historical climatology
for early modern Europe remains uneven. While relevant historical sources
exist for most of this period, and for nearly all of Europe, they are much more
abundant for some times and places than others. Moreover, certain parts of the
continent—particularly Central and Western Europe, as well as Iceland—have
been more closely studied than others, especially for the period before 1700.
Starting in the eighteenth century, a growing number of early instrumental
series become available, predominately temperature series, and predominately
in Central and Western Europe. Climate reconstructions for Eastern and south-­
eastern Europe—about half the continent—still rely primarily on proxies from
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 273

the archives of nature. Nevertheless, important research has begun in these

regions. Moreover, (climate) historians have made occasional use of documen-
tary evidence concerning weather and climate in Eastern and south-eastern
Europe to provide essential detail and specificity for the analysis of climate’s
human and historical impacts.58

23.5   Climatic Variations and Extremes

This section provides an overview of climate variations and extremes at seasonal
resolution, first for Europe as a whole and then for those regions with the most
abundant data: Northern Europe and then Central and Western Europe. The
section concludes with a brief overview of the major events and anomalies
described by historical climatology in the Mediterranean region and Eastern
Europe.

23.5.1  
European Temperature
Combining the evidence from the archives of societies with proxies from the
archives of nature, climatologist Jürg Luterbacher and colleagues have used the
method of spatial-field reconstruction (see Chap. 12) to create increasingly
sophisticated high-resolution reconstructions of monthly and seasonal tem-
peratures across Europe.59 This research has also made it possible to analyze
relations between temperature anomalies and atmospheric circulation patterns
over Europe, to identify modern (instrumental period) analogues for some
pre-instrumental climate anomalies, and in some cases to place early modern
temperature variations in long-term context.60
Most notably, these temperature reconstructions demonstrate a greater mag-
nitude and frequency of severe winters and springs during this period than in
the centuries since. These winters were characterized by a longer freezing of the
Baltic and of large rivers and lakes in Western Europe. Such severe winters were
rare prior to 1518 and altogether missing during the 1520s–50s. Some winters
in this period were warm (1521, 1538) or even extremely warm (1530, 1540)
by twentieth-century standards.61 From 1560 to 1610, winter temperatures
were generally lower, with notable troughs in the 1560s–70s and 1599–1608.
Nevertheless, several winters in this period rank as warm (1597, 1609) or even
very warm (1607). This indicates a high variability of winter circulation with
cold winters dominated by northerly or north-easterly atmospheric circulation
and mild ones influenced by circulation from the west and south-west.62 From
1609 until the 1680s severe winters were somewhat less frequent and less
extreme. A third trough in winter temperatures in 1684–1709 is associated
with the late Maunder Minimum of low solar activity. This period includes
some of the coldest European winters of the past five centuries, including 1684,
1695, 1697, and 1709. The period 1717–39 saw a return to less severe winter
conditions, and the 1730s in particular stand out for the absence of even mod-
erately cold winters. Winters of the early 1740s were very cold in much of
274 C. PFISTER ET AL.

Europe. Subsequently, winter temperatures generally decreased, reaching

another trough in the early nineteenth century (see Chap. 25).
European spring temperatures show a gradual decline starting in the 1560s.
During 1686–1703 they drop to their lowest level of this era—another anom-
aly associated with the late Maunder Minimum. Thereafter, spring tempera-
tures rose for much of the eighteenth century, before undergoing another
trough in the 1830s–40s.
European summer temperatures demonstrate some similar patterns to those
in winter. An exceptionally cold period occurred during the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries.63 Cold summers were also prominent during the
late seventeenth century (the Maunder Minimum) over north-eastern Europe
and during the first half of the nineteenth century over Central and Southern
Europe. The coldest summers—so-called “years without summers”—followed
large regional and tropical volcanic eruptions, such as the eruptions of Nevado
del Ruiz (Colombia) in 1595, Huaynaputina (Peru) in 1600, and later Tambora
(Indonesia) in 1815 (see Chap. 35). Luterbacher and colleagues have stressed,
however, that subcontinental regions may undergo multidecadal and longer
periods of sustained temperature deviations from the continental mean, indi-
cating that the internal variability of the climate system is particularly promi-
nent at regional scales.64 Finally, Europe’s autumn temperatures in 1500–1800
remained somewhat below the twentieth-century values without showing
notable variation. Autumns during the late eighteenth century seem to have
been the warmest of the period c. 1500–2000.65
Trends in European temperature over spans of years and decades have been
strongly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This describes
the difference between sea-level pressure at two points in the North Atlantic:
the Azores and Iceland. The balance of pressure at these points influences the
strength of westerly circulation across Europe, particularly during winter in
Western Europe. In its positive mode (NAO+), the subtropical anticyclone
around the Azores (“Azores high”) and cyclonic conditions around Iceland
(“Iceland low”) are both well developed. In its negative mode (NAO−), sea-­
level pressure remains lower than usual around the Azores and higher than
normal around Iceland. NAO+ periods tend to bring more mild and humid
maritime climate to Western and Northern Europe and more persistent
droughts to the western Mediterranean. NAO− periods create more meridio-
nal (north–south) flow over Western Europe, bringing colder and drier winters
on average. In severe winters, the usual pressure distribution over the North
Atlantic might even be reversed, with a stable anticyclone in the north. This
situation drives cold, dry polar, or Siberian air into Central and Western Europe,
but brings high amounts of winter precipitation into the Mediterranean and
Black Sea regions. These strong NAO− anomalies may explain some periods of
exceptionally cold winters in Central and Northern Europe described below.66
Since modern instrumental records for the NAO only began around a hun-
dred years ago, and proxies from the archives of nature often lack the necessary
resolution, historical climatologists have worked with documentary and early
instrumental sources to extend NAO reconstructions back into the early modern
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 275

period. These sources include daily and monthly observations of wind direction
in parts of Central Europe, and regular barometer readings in London and Paris
starting in the eighteenth century.67 These reconstructions show limited agree-
ment thus far. In general, they indicate that negative modes of the NAO pre-
dominated during most of the late sixteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth
centuries, compared with more positive modes during the early sixteenth, eigh-
teenth, and twentieth centuries (the instrumental record), but with annual and
decadal variability throughout this period. Recently, the compilation and analysis
of thousands of ship logbooks from voyages in the North Atlantic (see Chap. 6)
have offered a new way to calculate the frequency of different wind directions,
and indirectly, the state of the NAO. The westerly circulation index by
Barriopedro and colleagues provides the longest North Atlantic circulation
index currently available assembled exclusively from direct weather observations.
The index shows that the frequency of westerlies in the English Channel has not
undergone major long-term changes during the past three centuries, and that
Atlantic circulation during the late twentieth to early twenty-first centuries was
not unprecedented in the long-term context.68

23.5.2  
Northern Europe
The most notable climatic feature of this period in Scandinavia was the excep-
tionally cold summers of the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century. Since
parts of Northern Europe lie at the margin of grain cultivation, early or late
frosts could ruin entire harvests. This danger has been especially well docu-
mented in Finland, where killing frosts (kesähalla) could occur at planting time
(May–early June) or just before harvest (late August–early September).69
Following a relatively favorable period in the mid-sixteenth century, harvest
failures in Finland began to occur almost every third year by the mid-1580s.70
The summer of 1601, one of the coldest of the past two millennia in
the Northern Hemisphere, was particularly disastrous in much of this region.71
Summer frosts and harvest failures recurred periodically throughout the
1600s. The worst years of the century came during the 1690s. In Denmark it
was a time of stronger winds and higher frequencies of northerly and north-
westerly winds during summer.72 The 1695 harvest in Finland was ruined by a
September frost; rainy weather that autumn impeded the sowing of grains
for the following year. A late spring and rainy summer in 1696 delayed the
ripening of crops, and then severe frost in August destroyed what crops
remained. Although the weather of 1697 was more favorable, there was no
seed grain left to plant. A severe famine persisted for three years, accompanied
by outbreaks of disease, leading to the death of an estimated 25–33% of
Finland’s population.73 During the eighteenth century, the climate generally
became more favorable for crops. However, the exceptional cold of the 1740s
accompanied by the death of livestock again created hardship and high mortal-
ity, particularly in Norway.74
Because of its location in the North Atlantic, Iceland is particularly interesting
climatically. It also offers a wealth of documentary data for climate reconstruction
276 C. PFISTER ET AL.

covering most of the early modern period. These data include the incidence of
sea ice off the coasts, which provides a further indication of temperature varia-
tions.75 Although there are very few contemporary sources between 1430 and
1560, circumstantial evidence suggests the climatic regime was not unduly harsh
during the period c. 1412–70. At that time the English dominated trade with
Iceland, and Iceland’s major import was cloth—not grain or other food items—
implying that the economy was not then in crisis. A reliable account suggests that
the 1560s were very cold with much sea ice while the 1570s were mild. It is likely
that the 1590s were cold with severe sea-ice conditions. From c. 1640 to 1680,
there appears to have been little sea ice off Iceland’s coasts, but both the early and
latter decades of the seventeenth century were years with much ice present.
Thereafter, the years with most ice present were the 1780s, early 1800s, and the
1830s, with further periods of sea ice coming later in the nineteenth century.
From 1900 onwards sea-ice incidence fell off dramatically.76
The temperature pattern in Iceland correlates well with these sea-ice varia-
tions. A cooling trend may be seen around the beginning and end of the sev-
enteenth century, separated by a mild period c. 1640–80.77 The early decades
of the 1700s were relatively mild, in comparison with the very cold 1690s,
1730s, 1740s, and 1750s. The 1760s and 1770s show a return to a milder
regime by comparison. The 1780s are likely to have been the coldest decade of
the century, but this was compounded by local volcanic activity—specifically
the Lakagígar eruption (see Chap. 34).78 While economic and political condi-
tions undoubtedly played a significant role, there is no doubt that Iceland’s
variable and frequently harsh climate was implicated in the numerous famines
that occurred throughout the country’s history, notably in the 1690s, 1740s,
1750s, and 1780s. The last great subsistence famine in Iceland occurred in the
1880s, a period of unusual cold with heavy sea ice.79

23.5.3  
Western and Central Europe
As described above, the regions of Western and particularly Central Europe have
among the best climate records from the archives of society and have been the
most intensely studied. The following paragraphs explain trends and anomalies
based on the following records: monthly temperature indices for Central Europe
since 1500; the instrumental Central European Temperature Series (CEUT) (see
Chap. 11); early instrumental series since the late 1650s from Paris and central
England (CET); seasonal precipitation reconstructions for the Czech Lands; and
monthly precipitation indices for Switzerland and the Czech Lands.
In most cases, Western and Central Europe underwent similar climatic
trends, but winters in Central Europe seem to have been considerably colder
than those in Paris and central England. On average, winters in Central Europe
over the entire period 1500–1800 were 1.1 °C and autumns 0.6 °C colder than
the 1961–90 reference period (see Table 23.1). These deviations are the most
prominent feature of the LIA compared with the climate of the twentieth
century.
Table 23.1 Early modern temperature anomalies in Central Europe, Paris, and central England from twentieth-century means (°C)

Period Season Central Europe Paris Central England Period Season Central Europe Paris Central England

1500–1799 Winter −1.1 1500–1799 Spring −0.3

1500–18 −1.2 1501–67 −0.1
1519–60 −0.5 1568–1600 −0.6
1561–1600 −1.8 1601–86 −0.1
1591–1600 −2 1687–1700 −1.4 −0.7 −1.5
1601–90 −1 1701–1800 −0.3 −0.4 −0.4
1691–1700 −2.6 −1.8 −1.7 1701–39 0.1 0.1 −0.2
1701–1800 −0.9 −0.6 −0.7 1740–85 −0.7 −0.7 −0.5
1500–1799 Summer −0.2 1500–1799 Autumn −0.6
1500–68 0 1501–1600 −0.4
1569–1600 −0.8 1501–60 −0.2
1585–98 −1.2 1561–1600 −0.5
1601–87 −0.1 1601–87 −0.5
1688–1700 −0.8 −0.6 −0.8 1688–1700 −1.1 −1.4 −1.4
1701–1800 0 0 0.1 1701–1800 −0.7 −0.2 −0.4
1500–1799 Year
1500–60 −0.2
1561–1600 −0.9
1591–1600 −1.2
1601–1700 −0.6
1601–86 −0.5
1687–1700 −1.4 −0.9 −1.3
1701–1800 −0.5 −0.3 −0.3
Source Central Europe: Dobrovolný et al. (2015)—anomalies refer to the 1961–90 mean; Paris: Rousseau (2015)—anomalies refer to the 1901–2000 mean; central England: Manley
(1974)—anomalies refer to the 1901–2000 mean
EARLY MODERN EUROPE
277
278 C. PFISTER ET AL.

At the beginning of this period, winter temperatures showed considerable

variability. The first two decades of the sixteenth century include several cold
(1502–4, 1508, 1509, 1511) and even severe winters (1512–14, 1517), but
also some very warm ones (1505–7, 1516). The four decades 1520–60 brought
a notable Europe-wide return to warmer conditions. Severe winters were
absent while temperatures in spring, summer, and autumn were at similar levels
to those of the twentieth century, apart from two short sequences of cool sum-
mers (1526–9, 1542–4). The year 1540 was probably the hottest and driest
year during the entire period 1500–2000. Annual precipitation, as estimated
for Switzerland and Poland, was about a third of the mean, whereas maximum
temperatures in July probably exceeded 40 °C. Precipitation both in Switzerland
and the Czech Lands began the century somewhat below average,80 while val-
ues for 1520–60 were probably about average throughout Central Europe.81
The relatively favorable climatic conditions for agriculture helped to sustain a
trend of rising population in Central and Western Europe during the early to
mid-1500s.82
After 1560, climatic conditions gradually deteriorated, first and foremost
in winter. The severe winter of 1561—the first in almost fifty years, as the
Zürich weather diarist Wolfgang Haller noticed—was the forerunner of an
almost uninterrupted series of cold and severe (1565, 1569, 1573, 1587,
1589, 1595, 1600, and 1601) winters with just a few “average” winters in
between (1584, 1585, and 1592). Mean winter temperatures during
1561–1600 fell 1.2 °C, and those from 1591 to 1600 fell 1.5° below the
1520–60 average. For instance, during early November 1572 to mid-March
1573, European weather was dominated by a blocking anticyclone centered
over Scandinavia, bringing the coldest winter of this period in Central and
Western Europe. Rivers froze and the ice on Lake Constance did not break
up until early April.83 Polar air masses reached into parts of the Mediterranean
region such as Catalonia. The mixing of moist air masses from the
Mediterranean depression with the cold air layer north of the Alps led to
heavy accumulations of snow.84
Starting in 1568 spring temperatures also fell by 0.5 °C compared to the
previous period 1501–67, with extremely late seasons in 1587, 1596, and
1600. However, this trend was interrupted by three very warm (1571, 1583,
1599) and nine “warm” or “average” springs (1567, 1574, 1576, 1579,
1581, 1584, 1585, 1591, and 1596). In general warm springs were rather
rare in the sixteenth century.85 Springs in the second part of the sixteenth
century tended to be dry in Switzerland and of average precipitation in the
Czech Lands.
Falling summer temperatures began with three cool and rainy summers in
a row (1569–71). Together with cold springs and autumns, these triggered a
severe crisis in large parts of Europe (see Chap. 27). These were followed by
a decade of variable summer temperatures.86 Then in 1585–1601, Central
Europe suffered a series of seventeen cold or severe (1585, 1588, 1594, and
1596) summers in a row (apart from the hot summer of 1590), most of which
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 279

were also snowy in Alpine pastures. The mid-1580s and 1590s were notorious
for cold wet summers, crop failures, and even famine in parts of England.87
Summer precipitation was high from 1570 to the end of the sixteenth century
both in the Czech Lands and in Switzerland.88 The Lucerne scientist Renward
Cysat duly counted seventy-seven days of rain in the summer of 1588 and
then seventy-five days of summer rain in 1596 (out of ninety-two total days of
summer).89 The stormy weather of 1588 remains famous for its role in the
defeat and destruction of the Spanish Armada during its attempted invasion of
England. Admiral Medina Sidonia wrote on July 27: “The sea was so heavy
that all the sailors agreed that they had never seen its equal in July. Not only
did the waves mount to the skies, but some seas broke clear over the ships.”90
Climatologist Hubert Lamb argued that a southward displacement and
enhancement of the jet stream must have created these unusual conditions.
On average, summers from 1569 to 1600 were 0.8 °C colder—and those
from 1585 to 1598 1.2 °C colder—than the 1961–90 mean. Alpine glaciers
responded to the long series of snowy summers with far-reaching advances: in
just two decades the Lower Grindelwald Glacier pushed forward by about a
kilometer, crushing forests and farms under its ice.91
Autumn temperatures during 1561–1600 decreased by 0.7 °C compared
with those of 1520–60 (not shown). This trend includes a long sequence of
cool (1575–83) autumns and isolated severe seasons (1579, 1597, and 1601).
Autumn precipitation was average in Switzerland and the Czech Lands. Overall,
the exceptional cooling of the late sixteenth century had significant effects on
the agriculture, and consequently the economy and population, of Central and
Western Europe. Partly as a consequence of frequent harvest failures, demo-
graphic growth slowed considerably in Germany, and in England during the
1590s real wages fell to their lowest levels since the Great Famine of the 1310s
(see Chap. 33).92
From 1600 to 1680, winters were only 1 °C colder than the 1961–90 mean.
However, this average masks a period of extreme variability between 1603 and
1618, when cold and severe seasons (1603, 1608, 1612, 1614, 1616, and
1618) alternated with warm and very warm ones (1604, 1607, 1609, 1613,
and 1617). In Iceland, the years c. 1640–80 were relatively mild with little sea
ice off the coasts—a stark contrast to the situation elsewhere in Europe, which
highlights the importance of not extrapolating from one region to another
without careful examination of the records.93 The 1690s turned into the cold-
est decade of the period, with winter temperatures 2.6 °C below the reference
period. In 1695 most Central European rivers and lakes froze for long periods,
and people could cross over Lake Constance for the first time since 1573.94
Winters in Switzerland were dry throughout the century, while precipitation in
the Czech Lands remained above average, except during the 1680s and
1690s.95
Spring temperatures fluctuated between cool (1625–8, 1640–3) and warm
(1636–8, 1673–7) during most of the century, with only two severe seasons
(1614 and 1627). However, from 1687 to 1701 springs turned consistently
280 C. PFISTER ET AL.

cold for fifteen years, with seasonal temperatures 1.3 °C below the seventeenth-­
century mean. Spring precipitation in Switzerland and in the Czech Lands was
below average.96
Summer temperatures, like those in spring, reached almost twentieth-­
century levels during most of the seventeenth century, before falling 0.8 °C
below the 1961–90 mean during the cold years of 1688–1700. Nevertheless,
these high average values mask considerable variability between cold and wet
(1608, 1618, 1621, 1627, 1628, 1663, and 1675), warm and dry (1684), and
even torrid (1616, 1666, and 1669) seasons. The year 1628 was clearly a “year
without a summer” to judge by the substantial delay in the development of
vegetation and the high frequency of snowfalls in the Alps; and 1675 was prob-
ably almost as cold.97 Summer precipitation in Switzerland and in the Czech
Lands remained above average throughout the century.98
Autumn temperatures were 0.5 °C below the 1961–90 mean up to 1686,
and then fell to 1.5 °C below the mean in 1688–1700 in Central Europe and
central England. This season was dry in Switzerland and in the Czech Lands,
except in the final decades of the century, which were wet in both countries.
Overall, the seventeenth century had the lowest average annual temperatures
of the period, at 0.6 °C below the mean, due largely to the exceptionally cold
years during the first and last decades of the century. The simultaneous cooling
of springs and autumns during the 1680s and 1690s, particularly in May and
September, drastically curtailed the grazing period in the Alps, which led
repeatedly to shortages of fodder.99
During the eighteenth century, winter temperatures in Central Europe were
on average 0.9 °C colder than the reference period, and almost as cold in cen-
tral England and Paris. To a large extent, this value is due to the frequency of
severe (1709, 1729, 1740, 1766, 1784, and 1789) and cold (1726, 1731,
1755, 1763, 1768, 1796, and 1799) winters, which was the highest since
1500. The winter of 1709 was perhaps the most outstanding of this period,
both for its extreme cold and its human impacts. Temperatures plunged across
Western Europe from January to March as Arctic air descended over the con-
tinent. During the night of January 5–6, 1709, one of the pioneers of instru-
mental meteorology, Louis Morin (see Chap. 6), noted a change in the wind
direction in Paris from south-west to north-east followed by a sudden drop in
temperatures of ~15 °C. The intense weather passed from north to south over
France, bringing temperatures as low as −20 °C, freezing lakes and rivers and
killing vines and cold-sensitive crops. South-westerly winds and rains were fol-
lowed by another freeze, leaving fields buried under ice. In the ensuing famine,
grain transports were looted, and the hungry rioted in Paris and the prov-
inces.100 The winter of 1740, also among the coldest of the LIA, brought crop
failures and the death of livestock across much of Central and Western Europe.
It was an important driver of the 1740–1 famine in Ireland, in which more than
one in ten of the Irish population died (see Chap. 31).101 The 1740s were also
cold years in Iceland, with frequent sea ice off the coasts.102
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 281

Eighteenth-century spring temperatures in Central Europe were 0.3 °C and

in Paris and central England 0.4 °C below the reference period. Cold (1701,
1714, 1729, and 1770) and severe (1740, 1785) seasons were common, par-
ticularly in the first half of the century, which included a continuous series of
eleven cool or cold springs from 1739 to 1749. The long freezing winter of
1740 made for a “year without a spring.” March 1785 was also as cold as a
severe winter month, with a monthly mean temperature of −3.6 °C measured
in Basel. By contrast, warm springs (1723, 1728, 1734, and 1794) occurred
only rarely. Both winters and springs were dry through the century in the
Czech Lands and in Switzerland.103
The eighteenth century is distinguished by a near absence of both cold
(1725) and warm (1719, 1728) extremes in summer temperatures. Summers
were predominately wet in Switzerland while there were distinct dry periods
early and late in the century in the Czech Lands.104
Reconstructed autumn temperatures during the eighteenth century were
0.7 °C below the reference period in Central Europe and in central England.
The century was marked by four periods of continuous cool or cold autumns
in 1761–6, 1774–8, 1780–6, and 1788–92. Three seasons (1739, 1782,
and 1786) were severe, while not a single warm autumn is known for the
century. Autumns in Switzerland during the first half of the century were
extremely dry, but became very wet after 1760, a trend also found in the
Czech Lands.105

23.5.4  
The Mediterranean and Eastern Europe
Climate reconstructions for Mediterranean and Eastern Europe rely mainly on
proxies from the archives of nature, particularly for the period before 1700.
Nevertheless, research in historical climatology, as described above, has shed
light on some major climatic events and trends in these regions. For
Mediterranean Europe, where crops are most sensitive to spring droughts and
freezes, most evidence concerns spring precipitation, flooding, and anomalous
cold. In Eastern Europe, with its more continental climate, the evidence prin-
cipally describes extremes of heat and cold.
The climate in (northern) Italy during the early modern period is well docu-
mented due to the longstanding efforts of the research group led by Dario
Camuffo. Temperature indices (with some gaps) were established for the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries. Continuous temperature and precipitation
were elaborated from the early eighteenth century. Cold extremes in winter
and spring were more frequent during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and late
eighteenth centuries than in the twentieth century.106
In Spain, the early sixteenth century began with dry anomalies and a longer-­
term minimum of precipitation in about 1540. By contrast, the eastern
Mediterranean appears to have enjoyed favorable conditions for agriculture,
with no major droughts (although absence of evidence is not necessarily evi-
282 C. PFISTER ET AL.

dence of absence). However, during the late sixteenth to early seventeenth

century, the Mediterranean experienced a period of unusual variability, charac-
terized by numerous freezing winters and a “see-saw” contrast in precipita-
tion.107 In Spain there were extremes of both cold and rainfall. In the southern
part of the country, the 1590s were probably the second rainiest decade of the
period 1500–2000.108 The Guadalquivir and other Mediterranean rivers under-
went more and greater flooding than in any other period since the Middle
Ages.109 At the same time, tree rings in central Spain indicate that the late
1590s–1610s brought the most summer drought of any period from the early
sixteenth century until the impacts of global warming in the late twentieth
century, an anomaly partially confirmed by records of rogation ceremonies.110
The tree rings of 1600–2 in the Guadarrama Mountains are the thinnest on
record, pointing to exceptionally cold dry weather following the Huaynaputina
eruption—another phenomenon reflected in contemporary narrative descrip-
tions.111 In the southern Balkans and central and western Anatolia, by contrast,
Ottoman documents record three regional droughts and food shortages dur-
ing the 1560s–80s, followed by possibly the worst drought in Ottoman history
during the 1590s.112 In northern and central Italy both droughts and floods
were frequent from 1600 to 1620.113
Throughout the period 1500–1700, cold episodes during winter and
spring were more common than in the twentieth century. However, they
were especially frequent and severe during the 1570s–1610s, a feature dem-
onstrated in studies of southern France and of north and central Italy.114
Various contemporary narratives also point to extreme winters in south-east-
ern Europe and the Greek islands, especially during the 1590s. On the island
of Crete, for example, snow and rain fell almost continuously for three months
in 1595.115 Both Ottoman and Habsburg sources describe frequent severe
weather during the campaigns of the “Long War” of 1593–1606. In early
1621 the Istanbul Bosphorus, the narrow passage between Europe and Asia,
froze all the way across.116 Frequent severe winters returned to the region
during the 1680s–90s, as indicated in both Ottoman Turkish and Greek
sources.117
The LIA was a period of glacier expansion in the Mediterranean area. In the
Pyrenees (Spain) the largest advance period was during the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries, that is, at the same time as in the Alps. Similarly,
substantial LIA advances of glaciers in the Appenine mountains (central Italy)
and Slovenia are documented.118
Given the limits of the Eastern European documentary evidence it is often
difficult to establish definite climatic trends. Narrative evidence from European
Russia indicates variable conditions during the sixteenth century, with an
unusually high frequency of warm summers early in the century, and the onset
of more severe winters during the 1580s. The years 1601–3, in the wake of the
Huaynaputina eruption, brought extraordinary winter cold, accompanied by
famine and violence.119 The remaining part of the seventeenth century enjoyed
generally favorable conditions, but with more frequent drought starting in the
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 283

1640s. The first half of the eighteenth century again saw variable conditions
and some particularly severe winters, including 1708–9 and 1740. The 1770s
and 1790s brought multiyear droughts and famine.120
In Poland, too, the first half of the sixteenth century had variable tempera-
tures and precipitation, with an unusually high frequency of mild winters. Also
similar to Russia, severe winters became much more common late in the cen-
tury, with six severe winters during the 1590s alone. The 1620s–30s brought
warmer summers and mild winters, but the 1640s–50s contained more years of
unusual cold. The eighteenth century included a number of exceptionally cold
winters, particularly during the 1730s, 1770s, and 1780s, when early instru-
mental records reveal average temperatures 0.8 °C below those of the late
twentieth century. The 1740s were unusually wet.121

23.6   Conclusion
French scholar Fernand Braudel (1902–85), in his celebrated work on the
sixteenth-­century Mediterranean, was among the first modern historians to
consider climate change. However, he subsumed climate and other environ-
mental forces in what he called the “longue durée”: that is, the slow-moving
substructure of history, rather than the short-term level of events and individ-
ual lives on the surface of history.122 Braudel’s most famous student, Emmanuel
Le Roy Ladurie, would become one of the pioneering figures in the historical
climatology of early modern Europe. However, in his early work he was reluc-
tant to address short-term climate fluctuations or emphasize their role in his-
tory.123 Only when he returned to climate history in the 2000s did Le Roy
Ladurie make the case that climatic events on the scale of years or seasons had
a significant historical impact.
What had changed in between? On the one hand, concern over global
warming raised new interest in climate change, after decades when most histo-
rians dismissed any mention of it as crude determinism.124 On the other hand,
advances in paleoclimatology and historical climatology revealed how much
and in what ways Europe’s climate had varied, and how those variations affected
early modern populations.
As emphasized in this chapter, the historical climatology of early modern
Europe has taken climate reconstructions beyond gradual changes in
­temperature or even annual temperature time series. Its aim has been to recon-
struct not only decades-long trends but also the seasonal, monthly, or even
daily weather patterns that most affect human life. In some parts of Europe,
researchers have largely achieved that aim through the careful compilation and
analysis of early instrumental records (where available) or through the con-
struction of temperature and precipitation indices from narrative and proxy
records in the archives of societies. In other parts of Europe, historical clima-
tology remains a work in progress.
This work has begun to yield important insights for our understanding of
climate and of human history. These reconstructions facilitate comparisons
284 C. PFISTER ET AL.

with the recent past, revealing how larger climatic trends appeared in certain
regional and seasonal patterns and extremes. For instance, it is noteworthy that
differences at the century level are rather small for summer and spring in con-
trast to autumn and winter (see Table 23.1). This detailed record facilitates the
ability to distinguish between phases of multidecadal climatic change and shorter
variations in seasonal climate. In this way, it emphasizes the human perception
and experience of climate. Moreover, the historical climatology of early modern
Europe helps relate periods of climate to historical periods and developments—
for example, Western and Central Europe’s demographic growth during the
relatively high and stable temperatures of the 1520s–50s, compared with the
declining growth rates during the frequent freezing winters and cold and rainy
summers of the 1560s to the early seventeenth century. With the benefit of sea-
sonal and monthly temperature and precipitation data, it becomes possible to
establish links between climatic trends, regional and local weather, harvest fail-
ures and subsistence crises, and larger economic and demographic patterns in
parts of Europe. In this manner, the work of historical climatology in early
modern Europe has helped guide the way out of simple climate determinism (or
its opposite, a “climate indeterminism”) into useful climate history.125

Acknowledgments R. Brázdil acknowledges the Ministry of Education, Youth and

Sports of the Czech Republic within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I),
grant no. LO1415.

Notes
1. Bell and Ogilvie, 1978; Ingram et al., 1981; Pounds 2009, 5–6.
2. Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a, 2001b.
3. Kington, 2010, 53.
4. Bergthórsson, 1969; Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a, 2001b; Ogilvie, 2010.
5. Scott, 2015.
6. Matthes et al., 1939. For a discussion of the meaning and development of the
term, see Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a, 2001b.
7. Solomina et al., 2008, 1–9. A detailed comprehensive review of Holocene gla-
ciation is provided by Grove, 2004.
8. Oerlemans, 2001.
9. Oerlemans, 2005.
10. Lavigne et al., 2013.
11. Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a.
12. Ogilvie, 2010.
13. Ahmed et al., 2013; Neukom et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2016; Miller et al.,
2012.
14. Holzhauser and Magny, 2005; Nussbaumer et al., 2007; Holzhauser, 2010.
15. Wanner et al., 2008, and references quoted therein.
16. Wanner et al., 2000.
17. Messerli et al., 1978.
18. Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a, 2001b; White, 2014.
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 285

19. Jones and Lister, 2002.

20. Przybylak et al., 2010.
21. Tarand and Nordli, 2001; Jevrejeva, 2001; Leijonhufvud et al., 2010.
22. https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/icarus (last accessed April 28, 2017);
Murphy et al., 2018.
23. Romania: Teodoreanu, 2011; Cernovodeanu and Binder, 1993. Slovenia:
Zwitter, 2013, 2015. Greece: Xoplaki et al., 2001.
24. On climatic evidence for the early modern Ottoman Empire, see White, 2011.
25. Rácz, 1999; Kiss, 2009, focuses on longer-term phenological and hydrological
documentary proxy evidence.
26. Vesajoki and Tornberg, 1994; Holopainen and Helama, 2009. See also Nordli
et al., 2007.
27. Tarand and Kuiv, 1994; Tarand et al., 2013.
28. The systematic documentation of instrumental measurements began in Uppsala
(Sweden) in 1739 and a few years later in Turku (Finland) and Stockholm
(Myllyntaus, 2009, 79 and references quoted therein). Utterström, 1955, 3–47.
29. Ogilvie, 1991, 2005; Hartman et al., 2017.
30. See e.g., Ogilvie, 1991.
31. Ogilvie, 1995, 2010 (and references quoted therein); Miles et al., 2014.
32. See e.g., Jónsson and Garðarsson, 2001.
33. Glaser, 2008.
34. Glaser et al., 2010.
35. Pfister, 1975, 1984, 1999, 2015.
36. See Brázdil et al., 1995–2015. For articles, see e.g., Brázdil et al., 2012.
37. Buisman and van Engelen, 1996–2015.
38. For a synthesis, see Guidoboni et al., 2010.
39. Camuffo and Enzi, 1995; Camuffo, 1987; Camuffo et al., 2010, 2014. For an
example from southern Italy, see Diodato, 2007.
40. Grove and Conterio, 1995. For examples of Ottoman sources see, e.g.,
Stavrides, 2012.
41. Among his publications, see Le Roy Ladurie, 1971. See also Le Roy Ladurie
et al., 2011; Le Roy Ladurie, 2004.
42. For phenological studies, see e.g., Daux et al., 2012 (but the widely cited series
by Chuine et al., 2004 is flawed for reasons discussed in Chap. 6); Pichard and
Roucaute, 2014.
43. Pichard and Roucaute, 2014. Pichard’s data are available online on the
HistRhone database at: https://histrhone.cerege.fr/.
44. Lamb, 1977.
45. Kington, 2010, presents a rough overview of climate and weather in the British
Isles during 1–1599 and much more detail during 1600–2000, including an
extended list of sources.
46. Manley, 1974.
47. Machado et al., 2011; Barriendos, 2005, 2009; Alberola Romá, 2014. In
Portugal the klimhist project from 2012 to 2015 (http://clima.ul.pt/kh-
tasks) generated several case studies and the following surveys: Santos et al.,
2015a, 2015b.
48. Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012.
49. Jones, 2001.
286 C. PFISTER ET AL.

50. Pichard and Roucaute, 2014; Brönnimann, 2015; Bergström and Moberg,
2002; Camuffo, 2002; Camuffo et al., 2016.
51. Auer et al., 2007.
52. Vinther et al., 2006.
53. Wales-Smith, 1971; Wigley et al., 1984; Murphy et al. 2018.
54. Slonosky, 2002; Camuffo, 1984.
55. The series from Geneva and Bern (since 1760) in the Euro-Climhist data-
base (Module Switzerland) http://www.euroclimhist.unibe.ch/en/is not
homogenized; Tarand, 1993; Pfister, 1975; Gimmi et al., 2007.
56. Rodrigo and Barriendos, 2008.
57. Dobrovolný et al., 2015; Santos et al., 2015b; Pauling et al., 2006.
58. E.g., Degroot, 2015.
59. Luterbacher et al., 2007; Xoplaki et al., 2005.
60. Luterbacher et al., 2010, 2016.
61. On the anomalous weather of 1540, see Wetter et al., 2014.
62. See also Pfister, 1984.
63. Luterbacher et al., 2004.
64. Luterbacher et al., 2016.
65. Xoplaki et al., 2005; Luterbacher et al., 2004.
66. Luterbacher et al., 2010; Mellado-Cano et al., 2018.
67. E.g., Luterbacher et al., 2001; Slonosky and Jones, 2001; Cornes et al., 2013.
68. Barriopedro et al., 2014.
69. Myllyntaus, 2009.
70. Vesajoki and Tornberg, 1994.
71. Dybdahl, 2012.
72. Frich and Frydendahl, 1994.
73. Lappalainen, 2014.
74. Post, 1985.
75. Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a, 2001b; Ogilvie, 2010; Hartman et al., 2017.
76. Ogilvie, 1995, 2010.
77. Ogilvie and Jónsson, 2001a, 2001b.
78. Demarée and Ogilvie, 2001.
79. Ogilvie, 2010.
80. Pfister, 1999, 68–69; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
81. Dobrovolný et al., 2015; Pfister and Brázdil, 1999, Fig. 2.
82. Pfister, 1996.
83. Pfister, 1999, 106–07; Buisman and van Engelen, 1996–2015; Brázdil et al.,
2013, 123.
84. Pfister, 1999, 106–07.
85. Brázdil et al., 2013.
86. Pfister, 1999; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
87. Appleby, 1978; Le Roy Ladurie, 2004.
88. Brázdil et al., 2013.
89. Pfister, 1984, 119.
90. Fernandez-Armesto, 1988, 237.
91. Lamb and Frydendahl, 1991, 40; Pfister 1984, 145.
92. Pfister, 1996; Campbell, 2010.
93. Ogilvie, 2010.
94. Glaser, 2008; Le Roy Ladurie, 2004; Buisman and van Engelen, 1996–2015;
Pfister, 1984.
 EARLY MODERN EUROPE 287

95. Pfister, 1999; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.

96. Pfister, 1999; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
97. For the grape harvests Daux et al., 2012; for the alpine snowfalls Pfister, 1999.
98. Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
99. Pfister, 2005, 63–65.
100. Lachiver, 1991; Monahan, 1993; Garnier, 2010.
101. Post, 1985; Engler et al., 2013.
102. Ogilvie, 1995.
103. Pfister, 1999; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
104. Pfister, 1999; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
105. Pfister, 1999; Dobrovolný et al., 2015.
106. Camuffo et al., 2014.
107. Roberts et al., 2012.
108. Rodrigo et al., 1999. Broken down seasonally, it appears the winters and
springs were exceptionally rainy, but summers dry—compare Rodrigo and
Barriendos, 2008, and Creus-Novau et al., 2005. See also lake-level and lake
sediment data for southern and eastern Spain in Roberts et al., 2012, and Oliva
et al., 2014.
109. Barriendos and Martin-Vide, 1998; Glaser et al., 2010; Ruiz et al., 2014.
Bullón, 2008, creates a temperature index based on written evidence and finds
that temperatures of the 1590s were low, but not exceptionally so. This may be
because the temperatures of the preceding decades were already unusually low,
and so the cold was not especially noted.
110. Ruiz-Labourdette et al., 2014; Saz Sanchez et al., 2001; Domínguez-Castro
et al., 2008.
111. Genova, 2012; Cabrera de Cordoba, 1857, 57, 166, 205–06; Font Tullot,
1988, 75–82.
112. White, 2011 and sources therein.
113. Camuffo et al., 2015.
114. Camuffo et al., 2015; White, 2011.
115. Grove and Conterio, 1995.
116. White, 2011.
117. Xoplaki et al., 2001.
118. Hughes, 2014.
119. Dunning, 2001.
120. Borisenkov, 1995.
121. Przybylak et al., 2010, 2014.
122. Braudel, 1995, 285.
123. He discusses his own and other scholars’ early work in the field in Le Roy
Ladurie, 2013.
124. Wigley et al., 1981; Hulme, 2011.
125. Hulme, 2011.

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1540 – A Worst Case.” Climatic Change 125 (2014): 349–63.
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on Man. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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from Tree Rings: Part I: The Long Term Context.” Quaternary Science Reviews 134
(2016): 1–18.
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1675–1715 and 1780–1830 and Its Impact on Human Life.” Climatic Change 48
(2001): 581–615.
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2015.
 CHAPTER 24

North American Climate History (1500–1800)

Sam White

24.1   Introduction
The historical climatology of North America (here defined as the territory of
the present United States and Canada) from 1500 to 1800 remains a small
but growing field of study. Most climate reconstructions for the region and
period rely on proxies from the archives of nature (see Chap. 3). North
American universities and researchers have not usually followed the same tra-
ditions of documentary-based climate reconstruction as in Europe and China,
and pre-instrumental climate reconstruction has usually been a subject for
archaeologists and climatologists rather than historians. There remain more
works gathering interesting historical anecdotes and weather lore than rigor-
ous documentary-­based climate reconstructions and climate history.1
Nevertheless, there are substantial resources from the archives of societies to
improve our picture of past climate and weather in North America, and its role
in human history. This chapter provides an overview of that evidence as well as
recent research into North American historical climatology. Given the still lim-
ited state of the field, this chapter will be brief. Readers interested in further
studies, including the range of paleoclimate and archaeological evidence for
past climate in North America, may consult one of a number of recent review
articles listed in the bibliography.2

24.2   Geography, Climate, and Context

North America’s size and topography create varied climates with sharp con-
trasts from region to region. Temperatures range from extremely low in north-
ern Canada to extremely high in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona. The Pacific

S. White (*)
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 297

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_24
298 S. WHITE

coast alone has a mild maritime climate. Cold coastal currents contribute to
cool, rainy weather much of the year in the Pacific Northwest but a more
Mediterranean climate of arid summers and occasional winter rain in coastal
California. The Rocky Mountains, running the length of western North
America, block Pacific moisture from reaching the continental interior, creat-
ing a rain shadow with more arid conditions and sharp seasonal contrasts in the
western uplands and the central Great Plains and prairies. Subtropical high
pressure creates desert conditions in most of the south-western USA, apart
from a brief “monsoon” of midsummer thunderstorms. In the south-eastern
USA warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico creates more mild, if variable,
winters and muggy summers. Central and eastern North America have a conti-
nental climate with strong seasonal contrasts in temperature and high weather
variability. This comes from the west-to-east circulation of continental air
masses and from the effect of jet streams, which can alternately pull down cold
dry Arctic air or draw up warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico into the
interior of the continent. Quebec, for instance, is at roughly the same latitude
as Paris, but its winters are far longer and colder—more comparable to those of
Moscow.
The variability and extremes of North America’s climate posed challenges
to the first European explorers and settlers, who often struggled to colonize
the continent during this period. European exploration of North America
began shortly after Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492. However, the
Spanish Empire failed for generations to gain a foothold there. By the first
decade of the seventeenth century, after much trial and error, the Spanish
established their first permanent settlements in the south-west (Santa Fe) and
south-east (St. Augustine), the French in the St. Lawrence Valley (Quebec),
and the English in the mid-Atlantic (Jamestown). Spanish colonies and mis-
sions spread slowly over the following centuries, reaching California only in
the eighteenth century. The French presence spread through the St. Lawrence
Valley, then the Great Lakes region, and finally down the Mississippi River val-
ley to Louisiana; but the French settler population was small and dispersed.
The English settler population soon grew far larger, and by the early eigh-
teenth century it reached from Newfoundland down the Atlantic coast to
Georgia. At the end of the Seven Years War (also known as the French and
Indian War, 1754–63), France ceded Quebec to Britain and its trans-Missis-
sippi claims to Spain. In 1783, following the American War of Independence,
the thirteen British colonies from present-day Maine to Georgia became the
United States. At the end of the century, during the course of the Napoleonic
wars, France seized the Mississippi territory from Spain only to sell it to the
USA in 1803. In the meantime, American settlement began to push through
the Appalachian Mountains into the interior of the continent, particularly
along the Ohio River valley. During these three centuries, North America’s
indigenous population (usually known as Indians or Native Americans in the
USA and as First Nations in Canada—but historically representing many
diverse nations, cultures, and languages) faced epidemic diseases from the
 NORTH AMERICAN CLIMATE HISTORY (1500–1800) 299

“Columbian Exchange” while adapting to European technologies, trade, mis-

sionization, and colonization. The place of indigenous peoples and perspec-
tives in climate history is discussed in Chap. 31.

24.3   Sources
This historical background is key to understanding the strengths and weak-
nesses of source material for North American climate from the archives of soci-
eties (see Chap. 3). While early exploration left many observations about
weather and climate, these remain scattered and inconsistent until permanent
settlements began during the seventeenth century. Thereafter, the number,
consistency, and geographical coverage of written sources gradually increases;
however, it remains heavily weighted toward the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic
coast (particularly New England), to a lesser degree Quebec and New Mexico,
and then starting in the eighteenth century, Louisiana. As populations became
more numerous and literate, particularly in the English colonies, personal
descriptive sources such as letters, travel narratives, and pamphlets were supple-
mented by more abundant and objective sources including newspapers, weather
diaries, and finally early instrumental records. Both the evidence for, and the
research on, North American historical climatology has been predominately
Anglophone. However, French and particularly Spanish colonial records offer
considerable potential for climate reconstruction.3
Europe’s interest in the New World ensured that sixteenth- and seventeenth-­
century visitors to North America left many published accounts in English,
French, Spanish, and other languages. In fact, the very novelty of New World
weather and seasons was a key factor in early modern attempts to understand
climates and their causes.4 Early narratives of travel, exploration, and settle-
ment remain useful mainly as sources of occasional weather observations. Given
that Europeans often found the climate of North America unfamiliar and
extreme, these observations can be difficult to interpret objectively. Nevertheless,
they often add confirmation or detail to proxy-based climate reconstructions,
as well as providing descriptions of human perceptions and impacts. Moreover,
some examples include specific plant- or ice-phenological information, provid-
ing more objective data for reconstruction (see Chap. 5), as shown in the fol-
lowing section. Many of these sources have now been published in modern
critical editions.5 Researchers should take care to work with sources in their
original language and context—not translations—since many terms related to
weather and climate are specific to certain languages and have changed their
meanings over time.
With the first permanent colonies came at least three additional sources of
information. In the Spanish Empire, colonial officials engaged in frequent cor-
respondence with local officials and royal councils, much of which is preserved
in Spanish archives.6 While little of this information directly pertains to climate,
it often records climatic impacts. For instance, letters from the governor of
Spanish Florida describe drought, harvest failures, and a possibly related out-
300 S. WHITE

break of disease among Florida’s Indians during the 1650s.7 Since most early
English colonization was sponsored by private corporations, it often left less
detailed official correspondence. However, the business of English colonies
encouraged more production of promotional and narrative pamphlets, as well
as travel and personal narratives. Some of these sources contain general descrip-
tions of weather and climate, indicating changing perceptions, conditions, and
occasionally impacts of extreme weather. They have proven useful, for instance,
in detailing the combination of drought and storms that ruined harvests and
contributed to conflict over land and food in the Pequot War (a conflict
between Massachusetts colonists and Native Americans in 1636–8).8 Finally, in
both the French and Spanish cases, Catholic missionaries generated correspon-
dence about their activities and living conditions, much of which has been
published.9 While not necessarily focused on climate, missionaries were often
careful to record the culture and practices of Indians, including their weather
rites and the possibilities for settling them in permanent agricultural villages.10
For the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, researchers have more
abundant and varied records from the archives of societies for North America.
Decades of settlement in America acquainted Europeans and European-­
Americans with the distinctive features of North American climates. Therefore,
historical sources begin to reveal not only isolated weather events but more
subtle shifts and variations. In New England, and to a lesser extent other parts
of North America, some farmers began to keep personal journals and weather
diaries. Historical climatologist William Baron has estimated there are at least
2500 diaries preserved in north-eastern North America from the late seven-
teenth–nineteenth centuries, including over 500 with daily weather descrip-
tions and many more with monthly or seasonal descriptions.11
Newspapers and almanacs began to appear in the English colonies around
the turn of the eighteenth century, and soon became very widespread. If used
carefully—avoiding such problems as second-hand reporting and exaggerated
accounts—their geographical specificity and daily frequency make newspapers
a particularly valuable source for some types of reconstruction. Besides detail-
ing the human perceptions and impacts of weather, they can provide objective
information such as the duration of snow cover and/or ice-phenological data.12
Almanacs in colonial North America, as in early modern Europe, not only
reflected contemporary weather perceptions and weather lore, but also served
as a place to write down weather observations, providing sources similar to
weather diaries (see Chap. 5).
The first instrumental records in North America date back to the 1740s in
both New England and Quebec.13 Several more series followed in other parts
of New England and Virginia throughout the century, including those of
America’s “founding fathers” Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.14 Most
such series were short-lived, but once properly aggregated and homogenized
(see Chap. 9) they can extend local temperature, pressure, and (less often)
precipitation records into the eighteenth century at monthly, daily, or even
sub-daily resolution. Combining these historical sources, researchers have
 NORTH AMERICAN CLIMATE HISTORY (1500–1800) 301

attempted reconstructions of key climate variables in parts of North America

back into the eighteenth and even seventeenth centuries. These include, for
instance, drought frequency and growing season duration in New England.15
In contrast to European and Chinese historical climatology, North American
researchers have not usually made use of temperature and precipitation indices
from narrative and proxy data (see Chap. 11).
Agriculture in French Canada was sensitive to both early and late frosts,
while the annual freeze and thaw of the St. Lawrence River determined the
yearly rhythms of travel and transportation. These two phenomena can also
serve as useful proxies for temperature trends in Quebec. The first person to
keep regular instrumental records in Quebec, French doctor Charles Gaultier,
also recorded the colony’s first regular plant- and ice-phenological data, start-
ing in the 1740s. Gaultier’s records, along with those of subsequent observers,
indicate that winters of the eighteenth century were generally milder than
those of the early nineteenth century, probably the coldest period of the last
millennium in Canada.
A major achievement for this period of North American historical climatol-
ogy has been the reconstruction of two phenomena often poorly captured in
the proxy record: storms and sea ice extent. Although sediment cores along the
Atlantic and Caribbean coast can reveal the approximate frequency and magni-
tude of major storms, only the archives of societies have been able to recon-
struct their numbers, strength, and human impacts at high resolution.16
Historical climatologists including Michael Chenowith, Dennis Blanton, and
Cary Mock have used various records, including Spanish official correspon-
dence and American newspaper reports, to extend Atlantic storm reconstruc-
tions well beyond the instrumental period, revealing greater variability than is
found for the past century alone.17 Several historians have addressed the role of
hurricanes in the colonial history of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and
Eleonora Rohland has recently written on hurricanes in French colonial
Louisiana as a case study in extreme weather impacts and adaptation.18 The
Hudson’s Bay Company, which claimed a monopoly on the fur trade over
nearly half of present-day Canada, also established early networks of scientific
observations and correspondence, including information on climate and
weather. Using the ship logbooks of its trading vessels, A. Catchpole calculated
an annual sea ice severity index for Canadian waters from 1751 to 1870. Its
station reports also provide a unique continuous record of written and early
instrumental evidence for parts of western and northern Canada during the
eighteenth century.19

24.4   Climatic Trends and Events

During the period 1500–1800 North America generally experienced lowered
Little Ice Age (LIA) temperatures (see Chap. 23). Various proxy climate recon-
structions, mostly taken from pollen and tree rings, indicate that the continent
experienced broadly similar climatic trends as elsewhere in the Northern
302 S. WHITE

Hemisphere, including Europe. Particular phases of cooling coincided with

major volcanic eruptions and/or diminished solar activity, including the
1590s–1600s, 1680s–90s, and 1810s–30s. Yet temperature and precipitation
reconstructions for LIA North America also reveal considerable variability over
time and space.20 Given the limits of available evidence, it is difficult to offer
detailed case studies of North American climate variability for this period based
solely on the archives of societies. Three episodes, however, stand out for their
climatic and particularly their human historical significance.

24.5   Early Colonial Weather

Even with the luckiest of weather, early European invasions and colonizing
efforts in North America would have faced serious challenges. Many came to
the continent undersupplied, poorly prepared, and ignorant about its environ-
ment and indigenous peoples. Moreover, as historian Karen Kupperman first
argued, Europeans faced “the puzzle of the American climate.”21 Based on
classical meteorological and geographical ideas, they expected to find simi-
lar climates around the world at the same latitudes—an expectation that failed
to account for eastern North America’s continental climate, with stronger vari-
ability and seasonal contrasts. For instance, attempts to plant Mediterranean
crops in Virginia and New England (at roughly the same latitudes as Sicily and
mainland Italy) were destined for failure.
However, the first colonists were anything but lucky with the weather.
Expeditions repeatedly arrived in North America only to face droughts, storms,
and winters that were exceptionally cold even by the standards of the
LIA. During the early 1540s, for instance, Spanish conquistadors encountered
freezing winters and heavy snows in parts of California, the south-west, and
south-east, where such weather is extremely rare or unheard of since mod-
ern instrumental records began in the late nineteenth century. The first colo-
nists in Spanish Florida during the 1560s–80s also encountered alternating
droughts and storms, which contributed to the decision to abandon the out-
post of Santa Elena (Parris Island, South Carolina). A short-lived Spanish Jesuit
mission to Virginia in 1570 found the land in the middle of a serious drought
and freezing weather, “punished with six years of sterility and death.”
The tropical eruptions of Nevado del Ruiz (1595) and Huaynaputina
(1600) caused North American temperatures to plunge to some of their lowest
levels of the LIA just when new Spanish, French, and English expeditions
arrived in several parts of the continent. Juan de Oñate’s invasion of New
Mexico in 1598 faced severe drought; and then the winter of 1601 was so cold
the Rio Grande froze for weeks on end. The exceptional climate contributed to
hostilities with the indigenous Pueblos and the defection of more than half the
first colonists. Attempted French colonies at Tadoussac, Quebec (1600–1) and
St. Croix, Maine (1603–4) were nearly destroyed by scurvy when long winters
left fresh food unavailable; and the first winter in Quebec (1608–9) killed
nearly a third of the colonists. Jamestown, Virginia (established 1607) faced
 NORTH AMERICAN CLIMATE HISTORY (1500–1800) 303

exceptional drought, which withered crops and may have hurt water quality, as
well as an extraordinary winter in 1607–8, when the lower James River appar-
ently froze halfway across, something that has almost never happened since.22

24.6   The Maunder Minimum

After the exceptional cold of the first colonial winters, the decades of the mid-­
seventeenth century were generally milder. This apparent change even led
some French Canadian and New England settlers to speculate that their clear-
ance and cultivation of the land were modifying the climate to make it more
like Europe’s.23 However, during the late seventeenth century—sometimes
known as the Maunder Minimum, for its low sunspot activity—north-eastern
North America cooled again.
This climatic change raised new doubts about the suitability of North
America’s climate for European settlers. It has also been implicated in conflicts
between colonists and Native Americans. For example, proxy, documentary,
and archaeological evidence all demonstrate that New Mexico faced a severe
drought during the 1670s, which forced many Pueblos to abandon their land.
In 1680, a revolt of the Pueblo nations drove colonists and missionaries out of
New Mexico for a dozen years.24 In north-eastern North America, the Maunder
Minimum brought a return of very cold, snowy winters. During the worst
years in New England, the damage to crops and livestock revived fears of the
famines that had plagued the first English colonies there during the 1620s.
Among the highly religious Calvinist population, the severe climate raised anxi-
eties of divine retribution.25 In Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, as historian
Tom Wickman has discussed, the long, heavy snow cover characteristic of the
1690s–1710s initially gave an edge to Indians during the first and second
Anglo-Wabanaki Wars, until the English acquired traditional Native adapta-
tions to the cold, such as snowshoes.26

24.7   Revolutionary Weather: The 1770s–90s

The 1770s–90s were a time of unusual climatic variability around the globe. As
discussed in Chap. 34, this variability probably came from a combination of
volcanic forcing (the Lakagígar eruption of 1783) and persistent El Niño and
La Niña events that followed. Several historians have found connections
between the climate and weather of this period and the onset, outcome, and
aftermath of the American War of Independence (1775–83).
Sherry Johnson, for instance, has argued that unusually frequent and severe
Atlantic storms impeded Spain’s ability to keep Cuba and the Caribbean ade-
quately supplied by sea during the 1760s and 1770s. Pressure from the islanders
forced Spain to open its markets to trade with the British American colonies. This
in turn helped those colonies reorient their economies away from Britain and its
empire, boosting the economic case for independence.27 The characteristic LIA
weather of the late 1770s has come down in iconic American images of the War of
304 S. WHITE

Independence, such as General George Washington crossing the ice-choked

Delaware River in late 1776, or freezing with his troops in their winter camp at
Valley Forge. Yet almost certainly the warm summers of the early 1780s played
a more decisive role in the conflict, by helping to spread malaria among General
Cornwallis’s British army in the South.28
The 1780s also witnessed some unusually severe winters in the northern
Great Plains, New England, and Quebec. In the upper Missouri River valley,
extreme cold is thought to have decimated the bison population, leading to
famine and an outbreak of smallpox among Plains Indians during 1780–2. In
1789, an outbreak of Hessian fly (a crop pest blamed on German mercenaries
during the American War of Independence) along with exceptionally cold
spring weather led to a severe dearth throughout the eastern American–
Canadian borderlands—one of the last widespread climate-induced food short-
ages in North American history.29

24.8   Conclusion
Although North American scholars have often led the field of environmental
history, very few have specialized in climate history and historical climatology,
particularly during the colonial era. In part, this neglect reflects a lack of sources
compared with Europe and China. Yet it also reflects the human history and
historiography of North America during this period. American and Canadian
populations were dynamic and mobile, moving across the continent, reshaping
its landscape, and adapting to new markets and technologies. As geographer
William Meyer put it in 2010, “the history of American weather to date is not
principally the story of how the weather has changed, but of how Americans
have changed.”30 The evidence and examples outlined in this chapter are
intended to demonstrate how historical evidence, alone or in combination with
proxy data, has already revised and can continue to revise views of early North
American history that once paid little or no attention to weather and climate
change.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Vicky Slonosky for her comments
and for sharing material. Any errors are entirely my own.

Notes
1. E.g., Ludlum, 1963, 1966, 1984.
2. E.g., Baron, 1995, 1989; Mock, 2012; White et al., 2015; Foster, 2012.
3. Official archives in Santa Fe were destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of the 1680s,
creating a gap in those records.
4. White, 2015a, 2015b.
5. E.g., Quinn and Quinn, 1978 for English colonial sources, and the Cibola
Project—https://escholarship.org/uc/rcrs_ias_ucb_cibola (last accessed April
14, 2016)—for the Spanish south-west.
 NORTH AMERICAN CLIMATE HISTORY (1500–1800) 305

6. The Archivo de Indias in Seville has made many of these series, such as the
Cartas de Gobiernas from Spanish Florida, available online through http://
pares.mcu.es/ (last accessed April 14, 2016).
7. Described in Hoffman, 2002, 126–28.
8. Grandjean, 2011.
9. See especially Thwaites, 1896.
10. See examples in, e.g., White, 2015a.
11. Baron, 1995.
12. Mock, 2012.
13. Slonosky, 2003.
14. Baron, 1988, 1989; Druckenbrod et al., 2003. For an early compilation and
description of records, see Blodget, 1857.
15. Baron, 1995, 74–91.
16. E.g., Besonen et al., 2008; Burn and Palmer, 2015.
17. E.g., Chenoweth, 2006; Blanton et al., 2009.
18. E.g., Schwartz, 2015; Rohland, 2015.
19. Binnema, 2014; Catchpole, 1995; Ball, 1995.
20. Pages 2k Consortium, 2013.
21. Kupperman, 1982.
22. On early colonial weather, see e.g., Blanton, 2000, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2013;
Paar, 2009; White, 2014; 2015a; 2017.
23. On the history of ideas relating to land use and climate change, see Golinski,
2008; Thompson, 1980; Vogel, 2011; Coates and Degroot, 2015.
24. Ivey, 1994; Parks et al., 2006.
25. Kupperman, 1984.
26. Wickman, 2015.
27. Johnson, 2005.
28. McNeill, 2010.
29. Campanella, 2007; Hodge, 2012; Taylor, 1999.
30. Meyer, 2000, 6.

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Kupperman, Karen. “Climate and Mastery of the Wilderness in Seventeenth-Century
New England.” In Seventeenth-Century New England, edited by David Hall and
David Allen, 3–37. Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1984.
Ludlum, D.M. Early American Hurricanes, 1492–1870. Boston: American
Meteorological Society, 1963.
Ludlum, D.M. Early American Winters. Boston: American Meteorological Society,
1966.
Ludlum, D.M. The Weather Factor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
McNeill, J.R. Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620–1914.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Meyer, William. Americans and Their Weather. New York: Oxford University Press,
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Mock, C.J. “Early Instrumental and Documentary Evidence of Environmental
Change.” In The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change, edited by J.A. Matthews,
345–60. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2012.
Paar, Karen L. “Climate in the Historical Record of Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida:
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Impacts in North America, edited by Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux and Cary J. Mock,
47–58. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009.
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Millennia.” Nature Geoscience 6 (2013): 339–46.
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Central New Mexico in the 1670s.” In Environmental Change and Human
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Dean, 214–27. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006.
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North America to 1612. New York: Arno Press, 1978.
Rohland, Eleonora. “Hurricanes in New Orleans: Disaster Migration and Adaptation,
1718–1794.” In Cultural Dynamics of Climate Change and the Environment in
Northern America, edited by Bernd Sommer, 137–58. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
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from Columbus to Katrina. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
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Canada: 1742–56.” Journal of Climate 16 (2003): 2232–47.
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Thompson, Kenneth. “Forests and Climate Change in America: Some Early Views.”
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(2015): 57–98.
 CHAPTER 25

Climate from 1800 to 1970 in North America

and Europe

Stefan Brönnimann, Sam White, and Victoria Slonosky

25.1   Introduction
The climate history of North America and Europe from 1800 to 1970 has been
relatively well studied. Climate reconstructions for the early nineteenth century
largely depend on proxy data from natural archives, documentary evidence, and
early instrumental series. The period marks a transition from the Little Ice Age to
the current age of global warming. The climate underwent several fluctuations
during these two centuries, with cold periods in the early and late nineteenth cen-
tury and the cool mid-twentieth century interspersed with rapid warming, as in the
early twentieth century. The establishment of American and European national
weather services during the mid- to late nineteenth century marked a new era, with
continuous standardized instrumental data. A global observation system gradually
came into being, with particularly dense information for North America and
Europe.1 This chapter provides an overview of the available data and main climatic
trends for the period, followed by descriptions of major climate historical events.

25.2   Data
By 1800 in Europe, early instrumental measurements were recorded by a vari-
ety of individuals and institutions, from religious figures and educated amateurs
to doctors, explorers, colonial administrators, and commercial corporations.

S. Brönnimann (*)
Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, Institute of Geography, University of
Bern, Bern, Switzerland
S. White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
V. Slonosky
McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

© The Author(s) 2018 309

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_25
310 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

The motivations for keeping such detailed records ranged from curiosity about
the natural environment, to investigating the effects of weather and climate on
health, to determining whether climate change—including anthropogenic cli-
mate change—was occurring. Although some coordinated activities (i.e., mete-
orological networks) began in the late 1700s, most of them were not successful
in the long term (see Chap. 7).
North American counterparts started somewhat later and took longer to
spread across the continent. The earliest instrumental records in the United
States and Canada date back to the 1740s (see Chap. 24). Some groups of
observers and regional networks can provide more or less continuous instru-
mental data for parts of North America since the early decades of the nine-
teenth century.2 For example, some military units kept regular observations
going back to almost the start of that century.3 In Canada, colonial officials,
military officers, and clergymen kept long-term records, while explorers from
the Hudson’s Bay Company were among the first to keep widespread, if spo-
radic, weather observations. In the early nineteenth century, their trading posts
were ordered to keep daily temperature and weather records, which are cur-
rently used for climatic reconstruction.4 Royal Navy ship records in Hudson’s
Bay and the Arctic can also provide frequent temperature measurements and
ice-phenological observations going back to the 1810s.5
The invention of the telegraph in 1837, the relevance of weather for rising
global transportation and trade, and new government responsibilities in emerging
nation states all promoted the establishment of national meteorological networks.
In Europe, most national weather services were founded during the 1850s–80s.
The Meteorological Service of Canada was established in 1871. In the United
States, the Smithsonian Institution started operating a network in the 1840s;
national weather reporting was assigned in 1870 to the Army Signal Service, and
then in 1890 to a civilian Weather Bureau, the precursor of the US National
Weather Service. The main activity was weather observing; weather forecasting was
initially considered unscientific and often started at a later stage. Indeed, in the
1870s, meteorology was still a long way from developing a physical theory of the
atmosphere (see Chap. 38). What was of considerable concern to both military and
commercial shipping was storm warnings, and it was for this purpose that many of
the state-supported weather networks arose in the mid-nineteenth century.6
Weather was of particular importance at sea. Officers on ships kept meteo-
rological observations meticulously. During the mid-nineteenth century, agree-
ments such as the 1853 Brussels Maritime Conference, and emerging
conventions such as Beaufort’s wind scale, promoted the worldwide standard-
ization of maritime weather observations and their application to ­meteorology.7
For land observations, the 1873 International Meteorological Congress and
the subsequent foundation of the International Meteorological Organization
had similar aims, although these turned out to be very difficult to achieve.8
Meanwhile, the number of weather measurement sites increased very rapidly
worldwide (see Fig. 25.1 for the example of air pressure).
The measurements made by individuals in the early nineteenth century were
often communicated through scientific journals or newspapers, but coordi-
Fig. 25.1 Coverage of meteorological stations with daily pressure readings for the years 1800, 1850, 1900, and 1950 in the International
CLIMATE FROM 1800 TO 1970 IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE

Surface Pressure Databank (ISBD) Version 4. Reproduced with permission from https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ispd/add-­
station/v4.0/
311
312 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

nated collection and publication of observations often failed (see Chaps. 7 and
34).9 UK Admiral Robert FitzRoy instigated one of the first systems of weather
observation collection, analysis, and dissemination for the purposes of issuing
storm warnings in the 1860s. Inspired by Alexander von Humboldt’s Cosmos
and his pioneering use of isothermal maps, a new interest arose in the collec-
tion and analysis of climatic data. Eventually, the national weather services pub-
lished observations in yearbooks. Efforts at collecting global datasets relied
largely on a few individuals. In North America, James Pollard Espy, Cleveland
Abbe, and (for marine data) Matthew Maury compiled large collections. In
Europe, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove (in the 1830s), then Julius Hann, Robert
FitzRoy, Francis Galton, Wladimir Köppen, Eduard Brückner, and later Felix
Exner put together large datasets for climatological purposes (see Chap. 38).
In the 1920s, the Smithsonian Institution started its global compilation of
weather data, the World Weather Records.10 After the 1960s, pioneers of cli-
mate history such as Christian Pfister, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, and Hubert
H. Lamb also compiled historical instrumental and documentary records.
The two world wars affected operations and interrupted data exchange.
Upper-air observations, which had been performed in only a few places during
the early twentieth century, became standard in many countries after World
War II, when international cooperation resumed. The World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) was created by the World Meteorological Convention
and adopted in 1947. The International Geophysical Year of 1957/8, a global
research program, brought a further massive improvement and standardization
of observation systems and data exchange; and many currently available global
data products date back to 1957 (see Chap. 26).

25.3   Climate Trends

The period from 1800 to 1970 marks the transition from the Little Ice Age
(LIA; see Chap. 23) to the recent period of global warming, both as a recovery
from the LIA and from anthropogenic contributions. Following a cool phase
during the 1810s–30s, temperatures increased globally. The trend was not
steady over the period. Rather, temperatures underwent several phases of accel-
erated warming interrupted by periods of stability or even cooling, such as the
1880s–90s and mid-twentieth century. The main phases of warming and stabil-
ity in Europe and North America were similar to those of the world as a whole.
Several of the changes in global temperature during the 1800–1970 period
have been attributed to external forcing of the climate system. The cool period
in the early nineteenth century was most likely caused by increased volcanic
activity—four major tropical volcanic eruptions within less than three decades,
including the 1815 Tambora eruption (see Chap. 35)—and arguably to a lesser
extent by a minimum in solar activity known as the Dalton Minimum from
1790 to 1830.11 The temperature increase during the early twentieth century
can partly be explained by greenhouse gas forcing (hypothesized as early as
193812 and then studied in more detail since the mid-1950s13), but unusual
 CLIMATE FROM 1800 TO 1970 IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE 313

internal variability of the climate system must have contributed.14 The slowdown
in warming during the 1950s–70s has been attributed to increased aerosols, par-
ticularly in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition to forced variability, internal
variability influenced climate from year to year (as expressed in atmospheric cir-
culation indices such as the North Atlantic Oscillation or the Pacific North
American Pattern) and decade to decade (as expressed in indices of the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation—see Fig. 25.2).15 The strong southwesterly winds of
the period 1900–20 contributed to a warming of the European Arctic because
they brought warm oceanic air to the western continental regions and polar
region. Similar strong westerly circulation occurred in the period 1980–2000.

25.4   Climate Events

25.4.1  
The Tambora Eruption and the “Year Without a Summer”
of 1816
The 1815 eruption of Tambora caused the most pronounced climate anomaly
of the period, and one of the largest of the past two millennia in Europe and
North America. In the following year, global temperatures dropped by 0.4–0.8
°C (although a strong eruption six or seven years earlier arguably also contrib-
uted to low temperatures in the 1810s). The climate anomaly particularly
affected New England and the St. Lawrence valley as well as Central Europe,
where 1816 went down in history as a “Year Without a Summer.” In Switzerland,
summer (June–August) temperatures fell as much as 3 °C below the average of
the two preceding decades (Fig. 25.3). The number of rainy days almost dou-
bled, and cloud-free days became very rare. Apart from some direct radiative
cooling owing to volcanic aerosols, this cold cloudy weather was probably due
to a southward shift in the track of Atlantic depressions, perhaps a remote effect
of the volcano-induced weakening of the African monsoon system.16
The “Year Without a Summer,” which struck Europe in the wake of the
Napoleonic wars, a period of high social and economical vulnerability, had sub-
stantial impacts on society. Harvests were late and meager. In some areas prices
rose dramatically, leading to malnutrition and elevated mortality.17 The “Year
Without a Summer” is known as the “last great subsistence crisis of the Western
world.” In North America, cold waves and snowstorms as late as June caused
many fatalities.18 (For more on the “Year without a Summer” see Chap. 35.)

25.4.2  
The 1830s Climate Cooling and Glacier Advances
around 1850
As in the 1810s, a sequence of two eruptions (Babuyan Claro, Philippines, in
1831 and then Cosiguina, Nicaragua, in 1835) led to lower temperatures
worldwide during the 1830s. Temperatures remained low in Europe, Asia, and
North America until the early 1840s. In Switzerland, as a consequence of the
low summer temperatures and increased winter rainfall, glaciers grew, reaching
314 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

Fig. 25.2 Time series of annual mean temperature anomalies (with respect to
1700–1890) for Europe from PAGES 2k (2013) (blue, light blue shading indicates
maximum and minimum). Instrumental records from central England (Manley, 1974),
the St. Lawrence River valley (Slonosky, 2014, 2015), and Kansas (Burnette et al.,
2010; light blue shading indicates the 95% confidence interval), respectively. The mid-
dle two lines indicate annual mean sea-surface temperature indices of the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from
reconstructions by Mann et al. (2008). The bottom two lines indicate boreal winter
(Dec.–Feb.) mean values of indices of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO, an instru-
mental series from Jones et al. (1997) as well as reconstructions by Luterbacher et al.
(2001) and Cook et al. (2002)) and the Pacific North American pattern by Brönnimann
(2015). The dark blue line shows the mean value of thirty reconstructions, dark and
light shading indicating the 50% and 90% range, respectively. All values are anomalies
with respect to 1901–60
 CLIMATE FROM 1800 TO 1970 IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE 315

Fig. 25.3 Reconstructed fields of (left) temperature, sea-level pressure (solid and
dashed contours denote 2 hPa and −2 hPa, respectively), and (right) precipitation dur-
ing Jun.–Aug. 1816, relative to 1700–1890 (Reproduced from Stefan Brönnimann,
Climatic Changes Since 1700 (Berlin: Springer International Publishing, 2015). With
permission from Springer)

another maximum in around 1850. After 1850, glaciers in Europe and North
America began their steady decrease, which has continued to the present day,
punctuated with short phases of stability or even slight advances. The year
1850 is often used to mark the end of the LIA. However, average global tem-
peratures remained low until the 1890s, with the 1880s being a particularly
cold decade in North America.

25.4.3  
The Early Twentieth-Century Warming
During the period 1910–40, the North Atlantic, Europe, North America, and
especially the Arctic underwent pronounced warming.19 In Spitsbergen, a step
change of 2–3 °C in annual mean temperature occurred in the late 1910s, then
temperatures remained high until the early 1940s.20 A peculiar atmospheric
circulation anomaly, with a strong Siberian High extending over Scandinavia
and low pressure over Greenland, transported warm air masses into the Arctic.
Temperature records show warming on a global scale at this time. Both the
tropical Pacific and the Atlantic have been suggested as drivers for this early
twentieth-century warming.21

25.4.4  
The “Dust Bowl” Droughts in North America in the 1930s
In the 1930s, concurrent with the Arctic warming, the Great Plains of the
United States experienced a decade of drought and wind-blown erosion known
as the “Dust Bowl.” Studies based on model simulations have identified a spe-
cific pattern of sea-surface temperature anomalies (Fig. 25.4), consisting of a
cold tropical and northern Pacific with a warm tropical and northern Atlantic,
as a trigger for the drought.22 These anomalies affected large-scale atmospheric
circulation and the Great Plains Low-Level Jet, the mescoscale circulation fea-
ture responsible for the moisture influx from the Caribbean Sea into the central
United States.
316 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

Fig. 25.4 Precipitation and sea-surface temperature anomalies in 1931–39 relative to

1920–5025

A large drought affected all of central North America (Fig. 25.4), reaching
from north Texas to the northern Rocky Mountains and the Canadian Prairies.
In the worst-affected areas, centered around the state of Oklahoma, intense
dust storms blew away the top soil and turned farm land into desert. While the
North American Great Plains had been subject to recurring droughts during
past centuries, the expansion of agriculture during and after World War I may
have amplified the drought, and it certainly left the population more vulnera-
ble.23 The droughts and erosion, which coincided with the Great Depression,
had major social and economic effects, including accelerated migration out of
the southern Great Plains. The Dust Bowl also triggered major US govern-
ment initiatives in soil conservation.24

25.4.5  
Climatic Anomalies in 1940–2
The climate of North America and Europe exhibited pronounced anomalies in
1940–2. Winters were extremely cold in northeastern Europe, but very warm
in Alaska. Springs were wet in central Europe. Anomalies in Antarctica and Asia
suggest that this must have been a global climate event. These phenomena can,
at least to some extent, be attributed to a strong persistent El Niño event in the
tropical Pacific.26 (On the workings of El Niño events, see Chap. 2; on persis-
tent El Niños, see Chap. 34.)
 CLIMATE FROM 1800 TO 1970 IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE 317

The exceptional European winters played a famous and historic role during
World War II. Extreme cold in Russia slowed the advance of invading German
troops—much as similarly cold winters had devastated Napoleon’s Grande
Armée in 1812 and Swedish King Charles XII’s army in 1709 during previous
attempts to invade Russia. At the same time, the exceptional weather contributed
to the starvation and suffering of populations in occupied Eastern Europe.27

25.4.6  
Retraction of the Northern Tropical Edge after 1945
During the post-war years, Central Europe suffered from several pronounced
summer droughts, including 1945, 1947, 1949, 1950, and 1954. In many
places, the heatwaves of 1947 set the (instrumental period) record until 2003.
In the United States, droughts were frequent during the 1950s. The droughts
on both sides of the Atlantic might have been related to the fact that the
Atlantic Ocean was very warm (i.e., a high AMO index—see Fig. 25.2); conse-
quently the tropical edge reached further to the north than normal, pushing
the subtropical ridge of high pressure and low precipitation into higher lati-
tudes. Agriculture and the transport and energy sectors were severely affected.
Over the following thirty years, the Southern Hemisphere warmed rapidly
while the Northern Hemisphere (and particularly the North Atlantic) cooled.
The entire northern tropical circulation moved southward. The Sahel droughts
in the 1970s and 1980s can be partly seen as a consequence of a southward
shift in the tropical belt.28 By the 1980s, both hemispheres entered into a new
warming phase, attributed to an enhanced greenhouse effect (see Chap. 26).

Notes
1. Edwards, 2010.
2. E.g., Hopkins and Moran, 2009; Slonosky, 2015.
3. E.g., Hopkins and Moran, 2009; Slonosky, 2015; Burnette et al., 2010; Baker
et al., 1985.
4. E.g., Wilson, 1985.
5. E.g., Przybylak and Vizi, 2005.
6. Fleming, 1999; Anderson, 2005.
7. E.g., Naylor, 2015.
8. Edwards, 2010.
9. E.g. Dupigny-Giroux and Mock, 2009.
10. Edwards, 2010.
11. Schurer et al., 2014.
12. Callendar, 1938.
13. Revelle and Suess, 1957.
14. Schlesinger and Ramankutty, 1994.
15. Bindoff et al., 2013.
16. Raible et al., 2016.
17. Krämer, 2015; Luterbacher and Pfister, 2015.
18. Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013; Post, 1977.
318 S. BRÖNNIMANN ET AL.

19. Wood and Overland, 2010.

20. Nordli et al., 2014.
21. Thompson et al., 2015; Schlesinger and Ramankutty, 1994; Delworth and
Knudson, 2000.
22. Schubert, 2004.
23. Cook et al., 2009, 2014. The once common view that farmers of the 1920s
were ploughing already submarginal land has since been called into question—
see Cunfer, 2005, and Sylvester and Rupley, 2012.
24. Worster, 1979; Hurt, 1981.
25. Brönnimann et al., 2009.
26. Brönnimann et al., 2004.
27. The role of food supplies and starvation has become an increasingly prominent
feature of the history of the Eastern Front in World War II, as in Collingham,
2012.
28. Brönnimann et al., 2015.

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Weather and Climate at Great Whale, Fort George and Eastmain, 1814–1821, as
Derived from Hudson’s Bay Company Records.” National Museum of Natural
Sciences Climate Change Project; Climatic Change in Canada 55 (1985): 147–90.
Wood, K.R., and J.E. Overland. “Early 20th Century Arctic Warming in Retrospect.”
International Journal of Climatology 30 (2010): 1269–79.
Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern High Plains in the 1930s. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979.
 CHAPTER 26

Global Warming (1970–Present)

Stefan Brönnimann

26.1   Climate Data

Atmospheric temperature measurements provide strong documentation of cli-
matic changes since 1970. In addition to meteorological stations of national
weather services and other agencies, worldwide projects of the International
Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957/8 and First GARP [Global Atmospheric
Research Program] Global Experiment (FGGE) in 1978/9 helped put in place
a global atmospheric climate observation system.1 The former initiated global
networks of radiosondes, carbon dioxide measurements, and total column
ozone measurements as well as establishing a system of World Data Centres.
The latter brought the widespread use of satellites as platforms for Earth obser-
vations (see Chap. 38). However, the Global Climate Observing System
(GCOS)—the first observation network dedicated to the analysis of climate
trends—only came online in 1992, with the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Meteorological observations from the Earth’s surface remain the principal
source of information for global temperatures and precipitation back to 1970.
Nevertheless, constructing global mean land temperatures from station data
faces issues of coverage and representativity, and each individual time series
needs to be homogenized for non-climatic artifacts (see Chap. 9).
Satellite measurements have now gone on long enough to provide another
basis for calculating global climatic trends. Satellite data are used, together with
radiosondes, for assessing temperature trends in the free troposphere and
stratosphere. They supplement ship and buoy data for deriving sea-surface

S. Brönnimann (*)
Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Institute of Geography, University of
Bern, Bern, Switzerland

© The Author(s) 2018 321

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_26
322 S. BRÖNNIMANN

temperatures and marine winds, and they provide information about atmo-
spheric composition. Satellite data are also used in so-called reanalysis datasets,
which combine actual observations with weather forecast models in order to
obtain a comprehensive estimate of atmospheric conditions every six hours.2

26.2   Climate Trends

From 1970 to 2017 global temperatures (land and ocean) increased by ~0.9 °C
(see Fig. 26.1).3 The rate of warming has not been constant: global tempera-
tures increased more steeply during the 1990s and since 2011 than during the
period in between. Nor has the warming been spatially uniform: the continents
have warmed faster than the oceans and higher latitudes have warmed faster
than lower ones (see Fig. 26.2). The Arctic has warmed particularly rapidly
owing to feedback processes such as ice-albedo feedback and feedbacks involv-
ing clouds and water vapor.
Atmospheric warming since 1970 has a clear vertical structure as well. In the
Arctic, warming has been strongest near the ground, where feedback processes
operate most strongly. In the tropics, by contrast, the warming has been greatest
at an altitude of ~10 km, owing to increased evaporation at the surface, which
releases heat as the water condenses into clouds. Globally, the increase in tem-
perature in the upper troposphere is at least as strong as at the surface (Fig. 26.1),
although trends derived from weather balloons still present some uncertainty and
high interannual variability. The stratosphere cooled from the 1970s to the mid-
1990s owing to the increase in greenhouse gases and loss of ozone (Fig. 26.1).
This cooling was interrupted by sharp warming spikes following major tropical
volcanic eruptions (see the example of Pinatubo below). The stratospheric cool-
ing has stopped since the late 1990s for reasons that are not fully understood.
Trends in precipitation are much less clear than those in temperature and
more difficult to establish. From 1970 to 2015, precipitation increased over
mid-latitude land areas and in the inner tropics, while decreases are found in
subtropical regions (Fig. 26.2). However, such trends are noisy and usually do
not stand out from interannual variability.
Not only has mean climate changed, but also extremes. Around the world
since the 1950s, there have been more heatwaves and fewer cold nights.
Changes in other types of extremes are more difficult to establish, but there are
indications that heavy precipitation events have intensified. The frequency of
tropical cyclones has not changed, although there is evidence for intensification
of Atlantic hurricanes.4
Global warming since 1970 has also affected the cryosphere. Northern
hemispheric snow cover has decreased since 1970. Satellite data of sea-ice
cover, which reaches back to 1979, demonstrates a particularly rapid decline of
Arctic sea-ice extent: record minima were set in autumn 2007 and then again
in autumn 2012 (Fig. 26.1). Ice thickness also decreased, while the melting
season grew longer. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost mass dur-
ing the past two decades for which data are available. The majority of glaciers
worldwide have been retreating, particularly since the 1980s. As a consequence
 0.8 Satellites
Lower Stratospheric Temperature
0.4

°C
0.0

0.4 –0.4
Upper Tropospheric Temperature

°C
0.0
Radiosondes
–0.4
0.4
Weather stations,
Surface Air Temperature ships, satellite
0.0

°C
–0.4 8

Arctic Sea Ice (Sep)

6
Antarctic Sea Ice (Mar)

mio km2
4
8
4
Upper Ocean Heat Content
0

1018 J
–4
–8 Floats

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Fig. 26.1 Annual time series of lower stratospheric temperature (TLS/MSU Data, from RSS), upper tropospheric temperature (300 hPa,
RICHv1.5, Leo Haimberger, Univ. Vienna), land and ocean surface air temperature (NOAAGlobalTemp; all series are anomalies with respect
to 1981–2010). Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice extent (NSIDC) and upper ocean heat content (0–700 m, from NOAA; anomalies 1981–2010).
GLOBAL WARMING (1970–PRESENT)

The right panel shows the platforms used

323
324 S. BRÖNNIMANN

Fig. 26.2 Trend of (top) temperature (NASA/GISS) from 1970 to 2016 and (bot-
tom) precipitation (NCDC) from 1970 to 2015 in boreal winter (left) and summer
(right)

of both warming and meltwater influx, global sea level has risen by ~10 cm
since 1970.5 Moreover, upper-ocean heat content has risen considerably dur-
ing the same period (Fig. 26.1). Until recently, Antarctic sea-ice extent in
autumn slightly increased, owing possibly to anomalous atmospheric circula-
tion induced by the Antarctic ozone hole in spring and summer (see
below). However, 2017 saw low sea ice.
In contrast to thermodynamic variables such as temperature, ice volume, or
ocean heat content, dynamic variables related to atmospheric circulation have
changed relatively little. Since c. 1980, the tropical belt has widened and mid-­
latitude storm tracks have shifted poleward. The most prominent tropical cir-
culation cells—the Pacific Walker circulation and the meridional Hadley
circulation—strengthened until around 2013. Surface wind speeds have
decreased, arguably due to increased surface roughness.
Global climate models that incorporate these climatic forcings (greenhouse
gases, tropospheric aerosols, solar and volcanic activity, and land use change)
have effectively reproduced these observed trends in surface temperature (see
Chap. 13). These models indicate that most of the global surface temperature
increase since 1950 can be attributed to greenhouse gases. Up to the late
1980s, the increase of tropospheric aerosols (small liquid or solid particles
­suspended in the air) counteracted some of the greenhouse gas-induced warm-
ing, a phenomenon known as “global dimming.” Air quality measures have
 GLOBAL WARMING (1970–PRESENT) 325

reduced aerosol emissions in most parts of the world, contributing to a “global

brightening” since around 1990.6

26.3   Atmospheric Composition Change

Human emissions began to significantly alter the global atmosphere in the
1950s; by the 1970s, air quality had become a global environmental concern.
In May 1985, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey discovered rapid
stratospheric ozone loss over Antarctica.7 This so-called “ozone hole” comes
from emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that reach the stratosphere and
release chlorine. During each Antarctic winter, temperatures drop low enough
to form clouds. The surfaces of the cloud particles transform chlorine into its
reactive forms. When the sun rises in the Antarctic spring, these species photo-
lyze and destroy ozone molecules, depleting the Antarctic ozone layer. The
1987 Montreal Protocol and subsequent amendments banned CFCs and other
ozone-depleting substances. However, owing to the long lifetime of these
compounds in the atmosphere, stratospheric ozone levels continued to
decrease, reaching a minimum in the mid-1990s. Recovery of the ozone layer
is now underway.
The ozone hole affected atmospheric circulation in the southern mid- to
high latitudes by enhancing westerly airflow in spring and summer. This is the
likely reason that surface temperatures did not increase over Antarctica during
the 1970–2000 period and that Antarctic autumn sea-ice extent even increased.
Despite the global decline in atmospheric aerosols, they remain regionally
important. A cloud of haze and pollutants frequently forms over the Indian
Ocean and the Indian subcontinent during the dry season. The phenomenon
is known as the “Asian Brown Cloud” (ABC).8 The cloud consists of aerosols
with a large contribution of black carbon. The cloud adversely affects the health
of a very large population living in the region. One of the main sources of the
ABC is biomass burning (for domestic cooking, land clearance, and agricul-
ture); another fraction comes from fossil fuel burning. The ABC alters the
vertical temperature structure, heating the middle troposphere. Claims that
these aerosols affect the Indian summer monsoon and tropical cyclones remain
controversial.

26.4   Climatic Events

The period since 1970 has brought many noteworthy climatic events. These
illustrate climatic variability on an interannual to multiannual timescale. A sub-
jective but representative sample of events follows in this section.

26.4.1  
The Sahel Droughts of the 1970s and 1980s
Droughts in the Sahel, particularly in the early 1970s and mid-1980s, have
been among the most significant and deadly precipitation anomalies of the past
half-century. The first drought, from 1968 to 1973, brought hundreds of
326 S. BRÖNNIMANN

thousands of fatalities and destroyed a way of life for millions of pastoral peo-
ple. A combination of further drought and conflict during the early 1980s
brought even higher excess mortality, particularly in Sudan and Ethiopia. These
droughts also led to large economic losses, mass migration, and possibly irre-
versible land degradation.
The Sahel droughts were likely caused by a change in the meridional (north
to south) temperature gradient across the tropical Atlantic, which weakened
the West African Monsoon. Several factors may have contributed to this phe-
nomenon, including aerosol-induced cooling north of the equator, internal
variability in Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, and remote effects from the
tropical Pacific and Indian oceans. Feedbacks through interactions of vegeta-
tion, soil, and atmosphere possibly prolonged the drought.

26.4.2  
Change of European Winters around 1990
A sudden change in European winters and springs occurred between 1987 and
1989: spring snow cover decreased, and springs began earlier in the year. In
1990, a series of winter storms hit Europe (storms Daria, Herta, Vivian, and
Wiebke). These events were accompanied by an increase in the North Atlantic
Oscillation index, which measures the strengths of the Azores high and the
Icelandic low, the two main quasi-permanent weather systems affecting
European winters (see Chap. 23). Most of this change was related to internal
variability of atmospheric circulation. However, climate models reproduce a
small part of this phenomenon in response to changing sea-surface tempera-
tures, greenhouse gases, and volcanic aerosols. The North Atlantic Oscillation
returned to first normal and then negative conditions starting in the
mid-2000s.

26.4.3  
The 1991 Pinatubo Eruption
The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, the biggest volcanic eruption of the
twentieth century, affected the global atmosphere and climate. As the erup-
tion occurred during the Space Age and at a time when model capabilities
were already developed, its atmospheric effects have been well documented,
clearly reproduced in atmospheric models, and scientifically well understood.
The Pinatubo effects lasted around one to three years. The eruption pro-
duced a 1.5 °C increase in global average temperatures in the lower strato-
sphere, where volcanic aerosols absorbed outgoing longwave radiation (see
Fig. 26.1). The aerosols also scattered the incoming sunlight. At the ground,
global cooling followed, reducing average temperatures by as much as
0.3–0.5 °C. The ­cooling of the ocean surface affected both upper-ocean heat
content and sea level. The reduction in net surface shortwave radiation
decreased evaporation, slowing down the global hydrological cycle, while
the change in the land–sea temperature contrasts led to a weakening of mon-
soon circulation.
 GLOBAL WARMING (1970–PRESENT) 327

26.4.4  
The El Niño Events of 1982–3 and 1997
El Niño is an episodic warming of the eastern equatorial Pacific lasting one to
two years. It is accompanied by a weakening or reversal of the Walker circula-
tion and a shift in tropical convection. El Niños (and their opposites, La Niñas)
have significant impacts on temperature and precipitation around the world
(see e.g., Chap. 34). After the mid-1970s, El Niño events became more fre-
quent than in the previous half-century. Two particularly strong events occurred
in 1982–3 and 1997. The event of 1982–3 raised public awareness of the phe-
nomenon, leading to the installation of an observation network and new
research into understanding and forecasting El Niños. The second, even stron-
ger, event of 1997 generated a peak in global mean temperatures the following
year. In Indonesia, this El Niño brought severe drought and massive forest
fires.
From 1998 to 2014, El Niño events became rare while La Niña events
became more frequent, meaning more heat was stored in the tropical Pacific.
This shift may explain part of the supposed slowdown in global warming
from 1998 to 2014, sometimes termed the “hiatus.” Another part of the “hia-
tus” might also come from observational biases related to the incomplete spa-
tial coverage of temperature measurements described above.9 Other explanations
include heat uptake in the Atlantic and Southern oceans, and an increase in
small volcanic eruptions.10 A strong El Niño event occurred again in 2015.

26.4.5  
Subtropical Droughts and Mid-Latitude Heatwaves
in the New Millennium
The years since 1997 have brought exceptional droughts to various parts of the
globe. From 1998 to 2004, a wide region of the northern subtropics from the
Pacific to the Middle East suffered from droughts. The combination of a cool
tropical Pacific (a La Niña) and a warm tropical Atlantic possibly triggered
these droughts. At about the same time, from 1995 to 2009, Australia suffered
from record drought conditions known as the “Big Dry” or “Millennium
Drought.” This drought has been related to a shift of westerly winds and a
poleward extension of the southern edge of the Hadley cell. From 2010 to
2015, the USA was affected by a sequence of droughts triggered by anomalous
sea-surface temperatures.
Several epochal heatwaves have also occurred since the turn of the millen-
nium. The 2003 heatwave in Europe led to average summer (June–August)
temperatures up to five standard deviations above the long-term mean.11 The
2010 heatwave in Russia, which brought forest and bog fires and ruined
wheat production, again changed the map of temperature records. The US
heatwaves of 2012, the Australian heatwaves of 2009 and 2013, and the
2010, 2015, and 2017 Pakistan heatwaves likewise set new records at many
sites. Heatwaves are predicted to become even more frequent and more
severe in the future.
328 S. BRÖNNIMANN

Notes
1. Edwards, 2010.
2. Edwards, 2010; Brönnimann, 2015.
3. Stocker, 2014.
4. Ibid.
5. Stocker, 2014.
6. Wild, 2012.
7. Farman et al., 1985.
8. Ramanathan et al., 2007.
9. Karl et al., 2015.
10. Brönnimann, 2015.
11. Note that anomalies for the summer of 1540 were of the same order, see Wetter
et al., 2014.

References
Brönnimann, Stefan. Climatic Changes Since 1700. Berlin: Springer International
Publishing, 2015.
Edwards, Paul N. A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of
Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010.
Farman, J.C. et al. “Large Losses of Total Ozone in Antarctica Reveal Seasonal ClOx/
NOx Interaction.” Nature 315 (1985): 207–10.
Karl, Thomas R. et al. “Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface
Warming Hiatus.” Science 348 (2015): 1469–72.
Ramanathan, V. et al. “Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Hemispherical and Regional
Variations in Long-Range Transport, Absorption, and Radiative Forcing.” Journal of
Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 112 (2007): D22S21.
Stocker, Thomas, ed. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I
Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Wetter, Oliver et al. “The Year-Long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought of
1540 – A Worst Case.” Climatic Change 125 (2014): 349–63.
Wild, Martin. “Enlightening Global Dimming and Brightening.” Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society 93 (2012): 27–37.
 PART III

Climate and Society

 CHAPTER 27

Climate, Weather, Agriculture, and Food

Sam White, John Brooke, and Christian Pfister

27.1   Introduction
Most analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation begins with food.
Climate directly influences the life and growth of plants and animals on which
people depend. Historically, the greatest and most immediate impacts of cli-
matic change usually came from harvest failures during bad weather. Other
human consequences attributed to climate change, ranging from economic dis-
location to disease (Chap. 28), conflict (Chap. 29), and migration (Chap. 31),
typically followed from disruptions to food supplies.1
Nevertheless, as ongoing studies have demonstrated and as this chapter will
explore, the links among past climate change, weather, agriculture, and food
supplies were often complicated and contingent. They depended on specific
monthly and seasonal patterns in temperature and precipitation, not just gen-
eral trends. Even within the same climate, particular environmental and social
factors could spell the difference between survival and famine. The effects of
weather on agriculture and food supplies cannot be understood apart from the
fragility and resilience of societies, states, and economies. This chapter will
outline research on the history of climatic change, weather, agriculture, and
food supplies from the Neolithic to modern times, with a focus on Little Ice
Age (LIA) Europe. A historical perspective informed by well-researched exam-
ples can help us make sense of when and how climate and weather have played

S. White (*) • J. Brooke

Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
C. Pfister
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change,
Bern, Switzerland

© The Author(s) 2018 331

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_27
332 S. WHITE ET AL.

an important role in agriculture and food in the past, and may again in the
present century of global warming.

27.2   The Role of Climate and Weather in Food

Production
In the widest sense, climatic change has influenced food production in three
ways. First, it has defined the potential for agriculture and pastoralism. The
relative warmth of our current Holocene epoch enabled the cultivation of
plants and pasturing of livestock, which was difficult or impossible during the
long Ice Ages of the Pleistocene. Over the course of the Holocene, broad shifts
in regional temperature and precipitation influenced what crops could grow,
and where populations settled into permanent agriculture or instead practiced
shifting cultivation or pastoralism. The shorter climate fluctuations of recent
history influenced local decisions about what fields to plant or leave fallow, and
political decisions about which lands to conquer, colonize, and tax.
Conversely, climatic change has also defined limits to agriculture and pasto-
ralism. Certain types of food production—in climatically marginal regions, on
marginal plots of land, or using marginally suitable crops and practices—relied
on climatic regimes that could and did come to an end when climates changed.
The most famous case study remains the Greenland Viking colonies, supposed
to have perished or emigrated once LIA cooling made their already difficult
pastoral ecology unsupportable.2 However, this popular parable of climate
change and maladaptation might also stand in for any number of unrecorded
local decisions made across centuries and millennia to abandon unsustainable
land use in the face of changing temperatures or precipitation patterns.
Third, and most significantly, historical climate change has shaped actual
and perceived risks to food production. Beyond the margins of cultivation or
pastoralism, where climate posed absolute limits to these activities, most popu-
lations experienced climatic change as a change in the frequency and magni-
tude of weather extremes and related disasters that affected their livelihoods,
whether these were droughts or floods, frosts or heatwaves. Perhaps the most
important concept of historical climate change impacts is that small changes in
climatic forcings—such as the orbital, solar, and volcanic forcings responsible
for the LIA (see Chap. 23)—could lead to significant changes in the frequency
and severity of extremes.
One way to visualize this concept schematically is to depict the expected
range of some climate variable as a bell curve, as in Fig. 27.1a. Most societies
would have been adapted to conditions in the middle of the bell curve but not
to its extremities, as illustrated by the shaded portions in the figure. Climate
change, represented by a shift of that bell curve in one direction, would lead to
a much greater increase of extreme events beyond the bounds of adaptation
(Fig. 27.1b), until societies eventually transformed their food production prac-
tices to suit the new climatic conditions (Fig. 27.1c). Therefore, the speed and
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 333

Fig. 27.1 In the top image (a), the bell curve represents an average distribution
of temperatures in a given climate, the red lines indicate the limits of adaptation to
temperature extremes, and therefore the shaded areas beyond the lines indicate the
frequency of events beyond the adaptive capacity of the system. In the middle
image (b), the distribution of temperatures has shifted to the left, indicating a
cooler climate; however, the adaptive limits of the system have not yet adjusted.
Now the frequency of cold events beyond the limits of adaptation is much
higher than before, as indicated by the area between the shaded section and the red
line on the left side. Over time, the system will adapt to accommodate the shift in
the frequency of extreme cold events, as shown in the bottom image (c). In prac-
tice, the speed and capacity of this adaptation depend on both human and environ-
mental factors.

magnitude of land use and institutional transformation—often by learning

from disasters—shaped the human impacts of extreme events just as much as
the speed and magnitude of climatic change.3
Clearly, not all climatic challenges to food production have come specifically
from climatic change. Even in the absence of significant change, nature-induced
disasters and year-to-year variability have always posed risks. In Europe, there
have always been cold springs and wet summers; the Mediterranean and
Middle East have always faced occasional droughts; Indian and Chinese farm-
ers have always coped with occasional years when the monsoons failed; and so
on. And clearly, not all threats to food supply have even come from weather
334 S. WHITE ET AL.

and climate. Marauding armies, extreme poverty, excessive taxes, and mis-
guided ideologies have been just as responsible for scarcity and famine through-
out human history.
Nevertheless, a growing body of climatic and historical research makes a
strong case that climatic changes and extremes have had significant effects on
agriculture and pastoralism, with important human consequences. Concern
over global warming has made this research ever more salient. It remains
important to remember that the connections among climate, weather, food
production, and human impacts are complex and contingent. Recognizing this
fact, most scholars have become increasingly cautious and sophisticated in their
analysis of causation. On the other hand, it would be equally naïve to dismiss
the role of historical climate variability as simple determinism or as a distraction
from contemporary anthropogenic warming. Past cases of climate-driven
shortages and famine not only help us better understand history, but also help
clarify the environmental and human circumstances of climate change vulner-
ability and resilience in the present age.

27.3   Climate Change and the Origins of Agriculture

For most of our species’ history, humans lived in a colder, drier glacial epoch.
Climatic conditions and fluctuations during this period probably made agricul-
ture and concentrated food gathering difficult or impossible. Humans lived in
small bands, many pursuing large game adapted to tundra conditions in much
of Eurasia and North America.
As the last ice age gave way to the Holocene epoch, environmental condi-
tions were transformed (see Chap. 15). As temperatures and sea levels rose,
food availability shifted from grasslands to estuaries and woodlands. Throughout
the world, hunter-gatherer bands settled onto these high-productivity loca-
tions and acquired the tools and technologies of the so-called Mesolithic,
designed to exploit the “broad spectrum” of resources in these emerging envi-
ronments. As they made increasing use of plant foods, these Mesolithic societ-
ies initiated the cultural and evolutionary changes that would lead to plant and
animal domestication, and eventually to agriculture.4
From c. 10,900–9700 bce the Younger Dryas cold period interrupted this
transition. Then as the warming of the early Holocene resumed, societies in
separate regions around the world made a gradual transition to a diet of domes-
ticated plants and animals.5 There remains considerable debate about how
these domestications occurred, how quickly they spread, and what role climate
played.6 Domestication appears to have been a gradual process that could not
occur during periods of more intense climatic stress, such as the Younger
Dryas. However, it also appears that milder climatic stress, such as occurred
during glacial meltwater crises of the early Holocene, could drive populations
to intensify use of certain plants and animals, accelerating the trend toward
cultivation.
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 335

The domestication of key crops and animals during the Early Holocene
occurred in two regions sharing a particular set of environmental circum-
stances: South-West Asia and North China. Both were home to large-seeded
grasses whose qualities made them relatively easy to domesticate, and both are
located in the semiarid belt of the northern mid-latitudes. Hunter-gatherer
exploitation of wheat, barley, lentils, pigs, sheep, and goats dated back at least
to the Bølling-Allerød warming, and “management” of these species on a path
to domestication began as the Younger Dryas cold was coming to an end. Yet
full-scale village agriculture did not take hold until after another short cooling
event at 8200 bce, during a subsequent 1500 years of high precipitation, which
Bernhard Weninger and colleagues have termed the Levantine Moist Period.7
Village farming, with a fully formed pottery tradition, may have appeared in
Northern China even before the Fertile Crescent. Excavations at Cishan, on
the edge of the Loess Plateau north of the Yellow River, have revealed estab-
lished villages with millet agriculture by 8000 bce.8
The Middle Holocene, c. 6000–3000 bce, brought both new domestica-
tions and in some regions the consolidation and intensification of agriculture.9
Following another abrupt global cooling event c. 6200 bce, the earth enjoyed
a continued “optimum” of warmer temperatures for about two millennia.
Thereafter, the monsoon rains that once reached far into North Africa, the
Middle East, and Northern China began to retreat—a retreat that accelerated
during the fourth millennium bce. Some scholars have hypothesized that the
cooling, drying climate of the era forced populations to concentrate into more
fertile river valleys, promoting irrigated agriculture and the emergence of the
first states and empires.10

27.4   Climate, Food, and Crisis in the Ancient

and Medieval World

Among the climate history research to receive the most public attention in
recent years have been studies of climatic change, famine, and collapse in
ancient and medieval civilizations. Researchers in various fields have identified
episodes of significant fluctuations in temperature and/or precipitation that
overlap with written or archaeological evidence of famine, migration, and
political disruption. There can be little doubt that climatic change had an
impact on food production during ancient and medieval times. In some cases,
the evidence for climatic change and the overlap with human crisis are far too
strong to dismiss as mere coincidence. Unfortunately, the paucity of historical
sources often makes it difficult to establish exactly how and why climate and
weather influenced agriculture and food supplies, much less whether or how
they caused societies to collapse.
For instance, during the past two decades, much attention and contro-
versy have focused on evidence for abrupt cooling and drought across the
Northern Hemisphere around 4200 years ago. Work by Harvey Weiss and
336 S. WHITE ET AL.

colleagues at Tell Leilan (Syria) found evidence of marked aridity coinciding

with the abandonment of agriculture; their discovery was followed by similar
evidence of environmental and cultural change in other parts of Eurasia and
North America. Nevertheless, written descriptions of the event are scarce and
inconclusive, and not all archaeological sites spanning 2200 bce reveal the
same climatic changes or human impacts. Therefore, some archaeologists and
historians have remained skeptical about the impacts of this so-called 4.2 ka
event (see Chap. 16).11 Likewise, since the idea was first proposed decades
ago, scholars have found increasingly firm and precise evidence for a major
drought in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age crisis of
the twelfth century bce. In this case, much more written and archaeological
evidence has come to light attesting to migration, warfare, and political crisis,
particularly in the Hittite Empire of Anatolia. It is reasonable to imagine a
scenario wherein drought undermined agriculture and weakened commerce,
taxation, and armies, leaving Late Bronze Age cities vulnerable to hungry
marauders and invaders. However, the historical record is scarce and ambigu-
ous enough that it remains open to interpretations other than climate-driven
crisis, much less a crisis in agriculture or food production in particular (see
Chap. 16).12
Other well-known case studies of climate-driven crisis can present similar
problems of interpretation, including the collapse of classic Maya city-states in
the Yucatan (ninth century ce), the abandonment of Ancestral Pueblo (“Anasazi”)
sites in the south-western USA (thirteenth century ce), and the fall of Angkor in
Cambodia (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries ce). In all three cases, increasingly
accurate and precise climate reconstructions and archaeological investigations
have demonstrated the close correlation between major droughts and human
crises. In all three it is reasonable and even compelling to imagine scenarios of
climatic change leading to agricultural crisis, famine, and conflict. There are
high-resolution precipitation reconstructions and some further archaeological
and written evidence to support such scenarios. We can also identify the mecha-
nisms behind the climate triggers proposed in each example: reduced Intertropical
Convergence Zone (ITCZ) migration in the Yucatan, the El Niño Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) in the American South-West, and weak monsoon rains in
South-East Asia (see Chap. 2).13
Nevertheless, it remains difficult in such cases to establish exactly how cli-
mate influenced agriculture. There are few or no detailed accounts of particular
weather phenomena or their effects on crops and animals, nor records of har-
vests, taxes, and tribute. In all of these cases, it is very likely that local condi-
tions, contingent factors, and human decisions played a key role in the chain of
events leading from climate to crisis—but these can be difficult to reconstruct
without more evidence and detailed examination.14 Moreover, precisely because
these cases involve major conflicts and migrations, it can be hard to distinguish
the role of climate from the role of these social and political crises. These and
other stories of climate-led collapse in remote civilizations can serve as parables
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 337

for the dangers of global warming and environmental change. However, cli-
mate historians need to work from examples with more abundant evidence in
order to draw precise conclusions about human vulnerabilities, resilience, and
adaptation.
As demonstrated in Tim Newfield’s study of the 530s ce (Chap. 32), more
detailed climatic and historical evidence may support but can also complicate
links among climate, weather, agriculture, and human impacts. In this instance,
advances in paleoclimate and historical research support the thesis that major
volcanic eruptions brought drought and exceptionally cold summers across the
Northern Hemisphere. In some regions, notably the Byzantine lands of the
eastern Mediterranean, contemporary evidence attests to famines and migra-
tion, evidently arising from weather-induced crop failure. However, other parts
of the world evidently experienced similar climatic anomalies without corre-
sponding famines or mortality. The reasons why some regions proved more
vulnerable than others could relate to particular weather patterns, choices of
crops and livestock, or economic and political institutions.
A second case study in this volume, on the Great Famine of the 1310s, illus-
trates how the growing volume of written evidence in certain countries by late
medieval times can help resolve these uncertainties (Chap. 33). Using high-­
resolution climate data along with institutional and narrative sources, Phil
Slavin is able to demonstrate how a climatic shift brought particular weather,
resulting in particular types of damage to crops and livestock. At the onset of
the LIA in Europe, changing patterns of atmospheric circulation over the
North Atlantic brought several years of exceptionally heavy rain to north-­
western Europe, rotting grains, spoiling hay and fodder, and promoting dis-
eases among sheep and cattle. Moreover, Slavin uses economic indicators from
the period to illustrate the role of social and political conditions—particularly
poverty and warfare—in amplifying the effects of agricultural failure. Such
detailed examples may help establish models and hypotheses to be applied to
analogous historical cases where similar records are lacking.
Research on imperial China is opening another window onto climate and
food production during ancient and medieval times. Advances in regional
­climate reconstruction and historical research have made it possible to identify
specific climatic events, past weather patterns and extremes, and their impacts
on agriculture and society (Chap. 17). Although the most detailed records of
weather and harvests do not begin until the Ming (1368–1644 ce) and Qing
(1644–1912 ce) dynasties, scholars have gathered enough qualitative evidence
to reconstruct climatic trends, natural disasters, and food production at multi-
decadal resolution. This research clearly demonstrates the impact of colder cli-
matic phases and some major volcanic eruptions on harvests, and their
correlation with periods of famine and political crisis in early imperial China.15
Chinese records can also shed light on climatic change and nomadic pasto-
ralism. On the one hand, researchers have found that times of colder, drier
climate correlated with more invasions by pastoral nomads into imperial China,
338 S. WHITE ET AL.

suggesting that climatic change pushed pastoralists out of marginal lands.16 A

more detailed study by Middle East historian Richard Bulliet has made a similar
case for the Turkic invasion of Iran during a period of regional cooling in the
eleventh century ce.17 On the other hand, a recent study has come to just the
opposite conclusion for the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century: that a
period of exceptionally mild climate encouraged grass growth, fueling Mongol
herds and cavalry as they conquered most of Eurasia.18 Further research by Tim
Newfield indicates that major livestock plagues in medieval Eurasia tended to
follow climatic anomalies, such as droughts and cold winters.19
As these examples indicate, most research on climatic change and food pro-
duction across the ancient and medieval world has focused on disasters and
crises. Much work remains to be done on eras of relatively benign or stable
climate and their influence on history. For instance, it has become increasingly
clear that the height of the Roman Empire coincided with a relatively warm
climate and few major temperature anomalies or droughts (Chap. 16). Further
research has explored the effects of climatic amelioration on agrarian settle-
ment and imperial revival during phases of Byzantine history.20 Climate histo-
rians still have the task of analyzing whether and how such phases of climate
played a role in agricultural productivity, population growth, and imperial
power.

27.5   The Little Ice Age (LIA)

LIA Europe has received the greatest share of historical research on climate,
weather, and agriculture. As described in Chap. 23, the LIA roughly describes
several centuries of lower average temperatures that preceded the onset of
global warming. As the most recent climatic fluctuation before global warm-
ing, and one of the largest in written history, the LIA presents the most numer-
ous and detailed historical case studies and models.
In Europe, the LIA is conventionally dated c. 1300–1850 ce. It is particu-
larly identified with several periods of advancing Alpine glaciers, and with
decades of cold winters and summers during the early fourteenth, late
sixteenth–seventeenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The worst years, with
respect to cold and to agricultural disasters, usually followed large tropical vol-
canic eruptions. The LIA in Europe was not consistently cold. Decades of rela-
tively moderate climate allowed populations to recover and agriculture to
expand, only to face new crises during years or decades of unfavorable weather
and climate. Even during those decades of the most rapid cooling, it appears
that only a few careful observers such as the Lucerne scientist Renward Cysat
(1545–1614) grasped the longer-term variations.21 What we can identify in
hindsight as climate change, the people of the time tended to perceive as a
series of “unnatural” occurrences that disrupted essential activities of food
production.
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 339

In general, Europe presents three major zones with different climatic vul-
nerabilities. In Northern Europe, the main limiting factor for agriculture was
(and still is) the short duration of the growing season, particularly the risk that
severe autumn or spring frost would destroy the harvest. During the worst
decades, LIA cooling could rapidly shift the limits of viable agriculture and
pastoralism in the region, at least where populations, crops, and livestock
proved unable to adapt. Studies have identified the retreat of human settle-
ments and agriculture in parts of Scandinavia and Scotland during periods of
cooling in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. This research indicates
that as the frequency of harvest failures rose, populations abandoned the most
marginal land as too risky.22 Those who remained in more marginal regions put
themselves at risk of devastating harvest failures during successive cold years, as
in the case of the Finnish famine of the 1690s.23
The Mediterranean region was most vulnerable to spring droughts, which
could ruin the staple crops of winter wheat and barley. During the late six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, both natural proxies and narrative evidence
indicate that southern Spain and Italy were more prone to flooding, while the
north-eastern Mediterranean was more prone to drought (see Chap. 23). This
“seesaw” pattern meant that most droughts affected only one region or the
other. However, decades of exceptional cold and precipitation anomalies, such
as the 1590s–1600s, could ruin harvests across the Mediterranean. Isolated
freezing winters could also have major impacts. For instance, in 1709 southern
France lost not only its crops of winter wheat and barley but also vines and
olive trees in the frost; the latter had to be replanted and could not bear fruit
for several years.24
Agriculture in Western and Central Europe was vulnerable to several sea-
sonal patterns: wet autumns, cold springs, and wet midsummers. Christian
Pfister has termed these “Little Ice Age-Type Impacts” and has demon-
strated that they were most common during the coldest periods of the LIA,
especially c. 1570–1630. Using a model based on Swiss temperature and
precipitation indices, his research has demonstrated that such weather pat-
terns affected most sources of food and animal feed, resulting in disastrous,
widespread crop failures.25 Cold periods in March and April thinned the
grain crops and sapped the hay stocks, leaving cattle to starve and run out
of milk. Cold, wet summers damaged food supplies in several ways.
Continuous rains lowered the flour content of grains and rendered them
vulnerable to mold infections and infestations of grain weevils (Silophilus
ganarius), leading to the loss of grains (and later potatoes) in winter stor-
age. Hay harvested during persistent rain loses most of its nutrient content,
which affects milk production in the subsequent spring. Cold spells in
September and October lowered the sugar content of wine; and they short-
ened the period of pasture, putting more demands on the hay supply. Late
summer and autumn wet spells reduced the area that could be sown and
340 S. WHITE ET AL.

lowered the nitrogen content of soil.26 Most importantly, the s­ imultaneous

occurrence of rainy autumns with cold springs and wet midsummers in sub-
sequent years had a larger cumulative impact on agricultural production and
food supplies.27
The years from 1569 to 1573 present one of the most extreme examples of
climate-induced harvest failures in LIA Europe.28 All regions of the continent
were swept into this crisis, starting with northern and central Italy, then Eastern
Europe, and the Baltic in 1569, and then Central Europe by 1571. An advec-
tion of warm air in November 1570, in combination with several days of per-
sistent rain, brought disastrous flooding throughout Western and Central
Europe.29 The winters of 1571 and particularly 1573 were extremely long and
severe, bringing the freezing of large European rivers and most lakes in the
Alps as well as the Baltic Sea from Denmark to Estonia.30 Following three suc-
cessive harvest failures, grain prices in Central Europe reached their highest
point between 1550 and 1877.31 As usual with subsistence crises prior to the
age of railways, landlocked regions cut off from imports were worse affected
than cities on the coast.32 Famine and malnutrition were rife; mortality surged
and the number of births fell. Authorities chased out beggars and vagrants
searching for food; and there was a resurgence of prosecutions against witch-
craft and weather magic, just to summarize a few of the economic and cultural
consequences (see Fig. 27.2).33
The worst years of the LIA killed not only crops but also livestock, whose
deaths could have more enduring consequences for food supply. During the
1590s, for instance, the southern Balkans and Anatolia suffered unusually cold
winters and one of the worst droughts of the past millennium. Steady popula-
tion growth and Ottoman imperial policies during the preceding century had
encouraged the spread of agriculture and pastoralism into marginal semiarid
lands. The extreme weather of that decade led not only to crop failures, but
also outbreaks of disease among exposed and hungry sheep and cattle. Imperial
supply routes to major cities and to the Ottoman army on the Danube frontier
compounded the spread of epizootics throughout the empire and into Central
Europe. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most sheep and cattle in Anatolia
and the Crimea died. Similarly Central and Western Europe suffered two of the
worst outbreaks of rinderpest (cattle plague) in early modern history following
two of the worst winters of the LIA, in 1709 and 1740 respectively. These
outbreaks were carried by cattle on long supply routes from the Russian steppe
and were probably spread by armies on campaign in the War of Spanish
Succession (1701–14), the Great Northern War (1700–21), and the War of the
Austrian Succession (1740–8). Such epizootics compounded agricultural fail-
ures during LIA-type events, particularly in famine-prone regions. The death
of livestock destroyed not only an alternative source of food but also the labor
of oxen and horses for plowing and transportation, for years to follow.34
Beyond their immediate role in subsistence crises, economic historians have
long debated the influence of climate and weather on prices and economies in
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 341

200
64/73
Münster 250
200 64/72
64/72 Lübeck
200 Hamburg
200 67/74 300
68/74 Antwerp 64/73
Bruges Utrecht 200
300 250
63/72
64/73 63/71
Gdansk
Aachen 250 Warsaw
64/74
150 Naumburg
67/73 400
London 63/71
Lviv
200
66/75
Exeter
350 300
400 64/73 400
64/73 300 Strasburg 63/71
63/71 400
Orléans 400 64/74 Kraków
Munich
64/73 Frankfurt 63/71
Wels 600
Paris 63/71
200 200
Vienna
200 64/73 64/74
65/71 Toulouse Grenoble
200
New Castile 150 68/70
64/70 200 Sansepolcro
Pavia 150 67/72
65/72 Florence
200 Bassano
65/71
Valencia

Miles
0 362.5 725 Modern Boundaries

Fig. 27.2 The crisis of the 1570s across Europe. The map illustrates the approximate
percentage increase (top number) in grain prices in a number of European cities and
regions, from the year of lowest grain prices to the year of highest grain prices (numbers
in bold), within the period 1563–76. In most of the cities sampled here, grain prices
peaked during the early 1570s at two to four times the prices of the early to mid-1560s.
(Based on Abel 1974)

general. Views have ranged from versions of climate determinism (such as cor-
relating sunspot cycles to economic cycles) to outright skepticism. Several
recent studies have identified significant impacts from year-to-year variability
and particularly runs of bad harvests on food prices and real wages in LIA
Europe. In Central Europe, there is also evidence that medium-term climatic
downturns, such as during the late sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries,
helped drive periods of persistent higher average food prices.35
Relationships among climate, agriculture, and prices clearly depended on
demographic, political, and institutional contexts. The most important of these
was the growth in population, especially during the late fifteenth to early sev-
enteenth centuries. Agricultural productivity and economic opportunities in
342 S. WHITE ET AL.

most of Europe did not rise in step with the number of new people. Prices rose,
particularly prices for food, spurred on by growing demand and by the influx
of American silver. Real wages declined precipitously. The average height of
European men actually fell during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
­centuries, in a sign of declining nutrition.36 Case studies across Europe demon-
strate similar patterns of rising poverty and inequality, and declining standards
of living. The deceleration of marriage and fertility rates reconstructed from
parish registers also indicates shrinking opportunities and declining health for
a large segment of the population.37
Areas of more diversified agriculture or better access to markets could prove
more resilient in a crisis, while isolated, landlocked regions might go hungry.
For instance, nearly all of England suffered harvest failures and high prices dur-
ing the climatic downturn of the mid-1590s, but only isolated northern parts
of the country suffered full-blown famine.38 Daniel Krämer’s study of
Switzerland in the wake of the 1815 Tambora eruption illustrates how malnu-
trition in this small country could vary enormously from one canton to the
next, depending on geographic and economic circumstances (see Chap. 35).
At first, the worst affected populations were those hit by frosts and crop fail-
ures, but by the second year of the crisis it was landless laborers who suffered
most owing to unemployment, disruptions to the grain market, and soaring
food prices (up to 600%).39
Above all, as Geoffrey Parker has demonstrated, the worst suffering and
highest mortality during the LIA did not follow directly from climatic impacts
on agriculture, but from the “fatal synergy” of climatic extremes, food short-
age, and conflict. Wartime taxes and requisitions fell heavily on already hungry
peasants. Conscription into armies and flight from violence disrupted the work
of farming. Invading armies might steal or destroy what food remained. It is
almost certainly no coincidence that the most deadly events of the late six-
teenth to seventeenth centuries across the globe—including the Celali Rebellion
in the Ottoman Empire, the Thirty Years War in Germany, and the Ming–Qing
transition in China—combined extreme weather and warfare.40
Throughout this period some states and economies gradually developed the
capacity to cope with a growing population and subsistence crises. In England
and the Netherlands, for instance, improving markets and effective public fam-
ine relief began to cut down on the frequency and mortality of subsistence
crises by the early seventeenth century. However, other parts of Europe contin-
ued to witness economic shocks and high death rates during cold decades and
LIA-type events. As demonstrated in John Post’s comparative studies of the
early 1740s, the most important factors were whether countries had efficient
markets and effective local relief measures that prevented the sort of famine
refugee conditions likely to spread contagious diseases such as typhus and
typhoid.41 As discussed in Chap. 35, the cold years of the 1810s, and particu-
larly the 1816 “year without a summer,” brought the “last great subsistence
crisis in the Western world” clearly driven by climate.
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 343

Advances in historical climatology and climate history research beyond

Europe also provide important new insights into the study of climate, weather,
agriculture, and food during the LIA. The LIA was not only a period of cool
temperatures and unusual circulation patterns in Europe, but also a global
event that probably included reduced migration of the ITCZ, more frequent
failures of the South and East Asian monsoons, and a number of strong El
Niño events. For instance, the recent work of Brendan Buckley and colleagues
on droughts and famines in South-East Asia has demonstrated LIA climatic
impacts on agriculture in a region previously overlooked by climate
historians.42
The case study of the 1780s–90s (Chap. 34) demonstrates the emerging
possibilities to reconstruct LIA climate anomalies on a global scale and identify
particular weather patterns and impacts in various parts of the world. In this
case, an initial volcanic eruption in 1783 (Lakagígar) had immediate conse-
quences in Europe, but wider effects soon followed, including ENSO-related
droughts in Australia, failures of the Nile flood in Egypt, weak monsoon rains
in South Asia, and anomalous cold in Japan—each with serious repercussions
for agriculture. Building on this kind of research, scholars should gain a greater
understanding of particular environmental and climatic vulnerabilities to food
production in past centuries.
Moreover, research beyond Europe provides further insights into human
and historical circumstances of climate-related impacts on food production and
society. Records of Ming and Qing China demonstrate many of the same pat-
terns in climate-related subsistence crises, economic and political disruption,
and gradual adaptation as found in early modern Europe. There is both quali-
tative and statistical evidence of similar LIA-type events in China—what histo-
rian Timothy Brook has termed “sloughs”—during which parts of the country
suffered from higher food prices and more frequent famines, and imperial
dynasties often experienced turmoil and rebellion. Over time, and accounting
for changes in population density, Chinese agriculture diversified and adapted
to the LIA, and by the eighteenth century the relationship between climatic
fluctuations and food prices weakened.43
On the other hand, historical research into other parts of the world illus-
trates diverging patterns from those in LIA Europe. For instance, Japan has
been raised as a counter-example to the climate-driven disasters typical of the
seventeenth-century general crisis.44 Its civil wars of the sixteenth century had
kept population relatively low, and political unification after 1600 brought
peace and stability, meaning that agriculture and the economy continued to
flourish during the LIA climate of the early to mid-seventeenth century. During
the eighteenth century, however, population growth and limited arable land
put many Japanese at risk of hunger, particularly when climatic downturns
brought successive harvest failures. Although the economy of Tokugawa Japan
(1603–1868 ce) was highly integrated and urbanized by early modern
standards, the country was isolated from new industrial technologies and
­
344 S. WHITE ET AL.

i­nternational trade. Parts of Japan suffered major famines during the 1780s,
1830s, and 1860s—all decades of unusually cold summers that ruined the rice
harvest (see Chap. 34).45

27.6   Beyond the Little Ice Age

A number of factors have mitigated the impact of climate on food production
since the LIA came to an end during the nineteenth century. These include
improvements in crop varieties and agricultural practices, better fertilizers and
irrigation, improved transportation and infrastructure, and more efficient
global markets. On the other hand, this has also been a period of colonialism,
growing global inequalities, and many large international conflicts. Moreover,
the very rapid warming of recent decades (see Chap. 26) has begun to create
new problems for food production and availability. Across the globe famines
have become more rare, but many regions remain at risk, and a large share of
the world’s population remains chronically undernourished.
During the late twentieth century, influenced by the work of Amartya Sen,
discussions of famine risk largely shifted from a focus on “food availability
decline” (FAD) to “food entitlement decline” (FED). This change of para-
digm moved attention away from environmental factors and their influence on
food supplies to problems of poverty and political or social marginalization.
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, global warming has refocused
some attention back to climate and its impacts on food production and avail-
ability. Moreover, scholarly discussion of global warming impacts and adapta-
tion has begun to adopt the concepts of “vulnerability” and “resilience,” which
help bridge the language and concerns of FAD and FED.46
Altogether, it seems reasonable to conclude that weather and climate have
remained one of several important factors in episodes of severe malnutrition
and famine. Clearly economic and political factors—extreme poverty and
inequalities, and lack of democratic accountability—have largely determined
which countries remain vulnerable to outright hunger. However, climatic
events have remained central in the occurrence of famines and major disrup-
tions to food supplies.47 For instance, the Irish famine of the 1840s would not
have happened apart from the island’s high population density, potato mono-
culture, and disenfranchisement under British rule. However, cold, wet weather
in 1845 also helped spread the fungus P. infestans, determining the timing and
extent of the fatal potato blight. Similarly, China’s Great Leap Forward fam-
ine—the largest in modern history—had its origins in a drought and harvest
failure, even if political suppression and economic chaos were clearly responsi-
ble for most deaths by starvation and related diseases. As Mark Tauger has
argued, even Sen’s classic case study for FED, the Bengal famine of 1943, arose
at least in part from weather-related disasters and crop blight.48 And it appears
that extreme weather played an important role in the occurrence of famine in
continental Europe and the global spread of Spanish Flu during World War I.49
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 345

None of this is to excuse the political and social conditions that gave rise to
those famines; yet it is misleading to write climate and weather out of the pic-
ture altogether.
In other cases, crises in agriculture and pastoralism have come from natu-
ral climate variability aggravated by anthropogenic environmental change.
This has been particularly true in semiarid regions, because as Michael Glantz
and colleagues have argued, “drought follows the plow”: that is, temporarily
moist conditions permitting an expansion of arable land or pasture will sooner
or later turn dry again. For instance, the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s
was only one of many recurring droughts to hit the Great Plains in recent
centuries. What made this drought a human disaster was the extension of
wheat cultivation during the preceding decade, which probably aggravated
drought conditions and erosion and left more farmers vulnerable to crop
failure during the hard economic times of the Great Depression.50 Other dust
bowl events and agricultural failures in semiarid regions of Australia, Canada,
the Soviet Union, and the African Sahel during the twentieth century fol-
lowed a similar pattern.51 In the case of the Sahel famines of the 1970s and
1980s, anthropogenic aerosol pollution may have aggravated regional
drought conditions (see Chap. 26). Furthermore, parts of the world during
the twentieth century remained vulnerable to ENSO fluctuations and their
associated weather patterns, particularly in Latin America, the Pacific, and
South-East Asia (see Chap. 26).
Accelerating global warming since the 1980s has raised the possibility of
more abrupt or extreme climatic change, beyond the adaptive capacity of the
current food system. On the one hand, it seems unlikely that climate change
will so reduce food production as to threaten global food shortages in the
next few decades. Food supplies have risen faster than population since the
early twentieth century. The considerable share of global food production
either wasted or devoted to beef production should leave significant spare
capacity for human food supplies. In the short term, moreover, warmer cli-
mates and CO2 fertilization may raise, rather than lower, global crop yields in
some regions.
On the other hand, global warming presents greater problems for local and
regional food security than for global food production. Unprecedented extreme
weather and crop failures have contributed to local shortages and to economic
and political destabilization. In many parts of the world, agriculture remains a
source of rural subsistence, employment, and political largesse. For instance, the
record-setting 2010 Russian heatwave not only withered crops in that country,
but also disrupted global grain markets, thanks to Russian export restrictions.
The resulting spike in prices, coming on top of a regional drought in the Middle
East, likely contributed to the Arab Spring uprisings and the outbreak of the
Syrian civil war in 2011 (see Chap. 29). In the long term, without swift mitiga-
tion, global warming is projected to bring coastal flooding, droughts, crop
pests, and stress on crops and livestock. By the late twenty-first century, absent
346 S. WHITE ET AL.

timely adaptation, the resulting damage to crops would more than offset any
gains from warming at high latitudes.52

27.7   Conclusion: Patterns and Lessons

The growing body of research on historical climate change and food illus-
trates significant patterns. It is easier to identify the impacts of year-to-year
climate variability than long-term change. Climatic change has usually had
the greatest impacts on food production in marginal environments and on
economically or socially marginalized populations. Damage to food supplies
may come from isolated extreme events or gradual climatic shifts.
However, the worst subsistence crises have usually arisen from runs of bad
years or seasons following closely one after another—often a consequence of
large tropical volcanic eruptions—or from a combination of harvest failures
and war. Pastoralism was usually less vulnerable than agriculture to short-
term weather disasters, but it could fail catastrophically during extreme
events, depriving farmers of manure and labor as well as animal protein.
Further research, building on further progress in paleoclimatology and his-
torical climatology, will no doubt refine and enlarge these findings. What
remains more challenging, and more urgent, is to make use of such findings
to achieve insights relevant to contemporary problems of global warming
and food production.

Notes
1. Mauelshagen, 2010, 84–85.
2. Diamond, 2005; Barlow et al., 1997; Dugmore et al., 2012.
3. Pfister, 2011.
4. For introductions to the Mesolithic and the role of climate in the origins of
agriculture, see Mithen, 2004; Rosen, 2007; Munro, 2004; Stiner et al., 1999;
Smith, 2001.
5. Gerhart and Ward, 2010; Richerson et al., 2001; Sage, 1995.
6. Larson et al., 2014; Price and Bar-Yosef, 2011; Fuller et al., 2012; Larson and
Fuller, 2014. For general reviews, see Barker, 2006; and Bellwood, 2004.
7. Weninger et al., 2009, 14–17; Nesbit, 2002; Zeder, 2011; Larson et al., 2014;
Abbo et al., 2010.
8. Fuller et al., 2011; Crawford, 2009; Lu et al., 2009; Barton et al., 2009; Liu,
2004; Nesbit, 2002; Weninger et al., 2009; Zeder, 2011; Larson et al., 2014;
Abbo et al., 2010.
9. Larson et al., 2014, SI, Table S1; Gross and Zhao, 2014; Fuller et al., 2011;
Nicoll, 2004; Marshall and Hildebrand, 2002.
10. For an overview of the topic see Anderson et al., 2007; Weninger et al., 2009;
Kuijt and Goring-Morris, 2002; Simmons, 2007; Liu, 2004; Hole, 1994;
Butzer, 1995; essays in Anderson et al., 2007.
11. Original discovery in Weiss et al., 1993. Studies and discussion in response to
Weiss in Dalfes et al., 1997. Subsequent review of climate and archaeological
evidence in Danti, 2010.
 CLIMATE, WEATHER, AGRICULTURE, AND FOOD 347

12. For recent reviews of climate and the LBA crisis: Kaniewski et al., 2015, and
Cline, 2014.
13. Overview of these and similar examples in Diamond, 2005. For further investiga-
tions see e.g., Turner and Sabloff, 2012; Benson et al., 2007; Buckley et al., 2010.
14. See, e.g., contributions in Iannone, 2014.
15. See especially Yin et al., 2015, 153–56; Zhang et al., 2010.
16. Fang and Liu, 1992.
17. Bulliett, 2009.
18. Pederson et al., 2014.
19. Newfield, 2015.
20. Haldon et al., 2014; Xoplaki et al., 2016.
21. Pfister, 2005, 33; Pfister, 2013.
22. Gissel et al., 1981, 69, 94, 103, 122, 142, 177–178, 240; Dybdahl, 2012;
Parry, 1978; Dodgshon, 2005.
23. For recent studies, see e.g. Holopainen and Helama, 2009, and Lappalainen,
2014.
24. Lachiver, 1991; Monahan, 1993.
25. Pfister, 1988.
26. Pfister, 1984.
27. Pfister, 2005.
28. Pfister, 1988.
29. Champion, 1863; Pfister, 1999; Glaser, 2013.
30. Pfister, 1999; Glaser, 2013.
31. Studer, 2015. Prices measured by the amount of silver per unit volume in
Zürich.
32. Abel, 1974; Pfister, 2015, 70–93.
33. Behringer, 2003.
34. White, 2011; White, 2014.
35. Pfister, 2005; Bauerenfeind and Woitek, 1999; Landsteiner, 1999.
36. Original study of prices in Phelps-Brown and Hopkins, 1957. General accounts
of silver, population pressure, and inflation in Davis, 1973, 88–124, and
Miskimin, 1977, 20–82. On height, Nikola and Joerg, 2005.
37. E.g., Le Roy Ladurie, 1974, 11–145 (especially 51–83); Skipp, 1978; White,
2011, 52–77, 104–122.
38. Appleby, 1978. See also Hoyle, 2010.
39. Krämer, 2015.
40. White, 2011; Parker, 2013.
41. Post, 1985.
42. Buckley et al., 2014.
43. Brook, 2010; Yin et al., 2015, 153–63.
44. E.g., Parker, 2013.
45. See Arakawa, 1955 for the original study of weather during these famines. For
the wider historical context, see e.g., Totman, 1995.
46. Sen, 1981; Mauelshagen, 2010, 92–97.
47. Ó Gráda, 2009, 1–25.
48. Tauger, 2003.
49. Krämer et al., 2016.
50. Cunfer, 2005; Cook et al., 2014.
348 S. WHITE ET AL.

51. Glantz, 1994.

52. Overview of global warming impacts on food production and food security in
Porter et al., 2014, 485–533.

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 CHAPTER 28

Climate, Ecology, and Infectious

Human Disease

James L. A. Webb

28.1   Introduction
Climate has had a profound influence on evolving patterns of human disease.
From the early eras of human history to the present, climate forces have been
determinative in establishing the ecological parameters within which human
beings and the pathogens that afflict us have coexisted. As early human societ-
ies became more complex, population densities increased, and networks of
exchange thickened, possibilities for the transmission of pathogens broadened.
Over the past few millennia, previously discrete zones of disease transmission
became integrated, with devastating demographic consequences.
Shifts in climate phases—between eras of warming and cooling or between
eras of increasing or diminishing precipitation—have had significant impacts
on human communities. At some times and places, climate shifts have pro-
voked transformations in patterns of land use and thus the environments for
animal and insect vectors that could transmit disease. At other times and places,
climate change has provoked transformations in regional balances of political
power. Some of these changes, in turn, have forced migrants into new environ-
ments and exposed them to diseases and nutritional stresses that have compro-
mised their health.
At shorter timescales, extreme seasons and unique weather events have dis-
rupted agriculture and created food shortages that promoted the transmission
of disease. Floods, earthquakes, volcanic explosions, droughts, and unseasonal
freezes have wreaked havoc on human communities. These threats remain of
great concern, even as over the past century or two human beings have devel-
oped technologies and medicines that are able to limit or mitigate some of the

J. L. A. Webb (*)
Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 355

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_28
356 J. L. A. WEBB

consequences of disease transmission. The long-term result of these achieve-

ments is that human beings in many areas of the world—even in an era of
anthropogenic global warming—are now less susceptible to infectious disease
than at any earlier point in human history, and this trend toward greater secu-
rity is likely to continue. This remains true even as newly emerging and
reemerging disease threats attract the attention of researchers trying to esti-
mate the future health impacts of climate change.
This brief chapter presents a synthetic overview of the relationships between
climate, ecology, and human disease over time. It draws upon research in
diverse fields, including historical climatology, epidemiology, ecology, and bio-
medicine. It emphasizes that our biomedical and ecological understandings of
disease processes and the widespread use of effective medicines and vaccines
have substantially changed the nature of the threats from infectious disease in
many areas of the world. This historical contextualization is important to con-
sider when evaluating future disease scenarios.

28.2   Climate Forces and the Ecological Parameters

of Disease History

Over the immensely long eras during which our ancestors walked the earth, the
forces of climate shaped and reformed the natural world. Over the roughly
200,000 years of the human past, geophysical processes created eras with
starkly different temperature zones and levels of carbon dioxide; shifted pat-
terns of global distributions of flora and fauna; dramatically raised and lowered
the level of the oceans; and lavished or scanted the freshwater resources upon
which our ancestors depended. Climate change has successively configured and
reconfigured the earth’s ecological zones as all forms of life have continued to
evolve, including the pathogens that cause human illness and death.
Research in the genetic and molecular sciences has shown that humans and
our hominin ancestors were afflicted with infectious diseases from the very
earliest times, and that humans continue to suffer from some of these infec-
tions to the present day. The long chains of infections are sometimes referred
to as heirloom diseases, either because they have been passed down from one
generation to the next (as in the case of various herpes viruses) or because
transmission was possible between primates and humans (as in some forms of
hepatitis).1 Yet other heirloom pathogens, such as intestinal worms probably
first acquired from eating the meat of wild animals, have gone on to infect
human beings and domesticated animals such as pigs, dogs, and cats.2
Many infections have proven to be remarkably resilient. They have contin-
ued even through intermittent, recurrent crises of dwindling resources and
through transitions between Ice Ages and eras of global warming. The ances-
tors of many infectious pathogens such as mumps, chickenpox, and smallpox
originated as zoonoses—that is, infections of non-human animals that jumped
species only in the past several thousand years and then evolved to become
 CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, AND INFECTIOUS HUMAN DISEASE 357

human infectious diseases without non-human hosts. Measles, a pathogen that

was once a zoonosis, emerged as human disease about 1000 years ago from the
cattle virus that caused rinderpest. Other infectious pathogens continue to
emerge from animal hosts. Influenza epidemics, powered by novel recombina-
tions of swine and avian viruses, appear seasonally; once they produce illness
and death, and their survivors develop specific immunity, they become self-­
limiting. Other originally zoonotic diseases, such as HIV, evolved into human
scourges only in the past several decades.
Climate forces set the ecological parameters for the survival of the multi-
tudes of pathogens that have caused human disease.3 Two essential biophysical
parameters—precipitation and temperature—have had a determinative influ-
ence on global distributions of protozoa, bacteria, viruses, and their various
hosts, whether insect, rodent, domesticated and wild animal, or human. Over
millennia, humid and drying phases of climate reorganized the zones in which
diseases could be transmitted. Consider, for example, the case of the Sahara.
During a humid era that peaked c. 7000–4000 bce, the Sahara was a land of
vegetation and lakes. The decisive drying out of the Sahara that followed
brought transformations in ways of life, as climate migrants were forced either
north or south into moister zones. This climatic shift created conditions that
prevented the transmission of certain pathogens. In the Sahara, aridity and
extreme daily temperature variations produced a healthier human environment
than in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, as throughout history, warm and humid
environments enable the transmission of the greatest number of diseases.
In a broad biogeographical sense, cold temperatures set the northern and
southern limits within which most pathogens can survive. The ecology of con-
temporary malaria offers a good example. The mosquito species that host falci-
parum malaria parasites could survive during the summer season even above
the Arctic Circle, but even summertime Arctic temperatures would be too low
for malaria parasites to reproduce in their guts. There is no falciparum malaria
transmission in the extreme North. Similarly, the zone of malaria transmission
has never extended into the Antarctic, because mean temperatures there fall
below the threshold for mosquito reproduction as well as the reproduction of
the parasites in mosquito guts.

28.3   New Pathogens and Centers of Transmission

The rapid end of the last Ice Age and start of the warmer Holocene era about
12,000 years ago, followed by rising aridity in southern Eurasia and North
Africa from c. 4000 to 3000 bce, established some of the baseline ecological
conditions that allowed for the flourishing of seed-based agriculture. In this
sense, climate forces ushered in the age of modern humanity. The different
lateral bands of climate that ring the earth—the tropical, subtropical, temper-
ate, and Arctic and Antarctic zones—have been relatively stable since c. 3000
bce (see Chap. 15).
358 J. L. A. WEBB

In the river basins of North Africa and southern Eurasia, those who farmed
eventually produced food surpluses that allowed for impressive increases in
human numbers. The farming communities also supported populations of
insects, rodents, and dogs who lived off the stored food supplies and human
wastes. The early phases of animal domestication took place in the same regions,
and newly acquired zoonotic infectious diseases greatly contributed to human
morbidity and mortality.4 The early river basin diseases such as whooping
cough, mumps, chickenpox, rubella, and smallpox jumped from animal species
and accommodated themselves to human hosts. They spread from infected
persons to healthy persons without an intermediary vector or host, much as the
common cold does today. Many of these pathogens—particularly smallpox and
measles—could have an extraordinarily destructive power when introduced to
epidemiologically naïve populations.
The greater population density of these farming communities facilitated
new levels of exposure to infectious pathogens. In regional hinterlands with
uneven population densities, these pathogens circulated intermittently.
Everywhere, they hit the non-immune populations hardest, and these tended
to be the youngest generations and newest immigrants. Although the farming
communities were repeatedly hard hit, they became “disease-experienced” in
the sense that the survivors of the lethal diseases generally gained a life-long
immunity to them. This immunity provided them with an epidemiological
advantage over surrounding populations, which helps to explain the expansion
of “river basin cultural zones” into the surrounding hinterlands.5
A similar process probably took place in tropical Africa, where the first farm-
ers cultivated yam tubers rather than grain seeds. As in the river basin societies
of North Africa and southern Eurasia, the surplus in food calories allowed for
increasing populations of farmers. Yam farmers first expanded into rainforest
areas, where ecological conditions were propitious for the proliferation of a
species of particularly efficient malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. The high den-
sities of village farmers and vector mosquitoes allowed for the intense transmis-
sion of falciparum malaria. Those who survived their first encounters gained a
partial immunity that accorded them an epidemiological advantage over hunt-
ing and gathering peoples. Over time, these “disease-experienced” communi-
ties expanded throughout West and West Central Africa in an unfolding
demographic process known as the Bantu expansions.6
In tropical Africa other lethal pathogens continued to cross from wild ani-
mals into human communities and their herds of livestock. Seasonal weather
conditions modulated transmission of some pathogens, such as trypanosomia-
sis (also known as sleeping sickness), a deadly infection transmitted by the bite
of Glossina flies from wild animal reservoirs to human communities and live-
stock. Outbreaks of sleeping sickness were in part a function of abundant rain-
fall that promoted the growth of bush habitat in which the flies bred.7
In the Americas agricultural practices developed first in the Mesoamerican
and Andean regions, supporting larger population growth in those centers of
civilization. However, these regions contained few large animals suitable for
 CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, AND INFECTIOUS HUMAN DISEASE 359

domestication or farming, sparing human populations the same onslaught of

zoonotic diseases as in North Africa and Eurasia. American populations were
nevertheless subject to the forces of climate, and severe and protracted droughts
in the early centuries of the second millennium ce are thought to have brought
about the collapses of the Mayan civilization in what is today Guatemala and
the Hohokam civilization in what is today the state of Arizona.8

28.4   Processes of Epidemiological Integration

The growth of agrarian empires brought raids against vulnerable neighbors and
warfare against regional rivals, as well as new trade relationships. The increases
in political violence and long-distance commerce were key motors for the epi-
demiological integration of Eurasia. “Natural disasters” almost certainly had a
role in these processes, but the relationships between many epidemic diseases
and climate, weather, and ecological change are difficult to establish with cer-
tainty. Such is the case with the Plague of Justinian, an epidemic of the bubonic
plague in the sixth century ce that created havoc in the Byzantine world. It is
possible that this sixth-century event was linked to a volcanic explosion that
cast an enormous volume of dust into the atmosphere and caused the failure of
harvests. In this view, extreme weather conditions created food shortages, a
subsequent famine, and a heightened biological vulnerability to pathogens. It
is also possible that the epidemic contributed to the inability of the population
to harvest crops (see Chap. 32). Natural disasters and weather anomalies in
earlier eras are difficult to invoke with precision as a direct cause or intensifier
of infectious disease, because the evidence is frequently suggestive rather than
definitive.
In some cases, climate events may have helped to determine the timing of
epidemic outbreaks. A catastrophic bubonic plague epidemic ripped through
Europe in the mid-fourteenth century and smote European populations in
intermittent waves for centuries thereafter. New research findings have estab-
lished a correlation with wet spring seasons in China. This new evidence sup-
ports an alternative, climate-based explanation for the recurrent plagues that
may replace the previous consensus that plague continued to circulate in black
rat populations in Europe. The new climate-based interpretation argues that
maritime trade (rather than overland caravans) introduced the plague bacillus,
borne into Europe by gerbils (rather than rats). In this view, long-distance
trade, rather than extreme weather events, may have been the primary mecha-
nism of diffusion across Eurasia, although wet spring seasons contributed to
larger populations of the gerbil reservoir of the pathogen.9
Extreme weather events such as drought, cooling from volcanic explosions,
flooding from high rainfalls, and unseasonal frosts could wreak havoc on har-
vests, and one of the most frequent impacts was famine. Shortages of food
caused nutritional stress and reduced the resiliency of the sufferers, who were
more liable to fall ill, particularly to diseases associated with poor sanitation.10
When shortages induced migrations, famine refugees suffering from ­contagious
360 J. L. A. WEBB

diseases could introduce infections to new populations.11 The number of unusual

weather events increased during climate shifts such as the Little Ice Age that
afflicted Europe and North America from the fourteenth through the mid-nine-
teenth centuries (see Chap. 23) and the period of low rainfall along the western
Sahel from the seventeenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries (see Chap. 20).12
The voyages of discovery and conquest, initiated by Christopher Columbus,
unleashed an epidemiological disaster in the New World.13 The Old World
pathogens, once introduced across the Atlantic Ocean, had an even more
destructive demographic impact on New World populations than had the
bubonic plague in Europe or elsewhere in Eurasia (even though the millennia-­
long process of epidemiological integration in Eurasia had itself been a pro-
foundly destructive process). In the first century following European contact,
the Old World pathogens reduced the American peoples—none of whom had
acquired any immunities to the invaders—to roughly 10% of their pre-contact
population sizes.14
Many of these virulent pathogens were viruses rather than bacteria or pro-
tozoa, and they were transmitted directly from person to person, without an
intermediate non-human vector or host. Smallpox wrought the most damage
as it tore through densely populated areas of the Americas. The principal limi-
tation of these epidemics—including smallpox, measles, chickenpox, and
mumps—was population density, because these viruses left survivors with life-
time immunity to reinfection. In the case of low population densities, the
viruses ran out of non-immunes to infect and became self-limiting, disappear-
ing for a time only to flare out of control among later generations born without
immunity.
A severe drought in the mid-sixteenth century struck the highlands of
Mexico, which suffered severe epidemics in 1545–8 and 1576–8. The highland
epidemics have generally been attributed to typhus, a disease caused by
Rickettsia bacteria transmitted by fleas or ticks.15 A recent reassessment of the
sixteenth-century highland epidemics and later outbreaks in the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, however, suggests that the epidem-
ics may have been caused by indigenous hemorrhagic fevers.16 The mid-­
sixteenth-­century drought may have brought a rodent host into contact with a
highland population weakened by crop failures and the excessive labor demands
of Spanish colonists.17 Otherwise, climatic conditions in the New World appear
to have played a minor role in the viral epidemics caused by Old World patho-
gens, although extreme weather events, as always, could increase the suscepti-
bility of the affected populations to more severe encounters with disease.
Climate and weather had other effects on vector-borne disease. Mosquito-­
borne diseases such as falciparum malaria (a protozoal infection) and yellow
fever (a viral infection) first emerged in tropical Africa.18 Unlike the person-to-­
person infections described above, these mosquito-borne diseases could only
spread to regions with similar climates. For example, yellow fever and its prin-
cipal vector, Aedes aegypti, were transferred laterally into the Americas, and
became established in the same tropical latitudes. Weather conditions played a
 CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, AND INFECTIOUS HUMAN DISEASE 361

pivotal role, because rainy seasons produced denser populations of vector

­mosquitoes, and the density of the vectors was a critical variable in the intensi-
ties of transmission. Another major variable was the immunological status of the
populations. The survivors of yellow fever infections gained a life-long immu-
nity. The survivors of falciparum malaria gained some degree of acquired immu-
nity that did not protect them from future infections but did lessen the severity
of those infections. Most malarial deaths occurred at the first encounter.19

28.5   Biomedicine, Emerging Diseases,

and Climate Change

Over the past two centuries, advances in biomedicine and improvements in

standards of living have greatly reduced the incidence and mortality of infec-
tious disease among populations in economically advanced states.20 Some pro-
grams for the control of infectious diseases in economically less-developed
states have also had major successes. In recent decades, global health initiatives
have dramatically reduced childhood deaths through immunization programs
across the world. Deaths from the scourge of malaria are now largely restricted
to tropical Africa, where major efforts are currently underway to reduce
transmission.21
These developments have coincided with a rapid increase in passenger air
travel that has facilitated the global diffusion of pathogens. The greatest con-
cern is for the spread of viral pathogens such as influenza that can be transmit-
ted via human respiration, because our ability to make vaccines and administer
doses at the population level falls far short of what is needed. This concern,
however, is largely independent from the anticipated increase in extreme cli-
mate events that are expected to accompany anthropogenic forcing of climate
change.
There are also major concerns that global climate change will increase the
transmission of vector-borne diseases. The West Nile virus, introduced into the
United States in 1999, has been found in a large number of mosquito species,
and it is likely that global warming will extend the range of many of these spe-
cies and may increase transmission. These possibilities are real, although at
present the total number of people affected is small. There is no antidote or
vaccine for West Nile virus, although insecticides, screens, and repellents are
highly effective. The greater health concerns are that warming may increase the
transmission of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and
chikungunya fever. In tropical Africa, where transmission rates are highest,
continued warming will likely extend the range of the vector mosquitoes to
higher altitudes in mountainous regions of eastern and central Africa, although
some experts believe this concern is overblown.22
Further vulnerabilities come from rising sea levels and storm surges, which
could compromise the integrity of coastal water and sanitation systems. Failure
of sanitation systems and subsequent pollution of water supplies with fecal
362 J. L. A. WEBB

­ atter has in the past set off large-scale epidemics, such as in mid-twentieth-­
m
century New Delhi.23

28.6   Conclusion
The relationships between climate change, ecological change, and human
infectious diseases are complex, and our understandings of these relationships
will continue to be refined by the development of new data and perspectives
from a wide range of investigations.24 A major challenge will be for researchers
to incorporate insights from different disciplinary perspectives. A fuller under-
standing of the importance of climate in the epidemiological past can only be
won from an evolving integration of the biological, social, and historical
sciences.

Notes
1. Barrett and Armelagos, 2013, 29–41; Torrey and Yolken, 2005, 14–19.
2. On the tapeworm, see Hoberg et al., 2001; on the roundworm, see Peng and
Criscione, 2012.
3. For an impressive effort to synthesize the scientific literature on climate change
and its impact on the human past, see Brooke, 2014.
4. Diamond, 1997, 195–214.
5. McNeill, 1976.
6. Webb, 2009, 18–41.
7. This inference is based upon historical evidence from the twentieth and twenty-­
first centuries. During the era of European colonization of tropical Africa,
European colonial governmental policies and medical campaigns that included
the forced relocation of African populations also influenced the distribution of
sleeping sickness. See Courtin et al., 2008; Hoppe, 1997; Lyons, 1992.
8. The explanations of the social collapses are multicausal and contested. See
Redman, 1999; Diamond, 2005; McAnany and Yoffee, 2009.
9. Schmid et al., 2015.
10. The influence of famine conditions could persist for several decades. The Great
Famine of 1315–17 and the Great Bovine Pestilence of 1319–20 (which pro-
duced a prolonged dearth of dairy products) in England and northern Europe
rendered the populations more susceptible to the ravages of the bubonic plague
(DeWitte and Slavin, 2013). On the susceptibility to infectious diseases associ-
ated with poor sanitation, see Mokyr and Ó Gráda, 2002.
11. Schellekens, 1996; Post, 1984.
12. For a recent discussion of the evidence for the Little Ice Age, see White, 2014;
on the western Sahel, Webb, 1995.
13. Crosby, 1972.
14. Stannard, 1993.
15. Nothing is known about the geographical origins of typhus, including whether
it is an Old World or New World pathogen (Wolfe et al., 2012, 358).
16. Acuña-Soto et al., 2000.
17. Acuña-Soto, 2002; Marr and Kiracofe, 2000.
 CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, AND INFECTIOUS HUMAN DISEASE 363

18. Bryant et al., 2007; Liu et al., 2010.

19. Webb, 2009, 66–91; McNeill, 2010.
20. In the early nineteenth century, researchers isolated medically active compounds
such as quinine, a highly effective anti-malarial that was the first disease-­specific
drug in the Western materia medica. See Webb, 2009.
21. Webb, 2014.
22. Chaves and Koenraadt, 2010.
23. Dennis and Wolman, 1959.
24. The National Academy of Sciences has convened three workshops to explore the
relationships between weather events, disease outbreaks, and emerging infec-
tions and another workshop to improve our understandings of the relationships
between vector-borne disease and environmental and ecological change and
human health. See Choffnes and Mack, 2014; Mack et al., 2008; National
Research Council, 2001; Lemon, 2008.

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2012.
 CHAPTER 29

Climate Change and Conflict

Dagomar Degroot

29.1   Introduction
Average global temperatures have risen more than 1 °C since the Industrial
Revolution. By the end of the century, according to conservative estimates,
they will probably rise another 2 °C. This change will fundamentally reshape
many regional environments, and may well destabilize nations already facing
profound socioeconomic and technological transformations. Research that
connects climate change to conflict has therefore assumed new urgency. Such
work has deep roots. Military historians, for example, have long understood
that climatic conditions and weather events can alter the course of war.
Recently, researchers in many disciplines have revised these narratives by
linking historical conflicts to long-term shifts in average weather called “cli-
mate change”.1
The majority of such work investigates whether, and how, climate changes
have provoked wars. An expanding literature traces how past climatic shifts or
shocks reduced the supply of resources that maintained the cohesion and sta-
bility of different societies. Many scholars argue that communities and indi-
viduals responded either by seeking new resources or by overturning social
conditions they blamed for their plight. Both reactions often led to conflict.
Some of this research deduces causation through qualitative methods, by inter-
preting historical sources and narrating events. However, a growing corpus of
scholarship employs quantitative, statistical methods to link climate changes to
war. Quantitative and qualitative research alike has proposed diverse links
between climate change and conflict across ancient Eurasia, the medieval and
early modern world, and even in contemporary agrarian societies. Scholars who

D. Degroot (*)
Department of History, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 367

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_29
368 D. DEGROOT

explore these relationships in ancient civilizations commonly use qualitative

methodology, while those who investigate modern societies generally rely on
quantitative techniques.
Fewer researchers have considered how climate change has shaped the con-
duct of wars already in progress. Those who have usually examine the many
wars that coincided with the Little Ice Age (LIA), a generally cold climatic
regime that, according to some definitions, endured from the late thirteenth to
the early nineteenth centuries (see Chap. 23). Scholars have shown that LIA
weather affected military strategies, tactics, and engagements across the early
modern world. Some have even suggested that military operations on a suffi-
ciently large scale have changed global climate through depopulation, changes
in land use, and carbon emissions.
In this chapter, the words “conflict” and “war” are used interchangeably to
refer to large-scale inter- or intrastate violence involving actors who claim sov-
ereign authority. Different scholars approach the concepts of “climate” and
“climate change” in distinct ways, and their precise definitions dictate how they
can be linked to war. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines
climate roughly as “average weather”, or as the statistical reconstruction of the
mean and variability of relevant meteorological conditions. However, most
studies that link climate to conflict more or less follow the World Meteorological
Organization definition, which has set the minimum duration of a climatic
regime at thirty years.
Scholars have unravelled how these long-term changes in prevailing weather
affect the conditions and conduct of war on both “tactical” and “strategic”
levels. In military parlance, tactics relate to the conduct of battle, while strategy
refers to the process of manipulating resources and manoeuvring assets so they
are best positioned to damage the enemy. Strategies can therefore unfold over
longer time periods and larger regions than tactics.2
The rest of this chapter begins by surveying some of the most interesting
qualitative scholarship that ties climate changes to the origins of war. It then
explains how quantitative scholars have used statistical methods to tackle that
relationship from a different perspective. Next, it assesses trailblazing studies
that examine how trends in prevailing weather influenced the ways in which
war was actually fought. Finally, it reviews how researchers have linked environ-
mental repercussions of war to large-scale shifts in global climate. The aim is
not to be comprehensive, but rather to sample some of the most interesting
approaches in a field that is quickly becoming too big, and too diverse, for easy
synthesis.

29.2   Climate Change and the Origins of War:

Qualitative Approaches
In recent years, controversial research has tied wars in Sudan and Syria to desta-
bilizing resource shortages. Just before the 2003 outbreak of civil war in
Darfur, average annual rainfall declined sharply, resulting in desertification.
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 369

Crop failures, disappearing pasture, and vanishing water holes drove Muslim
herders into competition with Christian farmers. Then, from 2006 to 2009,
the people of Syria endured the most severe drought in that country’s instru-
mental record. As water grew scarce, crops failed, and cattle died on a huge
scale. As many as 1.5 million Syrians, out of a total population of just over
20 million, moved from the countryside to the outskirts of already crowded
cities. Out of work, desperate, and living in poorly planned crime-ridden neigh-
bourhoods, many refugees were quick to revolt against a brutal regime that
had long suppressed such challenges. Using computer simulations, scientists
have linked droughts in Syria and Sudan to the regional effects of global
warming.3
Many people in Syria and the lands that are now Sudan and South Sudan
rely heavily on agriculture and pastoralism. Pre-modern societies did too, and
therefore we might also expect natural climate changes to have destabilized
them. For decades, scholars in diverse disciplines have explored these relation-
ships between climate changes and conflict. Until recently, they have used
largely qualitative methods to create narratives that identify probable connec-
tions among climate change, weather, resource shortages, and war. In pursuing
this research, they have benefited from the many documents that survive to
record the causes of wars in literate societies.4
In 1982, meteorologist Hubert Lamb explored the origins of war in the first
edition of his influential and frequently revised survey of climate history. He
concluded that climate change caused the wars and rebellions that divided dif-
ferent phases of the Bronze Age, accompanied the collapse of Rome, ended the
European Middle Ages, and destabilized the Ming Dynasty in China. In fact,
Lamb included wars within the most direct, “first order” impacts of climate
change.5
Historians today might cringe at such determinism, and many scholars in
other disciplines have been careful not to repeat it. Anthropologist Brian Fagan,
for instance, tried to balance environmental and social causes for conflict in his
overview of the LIA. According to Fagan, the less predictable weather associ-
ated with the LIA undermined harvests and thereby contributed to the out-
break of the French Revolution. Fagan still finds relatively straightforward links
between climate change and cultural or economic developments. Nevertheless,
he acknowledges that climate change was just one among many destabilizing
influences within the Ancien Régime.6
More recently, geographer Jared Diamond, in his popular book Collapse,
has sketched similar relationships between climate change and conflict. His
focus is on the endogenous causes for the collapse—that is, the depopulation
and political unravelling—of different civilizations through time. Diamond
adopts a largely Malthusian model for understanding these catastrophes. As
populations grow, their societies develop unsustainable relationships with
regional environments. Eventually, citizens must compete for scarce resources,
and that competition can provoke wars within and between societies. Wars
make those societies more vulnerable to exogenous environmental shocks,
370 D. DEGROOT

such as climate change, which can bring about a Malthusian collapse. For
example, Diamond argues that overpopulation and endemic wars left the
Classic Maya with little recourse when a catastrophic drought heralded the
onset of a drier climate. Starvation, disease, and thirst killed millions, while
others died in conflicts over increasingly scarce resources. These conclusions
have been nuanced but largely supported by more recent, multidisciplinary
scholarship.7
Narratives and qualitative methodology are tools more familiar to histo-
rians, and historians have lately written some of the most compelling stud-
ies of climate and conflict. In 2014, for example, John Brooke published
Climate Change and the Course of Global History, which synthesizes schol-
arship from many disciplines to survey all of human history. Brooke argues
that civilizations collapsed not because their endogenous social and envi-
ronmental relationships were unsustainable, but rather because exogenous
environmental shocks overwhelmed their capacity to adapt. Causal connec-
tions between climate change, agricultural disruption, and war repeat them-
selves throughout Brooke’s history. In 2200 bce, for example, a climatic
shock led to widespread droughts that provoked rebellions across
Mesopotamia and Egypt. Then, after the world’s climate temporarily stabi-
lized, a massive volcanic eruption in approximately 1600 bce released sul-
phur aerosols into the atmosphere, which scattered sunlight, cooled global
temperatures, and disrupted agriculture. As societies plunged into disorder,
the Hittites “panicked” and launched raids that devastated the cities of
Aleppo and Babylon.8 To take another example, Brooke argues that societ-
ies around the world unravelled when the relatively warm Medieval Climatic
Anomaly (MCA) yielded to the chillier LIA. Droughts of unprecedented
severity depopulated parts of what is now Illinois and forced survivors to
build fortifications against raiding. Drier weather also afflicted East Asia.
Combining with greater warmth in Mongolia and cooling in East Asia, LIA
climatic change encouraged steppe nomads to invade China. By contrast,
Europe experienced destructive wet weather and cooling (see Chap. 33).
The Hundred Years War began as a dynastic struggle but became a “resource
war” amid natural disasters shaped in part by a shifting climate.9
Few books have done more to bring climate history into the public con-
sciousness than Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, and
Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century (2013). Parker argues that the LIA
entered its chilliest phase during the seventeenth century, when overlapping
political, economic, and demographic pressures left many countries especially
vulnerable to climatic shocks. In many parts of the world, cooling led to storms
and historic winters that directly killed thousands of people. Climatic change
undermined the production of staple crops around the world, bringing shorter
growing seasons, untimely frosts, and unseasonable precipitation (see Chap.
23). Parker estimates a third of the world’s population died from malnutrition,
famine, and disease.10
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 371

Parker shows that wars both worsened these crises and were provoked by
them. In East Asia, cool, wet weather ruined harvests and drove the Manchus
to invade Ming China in search of more food. Across China, the collapse of
agriculture encouraged hungry men to join bandit groups, adding to the chaos.
A similar “fatal synergy” swept through Europe. Wars drained national
resources just as climatic conditions diminished provisions and revenue, and
subsequent revolts only added to the turmoil. Parker therefore argues for rela-
tively direct connections among climate change, weather, food shortages, and
social disruptions including war.11
In The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (2011),
Sam White also investigates the coldest decades of the LIA, concentrating on
the eastern Mediterranean. To White, the Ottoman Empire directed an “impe-
rial ecology” that involved the circulation of resources and population on a vast
scale. This system functioned smoothly until the late sixteenth century. By
then, population growth in marginal territories had made the empire vulnera-
ble to both natural disasters and the destabilizing influence of landless men.
When a catastrophic drought and severe winters coincided with major military
campaigns during the 1590s, banditry broke out in the Anatolian countryside.
The drought eased in 1596, yet bandit gangs continued to band together to
form rebel armies. Further drought and freezing weather compounded the
economic disruption and population loss caused by the rebellion and drove
more Ottoman subjects into banditry. Even after the revolt was finally sup-
pressed, political and environmental shifts slowed the empire’s demographic
recovery. To White, rebellion and revolt did not follow directly from agricul-
tural failures brought about by drought. Instead, conflict in the Ottoman
Empire emerged from a combination of ecological and social pressures influ-
enced by the changing climate.12 These books by Brooke, Parker, and White
represent state-of-the-art thinking by historians who use primarily qualitative
methods to link climate change to conflict.
Scholars in many disciplines have concluded that climate change triggered
conflict by disturbing agricultural production, especially where unsustainable
or inefficient farming practices raised the vulnerability of agricultural systems to
exogenous shocks. Severe or sudden cooling shortened growing seasons too
quickly, or too profoundly, for farmers to respond; or else shifts in precipitation
patterns ruined crops through rot or withering. Without enough fodder to
feed domesticated animals, agricultural productivity declined even more (see
Chap. 27).13 Most agrarian or pastoral societies could not long endure such
crises. Many people moved out of environments that became less hospitable
and joined or displaced people in cities or other countries, creating conditions
for conflict. Others blamed their governments for failing to provide relief, espe-
cially when those governments were already embroiled in costly wars. Social
and economic disruption added to the turmoil of climate change, and, in turn,
to popular support for revolution and rebellion. In these narratives, the Syrian
civil war is only the latest iteration of a pattern that has repeated itself time and
again, since the first agrarian societies.
372 D. DEGROOT

29.3   Climate Change and the Origins of War:

Quantitative Approaches
Other scholars have approached the link between climate change and conflict
from an entirely different angle, by using quantitative and statistical methods.
These techniques have informed most of the relevant (social) scientific research,
and they have produced some of the most controversial and influential articles
written on the climate history of war.
David Zhang and other scholars in the Department of Geography at the
University of Hong Kong have been pioneers. Since 2005, they have authored
numerous articles that connect climate change to rebellions, dynastic transi-
tions, and nomadic invasions in imperial China. Their methods are superficially
simple. First, they identify periods of conflict across centuries or even millennia
of Chinese history. Next, they quantify only the most reliable information
regarding Chinese wars, such as their dates, number of participants, and loca-
tions. They then match a long-term reconstruction of average temperatures
with the dates of wars in environmentally and socioeconomically distinct
Chinese regions. People in each region responded differently when prevailing
weather patterns changed.14
This technique produces graphs that represent climate change and conflict
on matching scales. The authors then use statistical methods to find ostensibly
objective and mathematically precise correlations between climate change and
conflict across various timescales. In every article of this kind, the results are
striking. Zhang and his coauthors found that approximately 80% of wars, rebel-
lions, and dynastic transitions in imperial China took place during climatic
regimes that were substantially colder than the early twentieth-century average.
Nevertheless, these general statistics mask regional differences, both in the fre-
quency with which conflict coincided with cooling and in the time lag between
cooling trends and outbreaks of violence. It turns out that the relationship
between conflict and cooling may have been especially strong for rebellions,
and for southern China.15
Academics in quantitative disciplines have used similar methods to identify
correlations between climate change and the frequency of European wars.
Such research is possible because Europe, like China, has well-documented and
well-researched records of both violence and climate change. In 2010, econo-
mist Richard Tol and climatologist Sebastian Wagner created dramatic maps
correlating changes in both temperature and precipitation to shifts in the fre-
quency of war in different parts of Europe. They concluded that over the last
five centuries cool, wet conditions increased the frequency of conflict in north-­
western Europe, while warmer, drier weather may have led to more wars in
areas of south-eastern and Central Europe. However, the correlations weak-
ened with the rise of industrialization. One year later, a multidisciplinary team
published an article in Science that introduced new reconstructions of Central
European temperature and precipitation trends over the past 2600 years.
The team roughly correlated these trends to major wars and migrations in
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 373

European history. Another group, led by the geographers of the University of

Hong Kong, has recently nuanced and revised this earlier scholarship by sug-
gesting that past relationships between cooling and conflict were actually most
dramatic in Eastern Europe.16
Other researchers have investigated whether the recent drying and warming
of sub-Saharan Africa has led to more frequent civil wars. Africa is a focus for
work that connects global warming to modern conflicts because the majority
of its more than one billion inhabitants rely on rain-fed agriculture for subsis-
tence and employment. Relationships between agriculture and war in modern
Africa may therefore resemble those in pre-modern Europe and China. Earlier
quantitative research on sub-Saharan Africa focused entirely on changes in pre-
cipitation, and most found that drought correlated with increased conflict.
Newer scholarship, notably a 2009 article by lead author Marshall Burke, also
examines the socially disruptive influence of rising temperatures. In 2009 and
2010, Burke and his coauthors found a robust correlation between warming
temperatures and the frequency of African civil wars, here defined as “the use
of armed force between [two] parties, one of which is the government of a
state, resulting in at least 1000 battle-related deaths”. In 2012, Cullen Hendrix
and Idean Salehyan, using a broader definition of war, compared over 6000
instances of conflict with fluctuations in annual precipitation. Then in 2015,
Hanne Fjelde and Nina von Uexkull investigated only smaller clashes and
found that major negative rainfall anomalies correlated with conflict, given cer-
tain socioeconomic conditions. Another article in the same year, this one by
lead author Jean-François Maystadt, found strong correlations between
drought and conflict in North and South Sudan.17
Owing perhaps to its pressing relevance in a warming world, statistical
research that connects climate change to African civil wars has generated con-
siderable controversy, even among quantitative scholars. In 2010, Halvard
Buhaug questioned the methods Burke and his coauthors used to establish
their correlations. In a series of letters, Burke and his colleagues convincingly
rebutted most of Buhaug’s criticisms, yet admitted that correlations between
warming and civil war have grown much weaker since 2002. More recently,
Mathieu Couttenier and Raphael Soubeyran found little correlation among
climate change, drought, and the outbreak of civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2012, a study by lead author John O’Loughlin examined no fewer than
16,359 conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2009. By accounting
not only for socioeconomic but also geographic factors that contributed to
violence, O’Loughlin and his coauthors concluded that conflicts generally
become less common in wet conditions. Nevertheless, they discovered no cor-
relation between drought and war, and it is drought that global warming is
projected to exacerbate in parts of Africa.18
There is great value in detecting robust correlations between human and
environmental trends. However, some scholars have made sweeping and unsus-
tainable claims about causation that are based solely on the presence of overlap-
ping trends in the histories of war and climate change. For example, in 2007,
374 D. DEGROOT

Zhang and coauthors concluded that correlated trends in average temperature

and the frequency of war show that “war–peace, population, and price cycles in
recent centuries have been driven mainly by long-term climate change”. In
fact, overlapping graphs cannot adequately challenge the causal links identified
by generations of historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists, many of
whom have placed primary emphasis on political, economic, social, or cultural
forces.19
This is especially true given the many uncertainties that bedevil the correla-
tions that scholars have found between climate changes and the outbreak of
war. For example, it is difficult to know what element of a conflict should be
statistically matched with climate reconstructions. Do statistics suggest that
climate change causes conflict if it overlaps with the beginning of a war, or is it
enough to find that climate change coincides with an entire war, as Burke does?
Moreover, quantitative reconstructions of military history cannot easily incor-
porate long and complex wars, such as the Thirty Years War. That war can be
considered either a single conflict or a series of distinct wars. Researchers must
subjectively decide how to categorize wars of this kind, and these messy choices
will alter their supposedly objective statistics. Buhaug pointed out that scien-
tists have also used arbitrary numbers to decide when violence amounts to a
war. Worse, graphing wars by quantity can also lead scholars to misrepresent
changes in qualities. The First and Second World Wars can be recorded as only
two wars, for instance, yet their material and human costs dwarfed those of any
previous conflict. Overall, quantitative methodologies force researchers to use
subjective techniques to smooth over complexities that are more easily accom-
modated within qualitative approaches. Ostensibly “scientific” methods are
therefore not necessarily more accurate than the narratives developed by
humanists or scientists with humanistic leanings.20
There are more problems. Even long-established and supposedly reliable
“facts” about past wars can be overturned by new scholarship. Yet natural and
social scientists do not always recognize that historians or archaeologists engage
in dynamic and evolving disciplines. Tol and Wagner, for example, used a now-­
defunct website for their statistics on past wars, while Zhibin Zhang cited his-
torical scholarship published in 1939. It can be equally problematic to link
regional wars to global climate, as David Zhang and his colleagues have done,
because global climate trends can manifest themselves in counter-intuitive ways
at the level of local, short-term activities. Finally, even if the correlations that
researchers have identified between war and climate change really do accurately
represent the past, they can be interpreted in many different ways. Perhaps it is
not cooling that provokes war, but rather social structures that increase the
susceptibility and instability of societies in the face of environmental changes.
From this perspective, the causes of war are not primarily environmental, but
rather political, socioeconomic, or cultural.21
Fortunately, scholars who reconstruct correlations between cooling and con-
flict have started to explore the reasons behind these correlations. For example,
in 2007 Zhang led a study that linked climate change to war by ­examining the
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 375

effects of cooling on food production. Zhang and his coauthors summarized

scientific research that identified connections between shifts in average tem-
perature, agricultural production, and the fates of different societies. Like other
animals, humans usually migrate when ecological stress overwhelms their ability
to adapt. However, as Zhang and his colleagues pointed out, migration across
political boundaries often results in war. In 2010, Zhang and fellow geographer
Harry Lee introduced a conceptual model based on these principles. In the
model, cooling hampers agricultural production, raises food prices, and ulti-
mately leads to war, famine, and population decline.22 In 2011, Zhang and
colleagues employed new analytical tools and a more complex model that built
on causal links already identified by (qualitative) historians. In this model, cli-
matic cooling alters bioproductivity, reducing agricultural production and per
capita food supply. Once again, less food leads to social disturbance, migration,
and famine, which in turn cause war, epidemics, malnutrition, and population
decline. Zhang and his colleagues conclude that climate change is the ultimate
culprit behind most of the major crises in human history.23
Two other articles of 2010 are notable for finding causal connections
between climate change and historical conflicts in China. Like David Zhang
and his colleagues, Zhibin Zhang and a multidisciplinary group of interna-
tional researchers concluded that lower temperatures hindered agriculture in
ways that increased unrest and provoked wars within China. Ying Bai and
James Kai-sing Kung, by contrast, concentrated on the climatic stimuli that
spurred other peoples to invade China. They matched 2000-year graphs of
precipitation indicators to invasions of China by nomadic peoples of Central
Asia, Mongolia, and Eastern Europe. Bai and Kung first calculated the decadal
frequency of nomadic invasions of China. They then used a control that
accounts for attacks by the Chinese state on nomadic peoples, and a model that
compensates for the path-dependency of repeated wars. For each decade in
their study period, they identified the percentage affected by drought, and then
they compared this figure with their decade-by-decade statistics of nomad inva-
sions. From this, they determined that dry conditions ruined the livelihoods of
nomadic peoples and drove them to invade China. Wet conditions could be
perilous for Chinese citizens around the Yellow River, but they seem to have
had little effect on nomad aggression.24 Their methodology has drawbacks. Bai
and Kung had no access to precipitation reconstructions, and they were there-
fore forced to employ records of droughts and floods as a proxy for changes in
rainfall.25 Accordingly, flood data used by Bai and Kung relies heavily on levee
breaches along the Yellow River, which might have been caused by inadequate
levee maintenance, rather than environmental changes beyond human control.
Like floods, droughts can also follow from complex relationships between
environmental conditions and human practices. Nevertheless, Bai and Kung
decided that drought and flood records provide sufficiently strong clues of real
fluctuations in precipitation across China and its surroundings.
Quantitative scholars have tried to establish similar causal connections in
European history, although their efforts have been controversial. Even more
376 D. DEGROOT

disputed are findings that link the causes of recent sub-Saharan conflicts to
climate change. In 2010, Alexandra E. Sutton and coauthors argued that by
not including case studies, previous attempts to establish correlation between
African wars and climate change have actually revealed very little about causa-
tion. In the following year, an article by political scientist Ole Magnus Theisen
concluded that socioeconomic, political, and demographic conditions—not
climate change—caused African conflicts. Yet not long thereafter, Theisen pub-
lished a rigorous statistical analysis of links between climate change and war
within Kenya. This time, he found that high rainfall anomalies correlated with
conflict, while droughts made violence impractical. By contrast, recent qualita-
tive and quantitative research suggests clear causal links between drought and
climate change in Syria and Sudan. Different responses to precipitation anoma-
lies in very different places suggest that controversy over relationships between
climate change and African wars is, at least in part, a consequence of the sheer
social and environmental diversity of modern Africa. We can expect tempera-
ture and precipitation anomalies to have different effects in different African
regions, further complicating possible links between climate change and con-
flict. That is why quantitative scholars of Europe and China have usually exam-
ined relationships between climate change and war in distinct regions.26
Statistical research accounts for most of the recent scholarship on the climate
history of war. In a recent special edition of the journal Climatic Change,
Solomon Hsiang and Marshall Burke surveyed fifty such papers. They conclude
that there does seem to be a clear current and historical relationship between
climatic change and conflict around the world. In an online appendix, they also
argue that statistical misconceptions have led some researchers to either overesti-
mate or falsely dismiss correlations between climate change and war. However,
they find no consensus on the mechanisms for these correlations. They survey a
range of possible explanations, from the poorly understood psychological effects
of weather to the destabilizing influence of inequality in the face of shared envi-
ronmental risks. Ultimately we can expect different clusters of social and environ-
mental influences to bridge climate change and conflict in different regions,
although it is likely that resource shortages usually play a central role.27
For historians working with written evidence, the human motivations and
actions that shape historical causality may appear too complex to reduce to cor-
relations. Moreover, some scholars have pointed out that disasters can bring
out not only the worst, but also the best, sides of humanity. For example, by
quantifying the outcome of nearly 8000 natural disasters since 1950, sociolo-
gist Rune Slettebak concluded in 2012 that the kind of destructive weather
made more likely by climate change, particularly drought, actually reduces con-
flict. Political scientist Erik Gartzke has suggested that twentieth-century
warming was associated with a worldwide trend towards peace, since industrial-
ized nations are more likely to be integrated, democratic, and therefore less
eager for war.28 Environmental historian John McNeill has argued that epidem-
ics and natural disasters have historically united societies more often than they
have driven them apart, and since at least the eighteenth century, they have
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 377

encouraged international sympathy and support. Objections raised by political

scientist Thomas Bernauer follow a similar vein. In a series of articles, Bernauer
and coauthors admitted that climatic and other environmental changes may,
under the right conditions, provoke conflict. However, they have insisted that
such “neo-Malthusian” links are not necessarily systematic or unconditional,
and that they are invisible in regions like the rapidly drying Aral Sea basin.
These are useful calls for nuance and caution in an area of scholarship that, as
we have seen, could use both.29
Ultimately, diverse methodologies and findings together suggest that cli-
mate change can make conflict more likely, but only under particular environ-
mental, political, socioeconomic, and cultural conditions. Societies that are less
directly dependent on agriculture are probably less vulnerable to the destabiliz-
ing effects of climate change. Moreover, well-organized states are probably less
vulnerable to climatic shocks than weak states.
The lack of straightforward connections between climate change and con-
flict means that these relationships are difficult but not impossible to quantify.
That, in turn, raises the value of the qualitative approaches to climate history
that are usually favoured by humanists, and especially historians.30 Nevertheless,
statistical tools can provide fresh perspectives on occasionally circular issues of
causation. If scholars identify sufficiently precise correlations, they can provide
valuable evidence that causal relationships probably unfolded in a particular
sequence. Overall, quantitative methodologies indicate that war and climate
change may be even more closely entangled than qualitative approaches have
uncovered thus far.

29.4   Climate Change and the Conduct of War

In 2014, the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review predicted that climate
change would shape both the missions American forces will undertake in a
warmer world and the environments in which those missions will play out.
However, connections between climate change and the conduct of war are still
poorly understood. Because the conduct of every war is distinct, it is difficult
to conceptualize and model how actual fighting has been influenced by climate
change. For now, this rules out the kind of statistical analysis that has identified
probable relationships between climate and the outbreak of wars.31
Scholars have worked to overcome these methodological challenges by care-
fully reconstructing the ways in which global climate change shaped regional
environments in wartime. Many of their studies have concentrated on the
LIA. Already in 1982, Lamb tied the cooler early modern climate to increased
storminess in the North Sea area, and in turn to the gales that devastated the
Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1998 anthropologist Fagan leaned on Lamb’s
research to conclude that the Armada was defeated by storms that were
­probably caused by climate change. Recently, Parker has blamed the LIA for
harvest failures that hindered military provisioning, and for torrential precipita-
tion that thwarted campaigns.32
378 D. DEGROOT

Frigid winters during the Maunder Minimum, a particularly cold phase of

the LIA, have been linked to the fate of Swedish campaigns in both the
Second Northern War (1655–60) and the Great Northern War (1700–21).
While many historians of these wars have ignored the role of climate change,
scholars in other disciplines have noted that Swedish armies exploited unusu-
ally severe freezing in early 1658 to march across the ice-covered straits that
otherwise protected Denmark. By contrast, the extreme winter of 1708–9
weakened the Swedish army invading Russia, contributing to its defeat at
Poltava.33 Multidisciplinary scholars pursuing research of this kind have also
shed new light on how cold conditions influenced the campaigns of Napoleon
and the fate of German armies in Russia during the Second World War.
Overall, such scholarship provides valuable perspectives on relationships
between cooler climates, weather, and military operations, but it usually has
methodological shortcomings. For example, it rarely explains how climate
change that unfolds globally, across decades, can be held responsible for the
outcome of fighting at a local level, during just a few months of bad weather.
It also does not investigate how climate change systematically shaped the
conduct of entire wars.34
Environmental historians James Webb and John McNeill have both identi-
fied more convincing structural links among climate change, disease, and the
ways wars were fought. In Desert Frontier (1995), Webb maintained that cli-
mate change between c. 1600 and 1850 led to drier conditions along the
southern frontier of the Western Sahara, which expanded as much as 300 km
to the south. As the frontier moved, the tsetse fly, a vector for the disease try-
panosomiasis, moved with it (see Chap. 28). Horses otherwise prone to the
disease were more likely to survive in the Sahel. Alongside sociopolitical devel-
opments, these environmental changes disrupted agriculture, encouraged vio-
lence, and enabled horse-riding raiders to capture slaves from communities in
West Africa.35
In Mosquito Empires, McNeill argues that from 1620 to 1914 populations
born in the Caribbean developed immunity to yellow fever and resistance to
malaria. This enabled them to defend their islands against hostile interlopers
who lacked such defences. According to McNeill, the Caribbean cooled and
dried during the coldest centuries of the LIA, but warmed and grew wetter
after around 1750. Because mosquito vectors breed in water and thrive in
warm weather, this climate shift increased the recurrence of yellow fever epi-
demics and enhanced their impact during colonial wars. Droughts had com-
plex and sometimes counter-intuitive influences on the close relationship
among humans, mosquitoes, disease, and military campaigns. In regions with
reliable streams or piped water, drought limited breeding sites for mosquitoes.
In other places, drought encouraged people to store water, providing conve-
nient habitats for mosquito larvae.36
In a 2014 article, environmental historian Dagomar Degroot traces the role
of climate change in the conduct of three seventeenth-century naval wars
between England and the Dutch Republic. Degroot tackles the ­methodological
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 379

challenges of bridging long-term global climate change with short-term local

military operations by introducing a step-by-step method. First, he establishes
probable connections between climate change and the frequency of particular
local weather conditions. Second, he relates the outcome of wartime events to
those conditions. Only after finding strong enough relationships between mili-
tary operations and short-term local weather does he claim to identify firm
links between climate change and conflict. Degroot uses this method to argue
that shifting climatic conditions in the mid-seventeenth century increased the
frequency of storms and easterly winds, in ways that benefited the naval tactics
and strategies of the Dutch Republic. Whereas England won the First Anglo-
Dutch War, Dutch fleets more effectively harnessed shifting patterns of prevail-
ing weather to win the second and third wars.37
Historians have also linked changes in prevailing weather to the course of
the American Civil War. Already in 1965, Paul Gates argued that a prolonged
drought in the Southern states undermined the Confederacy from within. In
2002, Ted Steinberg refined and expanded this climate history. According to
Steinberg, poor harvests in the Confederacy led to starvation and disease for
Southern troops and their horses. The weakened Confederate armies struggled
with poor morale, and had difficulty resisting their Union counterparts. By
contrast, favourable weather created ideal conditions for northern agriculture.
Northern troops were therefore the best fed in military history, and that prob-
ably improved their performance in the field. However, in some respects
Confederate forces did benefit from weather and climate. For example, torren-
tial winter rain compromised Union supply routes.38 These claims link the con-
duct of war to short-term weather, but not long-term climatic transitions.
Recently, Kenneth Noe surveyed the sources and approaches that historians
can use to connect the war’s fighting to climate change. Scholars are develop-
ing methodologies that will unlock new research capable of contextualizing,
and perhaps even rewriting, predictions such as those given by the Pentagon
last year.39

29.5   War and the Causes of Climate Change

Some of the most innovative research into past climates explores not how cli-
mate change affected warfare, but rather how those wars altered regional envi-
ronments and possibly global climate. Recently, geographers Simon Lewis and
Mark Maslin have argued that the “Anthropocene”—the proposed new geo-
logical epoch dominated by humans—began in 1610, and that it reflected a
relationship between conflict and cooling. After Columbus permanently joined
the Old and New Worlds in 1492, epidemic disease and colonization indirectly
killed more than 50 million Amerindians. Trees spread across a depopulated
landscape, pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. According to Lewis
and Maslin, the globe cooled as concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide
declined, and the subsequent worsening of the LIA was the first clear sign of a
human-dominated world.40
380 D. DEGROOT

Lewis and Maslin have built upon the 2003 theories of climatologist William
Ruddiman, who connected prehistoric burnings, the advent of agriculture, the
Columbian Exchange, and even waves of plague in Europe to changes in global
forest cover and subsequent shifts in the world’s climate. Some of these trans-
formations in land use were linked to the conduct of war. The links established
by Ruddiman have proven controversial, and some have been undermined by
new studies that suggest, for example, that soil absorbs carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere as it cools. In any case, since the 1950s, the so-called “great
acceleration” in humanity’s power over the Earth has at the very least resulted
in the intensification, or perhaps indeed the emergence, of climate-altering
means of fighting war. Despite programmes aimed at curbing its greenhouse
gas emissions, the US Department of Defense annually consumes more oil
than 160 countries.41

29.6   Conclusion
Today, the causes and characteristics of climate change and conflict are closely
connected. Using a range of different methods, scholars in many disciplines
have shown that these relationships have an ancient history. They have deter-
mined that climate change can provoke wars by causing resource shortages.
They have found that it can shape the conduct of wars by altering the avail-
ability of resources and the features of battlefields. They have even suggested
that conflict can trigger climate change by affecting the concentration of green-
house gases in the world’s atmosphere.42
Yet consensus about how these relationships actually unfolded has been hard to
come by. While scholars have largely established that climate change helped cause
conflict by provoking or worsening resource shortages, links between dearth,
popular or elite discontent, and societal instability are complex and controversial.
Even less certain are connections between an army’s supply of food, for example,
and its performance on the battlefield, or its susceptibility to the epidemic diseases
that so often hobbled pre-modern armies. There is little doubt that today militar-
ies contribute to global warming by emitting greenhouse gases, but past entangle-
ments among war, forest cover, and climate change are much trickier to unravel.
Ultimately, the specific circumstances of each war undermine attempts to find
universal principles relating climate change to conflict. It is perhaps by unravelling
the dizzying complexity of past connections between conflict and climate change
that scholars can best contribute to understandings of the present-day societal
consequences of climate change, and to projections of life in a warmer world.

Notes
1. Field et al., 2014, 20; Adger et al., 2014, 772.
2. Glete, 2000, 17; Lamb, 1995, 260; Bernstein et al., 2007, 30; Carey and
Garone, 2014, 292; Culver, 2014, 312; M.L. Parry et al., 2007.
3. Kelley et al., 2015, 3245; Zakieldeen, n.d., 14; Borger, 2007; Maystadt et al.,
2015, 649.
 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT 381

4. Gleditsch, 2012, 3.
5. Lamb, 1995, 287.
6. Fagan, 2000, 166; White, 2014, 350.
7. Diamond, 2005, 175; Turner and Sabloff, 2012, 13,913; Media-Elizalde and
Rohling, 2012, 958.
8. Brooke, 2014, 272, 297.
9. Brooke, 2014, 370.
10. Parker, 2013, 45.
11. Parker, 2013, 267.
12. White, 2011, 76, 294.
13. Endfield and O’Hara, 1997, 255; Endfield and O’Hara, 1999, 413; McNeill,
2003, 35; White, 2011, 76.
14. Zhang et al., 2005, 137; 2006, 464; 2007a, 404; 2010, 3746; Zhang and Lee,
2010, 64.
15. Zhang and Lee, 2010, 65; Zhang et al., 2005, 138; 2006, 462; 2010, 3745;
2007a, 407.
16. Tol and Wagner, 2010, 69; Lee et al., 2015, 10; Büntgen et al., 2011, 581.
17. Burke et al., 2009, 20,670; Hendrix and Salehyan, 2012, 35; Fjelde and von
Uexkullm, 2015, 444; Maystadt et al., 2015, 657.
18. Buhaug, 2010, 16,478; Burke et al., 2010a, 2; 2010b, E185; 2010c, E103;
Couttenier and Soubeyran, 2013, 219; O’Loughlin et al., 2012, 18,344; Sutton
et al., 2010, E102.
19. Zhang et al., 2007b, 19,214.
20. Buhaug, 2010, 16,478.
21. Tol and Wagner, 2010, 67; Zhang et al., 2010, 3746; O’Loughlin et al., 2014,
2054; Degroot, 2015, 471.
22. Zhang and Lee, 2010, 63; Zhang et al., 2007b, 19,214.
23. Zhang et al., 2011, 17,298.
24. Bai and Kung, 2010, 972.
25. Zhang et al., 2010, 3746; Bai and Kung, 2010, 971.
26. Büntgen et al., 2011; Sutton et al., 2010; Theisen et al., 2011; Theisen, 2012.
27. Hsiang and Burke, 2014.
28. Gartzke, 2012, 177; Slettebak, 2012a, 163, 2012b.
29. McNeill, 2008, 38; Bernauer and Siegfried, 2012, 227; Bernauer et al., 2012,
1.
30. McNeill, 2008, 40.
31. United States Department of Defense, 2014, 47.
32. Fagan, 2000, 92; Lamb, 1995, 218; Parker, 2013, 322.
33. Brown, 2001, 296; Neumann, 1978, 1432.
34. Winters et al., 2001, 74.
35. Webb, 1995, 87.
36. McNeill, 2010, 4, 59.
37. Degroot, 2014, 242, 272; see also Degroot, 2018.
38. Gates, 1965, 29; Steinberg, 2002, 95.
39. Noe, 2015, 25.
40. Lewis and Maslin, 2015.
41. Ruddiman, 2003, 284, 2007, 137; Hynes, 2011; Zabarenko, 2008; Goodell,
2015; Branagan, 2013.
42. Gleditsch, 2012, 5.
382 D. DEGROOT

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 CHAPTER 30

Narrating Indigenous Histories of Climate

Change in the Americas and Pacific

Thomas Wickman

30.1   Introduction
Scholars have told many different stories about the historical responses of
indigenous societies in the Americas and Pacific Islands to past changes in cli-
mate. The shapes of these narratives matter a great deal. Some scholars start
with climate history in the pre-settlement period but neglect the topic of cli-
mate change during the colonial and modern era, implying that climate shaped
Native societies only in the absence of Europeans. Recent scholarship has con-
nected oral traditions within longstanding Native communities as well as local
documentary evidence to the paleoclimatic and archaeological records, creat-
ing climate histories that emphasize adaptation and persistence. This latter
approach embraces the convergence between place-based indigenous histories
and scholarly climate histories.1
A conventional narrative structure tracking the climate-related rise and fall
of large indigenous societies remains influential, especially with popular audi-
ences, but this approach has several problems. Studies of the pre-settlement
past, without the aid of extensive written archives or oral tradition, have been
prone to dramatic narrative structures. Causal explanations of collapse—such
as the connections between drought and the end of classic Maya cities—tend
to make headlines, but they can obscure indigenous resilience. Histories of
large societies in ancient North America have also captured the public imagina-
tion. The Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA, c. 900–1300 ce) created condi-
tions for the spread and intensification of maize horticulture, thus helping to
explain the rise of indigenous urban sites such as Cahokia or ancestral Puebloan
dwellings, as well as rising populations elsewhere on the continent. Subsequent

T. Wickman (*)
Department of History, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 387

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_30
388 T. WICKMAN

droughts and the onset of the Little Ice Age (LIA, c. 1300–1850) tested these
gains, leading to the dispersal of mound builders and cliff dwellers and prompt-
ing migrations to lower latitudes and altitudes. Thus, even though such schol-
arship effectively persuades readers about the complexity of past indigenous
societies, it relegates that kind of story to a time before Europeans, and it
assumes that Native societies always have been highly vulnerable to climatic
changes.2
Innovative recent histories, by contrast, explore the complex interaction of
unstable climatic systems, new colonial regimes, and dynamic indigenous soci-
eties. As scholars such as anthropologist Julie Cruikshank and historian Natale
Zappia have demonstrated, present-day tribes remember some ancient reloca-
tions as beginnings, not endings. Tribal histories tend to include elements of
creative adaptation and unexpected collaboration with new indigenous neigh-
bors. Environmental stress prompted competition and warfare, but also set the
stage for invention, cooperation, and resilience. In some cases, histories of cli-
matic disruption double as stories of ethnogenesis, establishing lineages, sup-
porting land claims, and asserting sovereignty.3
One of the greatest strengths of the new scholarship on climate, history, and
indigenous peoples is its ability to reveal micro-adaptations and to embed sto-
ries of climatic change within detailed local landscapes. As historian Mark Carey
has observed, “climate models often have low resolution at local and even
regional scales, and this is precisely the scale at which indigenous observations
emerge.” Oral traditions survey long expanses of time, but reveal a rich history
centered on areas that outsiders have viewed as peripheral. Indigenous-­
authored documents such as legal petitions also reveal nuanced local responses
to regional, continental, and global climatic events. “Big histories” of human-
ity’s activities on this planet certainly have a role to play in contemporary
debates, but small histories about specific peoples or particular years should be
equally important to scholars, activists, politicians, and citizens.4
This chapter examines the kinds of stories that scholars have been telling
about climate history and indigenous agency. Climate historians structure
information into narratives, interpreting a range of oral traditions, pictorial
representations, written documents, archaeological findings, and proxy data.
As scholars have begun to analyze local indigenous responses to climate, their
stories have featured themes of continuous change, survival, and adaptation. If
early studies focused on collapse, newer work recovers evidence of resilience
and ongoing struggles for power and livelihood.5

30.2   Scope
To our knowledge, this chapter is the first synthesis of historiography on cli-
mate and indigenous peoples in the Americas and Pacific. The essay focuses on
scholarly perspectives and narrative themes, rather than summarizing all Native
peoples’ experiences. With 567 tribes recognized by the United States alone,
there are many climate histories yet to be researched. The chapter brings
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 389

together the findings of scholars who define their methodologies and

­institutional affinities in a variety of ways, not just as historical climatology or
climate history. Some scholars have produced groundbreaking work precisely
because they see themselves first as cultural anthropologists, historical geogra-
phers, ethnohistorians, or environmental historians. In the last ten to fifteen
years, scholars of all disciplines have become more conscious of global climate
change, and their growing concern has broadened and diversified the kinds of
approaches and perspectives within the field of climate history.6
This chapter reviews scholarship about indigenous peoples’ experiences of
climatic change in the Americas and Pacific Islands over approximately the last
six centuries, encompassing several phases of the LIA (see Chap. 23), examin-
ing multiple episodes related to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and
entering the present epoch of anthropogenic global warming. It proceeds
roughly from north to south, surveying the Arctic and subarctic, Atlantic coast
of North America, the American Southwest, Great Plains, Mexico, South
America, and the Pacific Islands.7
The meaning of “indigenous” often depends on complex local, regional,
and global contexts. This chapter focuses on homelands and territories in the
Americas and Pacific Islands that were invaded by European colonizers, high-
lighting indigenous peoples’ struggles with both climate and colonialism from
LIA encounters to contemporary struggles over fossil fuels. Rising awareness
of the unequal burdens of global warming has led many people within threat-
ened communities around the world to explore intersections between climate,
history, and indigeneity. Future reviews of historical scholarship in this vein
may define “traditional” or indigenous societies much more broadly.8

30.3   The Arctic and Subarctic

Long before American and Canadian scientists became interested in glaciers
and sea ice, indigenous societies acquired intimate knowledge and experience
of Arctic landscapes. The retreat of glaciers has become a symbol of our con-
temporary climate crisis, but scholars have shown that local populations have
oral traditions about dynamic glacial landscapes that stretch back centuries.
Oral histories preserve knowledge about past glacial activity that science has
subsequently confirmed, thus contributing to glaciology and historical clima-
tology. Yet these stories also have important cultural purposes, expressing
beliefs about sovereignty, respect for powerful natural forces, and cooperative
responses to climatic challenges.
Julie Cruikshank’s path-breaking book on indigenous relationships with
glaciers in north-western North America during the late phases of the LIA
exemplifies how oral tradition can illuminate climate history. First Nation peo-
ples of the Pacific Northwest tell stories of ancestors who traveled under and
over specific glaciers many generations ago. Some recount the first migrations
of a clan or tribe to a newly habitable area, where a wasting glacier opened up
the shoreline. Other stories warn that glaciers can listen, smell, and watch, so
390 T. WICKMAN

humans must learn how to behave properly in their presence. One such story
about a young woman punished by an advancing glacier has a larger political
purpose, too, as Cruikshank points out: “the image of the ‘woman in the gla-
cier’ remains the embodiment of the current Chookanedí clan title to Glacier
Bay.”9
Changes in sea ice have provided another locus for the study of climate and
indigenous societies. Anthropologists and Inuit community members do not
always define their work as historical, but they are interpreting rapid and com-
plex changes, usually within the broader context of longstanding tradition and
ancestral time stretching back centuries and millennia. As anthropologist
Claudio Aporta has stated, “sea ice is solid ‘ground,’ where people live their
lives and have a history”; sea ice contains “significant historical places for
Inuit,” and scholars have to ask highly localized questions, since “specific ice
ridges, or ice leads, may have ‘a history’.” Glacial movements and sea ice melt-
ing can obscure or obliterate archaeological evidence of human occupation,
which might “only be ‘reconstructed’ from people’s memories.” Recent schol-
arship also charts Inuit flexibility and resourcefulness through phases of both
mild and severe weather during the LIA.10
Global warming has caused unprecedented problems in Arctic environments
that have always been dangerous for people. In the twenty-first century, “the
ice is less reliable, ice-related hazards are more frequent, and accidents seem to
be on the rise.” Indigenous witnesses of the sea ice “are reporting delays in
freezing times, accelerating melting times, floe edges forming closer to shore,
less solid ice, and shorter ice travel seasons altogether.” But Inuit communities
want much more than the opportunity to give testimony. By establishing the
historicity of their practices and territories, Inuit peoples and scholars have
pursued targeted political goals and have informed worldwide debates about
climate justice reparations and Arctic sovereignty. For decades, Inuit leaders
have organized circumpolar indigenous nations and have articulated innovative
political concepts such as the “right to be cold.” The volume and sophistica-
tion of intellectual work being produced inside and outside the academy related
to far northern nations and climate changes promises to shape the study of
climate and indigenous societies in profound ways.11

30.4   Temperate North America

The story of LIA impacts and adaptations in eastern North America begins in
the pre-colonial period. For example, archaeologist William Fitzgerald has
argued that Neutral Iroquoians (Atiouandaronk) adapted to a changing cli-
mate before the fur trade transformed economic relations in north-eastern
North America and long before French colonial settlement. In the fifteenth
century, longhouses grew in length, beans became a key dietary component,
and white-tailed deer remains were rare at settlement sites. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, “the reliability of the protein-rich but cold-sensitive
bean was threatened by the colder climate of the Little Ice Age.” Longhouses
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 391

decreased in length, beans declined within diets, and deer hunting came to
compensate by supplying protein in the form of venison as well as hides for
warmth. Competition for hunting territories intensified, and therefore signs of
“cultural instability and turmoil” did not owe exclusively to the European
presence.12
While Neutrals sought to retain their territories by adopting a smaller-scale,
decentralized survival strategy, other Iroquioan groups migrated. The
Susquehannock relocated southward to the Chesapeake area in the late six-
teenth century. They survived climatic stresses by relying on a decentralized
matrilocal system of clans and kinship networks that ensured distribution of
scarce resources. Meanwhile, as historian James Rice has demonstrated,
Algonquian societies in the Chesapeake and Potomac held valuable territory by
concentrating authority. Centuries of maize production supported the rise of
hereditary chieftains, but population growth carried Algonquian societies past
“a point of no return.” LIA weather introduced new constraints to maize pro-
duction, and “in response, the people of the Potomac abandoned their rela-
tively egalitarian social and political orders in favor of powerful hereditary
chieftaincies supported by a priestly caste” in order to defend favorable maize-­
growing land from rivals and migrants.13
At the far northern margin of maize cultivation, historian Jason Hall has
uncovered ways in which the Maliseets of north-eastern Maine adapted to col-
onization and LIA climate change and continued to cultivate maize on a small
but sustainable scale. He argues that European observers—focused on the
coast and biased toward male activities—missed how Maliseet cultivators,
mainly women, found micro-environments and short-season varieties of maize
that could thrive despite the tight frost-free period. Maliseets also coped by
consuming a repertoire of other foods, including groundnuts and Jerusalem
artichokes.14 Such stories of local indigenous knowledge are a reminder that
Native inhabitants possessed centuries of experience in their homelands, a key
advantage over colonizers.
Colonialism, cold, and drought produced competition, war, and depopula-
tion in the Southwest as well, but historians such as Natale Zappia have identi-
fied numerous coping strategies, including niche specialization, resource
intensification, and increased involvement in regional trade networks. With
early LIA conditions, Mojave peoples in the late fourteenth century developed
technologies for storing and transporting food more efficiently. Yokut people
in southern California selectively burned oak forests to foster acorns and other
foraged foods, facilitate deer and elk hunting, and permit smooth travel.
Puebloan people drew on “long-standing alliances” and trade relationships
with Athapaskans who were hunting the growing bison herds on the southern
Plains (see below). By acquiring buffalo robes and moccasins, Puebloans broke
from tradition and dressed more appropriately for the severe cold of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries.15
Zappia has brought together a number of origin stories and migration sto-
ries from the American Southwest to underscore the ways in which storytellers
392 T. WICKMAN

recall climatic disruption and creative responses in the ancestral past. For
­example, Lake Cahuilla in southern California began to dry out during the
LIA. Cahuilla people migrated westward and witnessed several contractions
and expansions of the lake. Traditional Cahuilla stories and songs connect this
period of cyclical desiccation to “their own cultural genesis, locating the begin-
nings of their agricultural traditions in this period.” The emigration of the
Hohokam people from Pueblo Grande in the fourteenth and fifteenth centu-
ries has been presented as a story of collapse. However, present-day Akimel and
Tohono O’odham elders claim their peoples descend from Hohokam emi-
grants and commemorate those floods and droughts at Pueblo Grande by mak-
ing a biannual trip to a Hohokam shrine. Such stories exemplify the ability of
indigenous communities to transform past crises into lessons of resilience, and
to resist narratives of climatic determinism and decline. Similarly, Puebloan
people have stayed connected to ancestral villages at Chaco Canyon and Mesa
Verde, viewing those sites as sacred points of origin.16
Adaptation to prior climatic disruptions only partly prepared indigenous
societies for colonial invasions during periods of severe weather. As historian
Sam White has shown, Pueblo resistance to Spanish entradas in the American
Southwest must be understood within the context of severely cold winter
weather. In the Tiguex War over the winter of 1540–1 and the Acoma Massacre
of January 1599, conflict arose when Spanish soldiers and Native Mexican aux-
iliaries stole cotton blankets and turkeys (used for feather coats). Drought and
maize shortages contributed to indigenous hostility toward invading soldiers
and settlers demanding food. However, “the struggle for warmth, even more
than food,” framed these early conflicts. Climate and colonialism did some-
times combine to unleash “violence over the land,” but climate nearly as often
interfered with colonial expansion. Spanish unpreparedness for cold and
drought slowed the process of settlement, and accidents of weather and climate
made the land appear less valuable for colonization.17
European expansion in the Americas faltered at many junctures because of
the combined challenges of climatic fluctuations and indigenous resistance (see
Chap. 24). Several early colonial ventures in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries took place during decades of drought or extreme cold. For instance,
the Spanish beachhead of Santa Elena (present-day Parris Island, South
Carolina) lasted only from 1566 to 1587. Historian Karen Paar has argued that
a “period of abundant rain” in the 1570s permitted indigenous communities
to create food stores that fueled indigenous resistance, particularly a 1576
uprising by Guale, Orista, and Escamazu. Then a serious drought starting in
1583 prompted many indigenous leaders to shift course and ally themselves
with the Spanish. However, the combination of indigenous resistance and
adverse climate gave the impression Santa Elena was not worth defending.18
English encampments at Baffin’s Bay, Roanoke, and Sagadahoc never became
lasting colonies either, and not just because of inclement weather: mortality
crises among settlers and outright colonial abandonment during the LIA often
reflected successful indigenous resistance as well. The limited success of
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 393

European colonization owed to Native accommodation, and eventually to

Native migration, disease, and war. Several scholars have recently examined
struggles among indigenous communities and European colonies in the early
seventeenth century; historians of early America should carry the story forward
through the long colonial period.19
For example, there have been comparatively few climate histories of the
widespread extreme weather, food shortage, disease, and indigenous rebellion
during the 1680s and 1690s. In the American Southwest, a 1680 Pueblo revolt
ousted the Spanish from the region for over a decade. The revolt was preceded
by a regional drought and famine. Climatic conditions initially favored indig-
enous rebels, but the return of Spanish colonial rule coincided with terrible
weather in the 1690s. In the Northeast, meanwhile, I have argued in a recent
article that Native mobility in wintertime presented a challenge to colonial
control. At first, the severe cold of the 1690s favored Wabanaki winter raiding
parties in north-eastern North America. The Second Anglo-Wabanaki War
(1688–99), combined with disease and food shortages, sorely tested colonial
settlements in northern New England. Initial defeats prompted English leaders
to equip their soldiers with snowshoes, an indigenous technology, in the early
eighteenth century. At the heart of the continent, the grand village of Kaskaskia
emerged at just this time of climatic stress as well. According to historian
Robert Morrissey, Kaskaskia reveals the “power of the ecotone,” a territory of
edge habitats that were particularly rich and diverse. Possession of this transi-
tional area facilitated lucrative trade between two vastly different ecological
zones: prairies filled with bison and fields on one side and forests yielding maize
and pelts on the other. Indigenous leaders consolidated rule over tens of thou-
sands of people in Kaskaskia at a time when a diversified economy and food
supply likely created an important hedge against climate-related disaster. Such
examples illustrate the contingencies and instability of indigenous power dur-
ing this period of climatic change.20
The early and late phases of the LIA also bookend Pekka Hämäläinen’s epic
narrative of the rise and fall of the Comanche empire on North America’s Great
Plains. Hämäläinen frames the story of indigenous power in terms of climatic,
ecological, cultural, economic, and political variables affecting bison hunts and
horse raising. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century cool, wet weather began
to have a “pull” effect, enticing bison onto the Plains and allowing the bison
population to grow rapidly. What followed was “one of the greatest [human]
migrations in the history of North America.” Responding to new opportuni-
ties, a number of indigenous societies moved permanently onto the Plains to
follow the herds throughout the year. In the eighteenth century, Comanches
on the southern Plains combined bison hunting with horse raiding, and con-
solidated their territories into a vast steppe empire. Comanches hedged against
climatic instability by displacing risk onto other indigenous peoples, replenish-
ing their stocks of horses through raids, and acquiring plant foods through
trade. When one neighboring community lost horses to winter kill or experi-
enced crop failure from frost or drought, Comanches knew they could obtain
394 T. WICKMAN

steeds or corn from another client. Meanwhile, Comanches calibrated their

seasonal mobility to stay within the range of migratory bison herds and to pro-
vide sufficient sustenance and shelter for their horses. Such subtle calibrations,
though hard to document, remain crucial to understanding Native adaptations
to climatic change.21
Likewise, historian Theodore Binnema has demonstrated how indigenous
peoples on the Northwestern Plains pursued large communal bison hunts dur-
ing the cold, snowy winters of the LIA. Horses struggled over the longer win-
ters at these higher latitudes: “Cree and Assiniboine bands in areas of the
northeastern plains often released their horse herds at the beginning of the
winter and collected any survivors they could find in late winter … In severe
winters the Blackfoot often tried to rest weak horses by relying on dogs.”
During these colder months, pedestrian hunters could gather in large groups
to use pounds or jumps to catch bison. Indians used fire to protect rich fescue
grasslands from forest encroachment, helping secure a key source of winter for-
age for bison. Nevertheless, both mild and severe winters could present prob-
lems. Months of cold and snow in 1788–9 and 1800–1 produced unusually
high bison mortality. Yet warm, dry winters “scattered” bison herds; “large
bands could not depend on communal hunts and small bands could not kill
enough animals to sustain their members.”22
Adam Hodge has examined the role of climate change during a smallpox
outbreak on the Northern Plains from 1780 to 1782. Records of Hudson’s
Bay Company traders living along the Saskatchewan River include reports of
smallpox and starvation among mobile groups of Blackfeet, Assiniboine,
Lakota Sioux, and Cree hunters. Indigenous informants showed up at trading
posts, reported hunger, and requested provisions. Plains societies also kept
winter counts, or hide paintings that registered one or more salient events from
each year. Hodge has correlated findings from these different primary sources
with available tree-ring data. He tentatively argues that “climate fluctuations in
the years preceding the 1780 epidemic decreased bison populations, which in
turn increased malnutrition among migratory groups, rendering them more
vulnerable to smallpox.” Mild winter weather during the winters of 1779–80
and 1780–1 seems to have compelled Native hunters “to search more widely
for food,” creating fatigue that might have lowered their immune defenses and
putting them in contact with neighboring bands carrying the smallpox virus.
The return of cold, snowy weather at the end of 1781–2 alleviated food scar-
city. The clearest lesson from the case study is that climatic fluctuations in both
directions can present challenges to mobile societies, sometimes activating
feedback loops between food shortage and disease.23
Climate seems to have contributed to the decline of indigenous power on
the Plains during the nineteenth century. From 1845 to the mid-1860s, dry
weather became the norm, with only a brief, wet interlude in 1850. Comanches
prioritized their own access and their horses’ access to “forage and water …
thus blocking the bison’s access to their drought refuges … Already strained by
grazing competition and human predation and now left to endure the drought
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 395

without the vital resources of the river valleys, Comancheria’s bison herds
­collapsed.” Comanches may not have recognized the turning point at the time,
since bison herds had rebounded after droughts of the 1770s–80s. The crucial
problem was not only climate but also the scale of Comancheria by the 1850s:
“too many Comanches (and their allies) raising too many horses and hunting
too many bison on too small a land base.” In some ways, therefore, Hämäläinen
has written yet another narrative of the climatically influenced rise and fall of an
indigenous empire, but a more richly documented and less climatically deter-
minist story.24
Climate history has also contributed to Native American history of the
twentieth century. Historian Marsha Weisiger has examined how federal offi-
cials and scientists sometimes lacked the local, long-term perspective needed to
understand environmental crises in indigenous communities. In the 1930s, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and other federal agencies blamed Diné pasto-
ralists for an apparent environmental crisis in Navajo Country. Weisiger used
tree-ring evidence to illustrate how natural and cultural factors in the American
Southwest came together in the early twentieth century to mislead officials.
Severe drought in 1899–1905, followed by extremely wet weather until 1920,
had lasting effects in the region, carving arroyos (gullies) into the landscape.
New Deal conservationists downplayed natural climate change and blamed
Diné sheep and goats, even though the gullies appeared across the southern
Colorado plateau and not just in grazing areas. Diné communities had success-
fully expanded their herds during the rainy period, and these animals did exac-
erbate desertification occurring in Navajo Country. Weisiger’s careful
interpretation, however, shows that punctuated climate fluctuations caused the
most extreme changes. Federal officials had little interest in Diné local ecologi-
cal knowledge, and instead promoted a narrative of gradual indigenous degra-
dation of rangelands followed by timely intervention and reform. In 1933, new
BIA commissioner John Collier ordered stock reduction and instituted a sys-
tem of grazing permits, irreparably harming his relationship with Navajo lead-
ers and unintentionally undermining his agenda to promote Navajo
self-determination. Weisiger’s story is an important cautionary tale, implicitly
calling on scholars and officials to take the time to understand culturally spe-
cific beliefs and practices in order to support tribes as they find their own solu-
tions to climatic crises.25

30.5   Mexico
Colonial Mexico has received detailed examination by climate historians, yet
scholarly approaches have varied significantly (see Chap. 19 ). A “megadrought”
in the mid-sixteenth century devastated some indigenous communities. Early
studies described its impact as depopulation and even “megadeath.” However,
two recent studies have examined the contingencies and specificities of climate
in colonial Mexico in greater depth at the local and regional levels.26
396 T. WICKMAN

In Climate and Society in Colonial Mexico, historical geographer Georgina

Endfield has crafted a comparative history of vulnerability and adaptation in
three regions of LIA Mexico, revealing a range of coping strategies among
indigenous peoples struggling with colonialism and a changing climate.
Drawing on archival evidence, Endfield connects sudden events like rebellions
with weather and climate, and identifies the cultural resources and political
approaches that buffered communities against extremes. The book also consid-
ers the “net benefits that might be derived from climatic changes” and “reduc-
tion in some risks” over time. Two key periods stand out in Endfield’s narrative.
In the 1690s, harvests failed, food prices soared, and disease and famine struck
many communities. Not by coincidence, it was “one of the most important
phases of indigenous rebellion in the entire colonial period.” By the middle of
the eighteenth century, colonial engineering projects altered waterways and
provoked complaints about pollution and unfair distribution. Flooding on
these waterways set the stage for dramatic confrontations between indigenous
communities and the colonial government.27
Indigenous communities in Endfield’s three case studies—Oaxaca,
Guanajuato, and Chihuahua—dealt with different environmental and politi-
cal situations, and experienced different outcomes. The indigenous societies
of Chihuahua practiced a highly mobile lifestyle, engaged in “more or less
continual warfare,” and took advantage of climatic fluctuations in order to
protect their livelihoods and raid sedentary neighbors. In Guanajuato, the
colony’s most prolific grain-producing region, successive droughts destabi-
lized indigenous communities; over time flooding became the central point
of conflict between indigenous and Spanish residents. In contrast, indigenous
residents of Oaxaca coped comparatively well.28 Although poor residents in
Oaxaca suffered occasional food shortages, indigenous communities used a
repertoire of coping strategies to avoid the severe crises. They retained a large
land base, continued to cultivate subsistence crops, and leveraged specialized
skills to generate supplemental income. Needy community members bene-
fited from traditional common funds designed for local relief during food
shortages. Residents took legal action to protest unfair water distribution and
secure rights to relocate to better land. Oaxacans drew on tradition but also
learned new lessons from the extremes of LIA and passed them to new
generations.29
Historian Bradley Skopyk has made an even more focused study of colonial
Tlaxcala in the central Mexican highlands. Drawing on Nahuatl-language and
Spanish colonial documents, Skopyk’s study highlights indigenous agency and
the sustainability of indigenous agrosystems during the LIA, including two
early periods of severe environmental stress in 1542–63 and 1595–1625.
Indigenous farming techniques and social practices helped mitigate crises, and
their carefully monitored landscapes showed the capacity to regenerate. Over
the course of the seventeenth century, however, Tlaxcalan farmers created new
landscapes of maguey (agave) in order to produce pulque (an alcoholic drink) on
an ever-larger scale. This exposed indigenous communities to market ­volatility
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 397

and the natural vulnerabilities of monoculture. In 1680–1710, severe drought

and cold weather coincided with a major measles epidemic. The new agrosys-
tem proved less resilient than previous sources of indigenous livelihood, and
severe weather resulted in widespread erosion, food shortages, livestock die-
offs, temporary abandonment of degraded land, and colonial land expropria-
tion. Moreover, hydrological reengineering during the eighteenth century
further exacerbated flooding. Skopyk is able to establish these claims by examin-
ing a region in such detail that he knows Nahua place names, the specific con-
tours of the terrain, and the particularities of weather from year to year.30

30.6   South America

Many of South America’s indigenous communities have lived in regions acutely
affected by natural climate variation and current global warming. ENSO events
destabilized large indigenous societies like the Moche (c. 200–600 ce) on the
Pacific coast. Further inland, sharp differences in elevation and a patchwork of
micro-climates make it difficult to generalize about Andean experiences of cli-
matic changes. Dry conditions from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries may
have weakened Tiwanaku society, but one study has argued that moderate cli-
matic conditions during roughly the same period (spanning the late MCA and
early LIA) contributed to the ascendancy of the Inca Empire. Andean peoples,
accustomed to irrigating fields and growing a wide variety of crops, expanded
the range of cultivation uphill during warmer times. Agroforestry techniques
ensured adequate stores of building material and fuel, which became more
crucial with colder weather. Alpacas and llamas likely did well in cool wet
weather characteristic of the LIA, providing a buffer for Native herders. In
negotiations with colonial officials, moreover, indigenous plaintiffs could cite
local environmental knowledge, including of weather patterns and micro-­
climates, to buttress claims to ancestral lands. Scholars are only beginning to
examine the climatic context of colonial South America, such as disastrous
droughts and floods that struck the silver mining center of Potosí in 1626, or
the avalanche of ice that destroyed the town of Ancash in 1725. With extensive
colonial archives and recently available proxy data, as well as rich oral histories
and vibrant traditional ecological knowledge among indigenous communities,
climate historians studying colonial South America have opportunities for col-
laboration and many histories left to tell (see Chap. 19).31
For nineteenth-century Latin America the most memorable climatic event
remains the 1877–9 El Niño. Adjacent regions in South America experienced
radically different conditions: rain and floods affected coastal Peru and Ecuador,
even as drought devastated the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia. In the arid inte-
rior region of north-eastern Brazil, the sertão, failures of rainfall during the
southern winter (April to September) created severe droughts that deepened
during dry southern summers (October to March). Writer and activist Mike
Davis has situated the 1877–9 disaster in north-eastern Brazil within global
processes of political economy, but at the time many Brazilians of indigenous
398 T. WICKMAN

descent interpreted the events within regional political and historical contexts.
Mixed-race sertanejos left the dry interior for the coast, and mortality soared as
smallpox spread in overcrowded refugee camps. According to geographer
César Caviedes, this pattern of migration had deep roots in Brazil. Beginning
in the sixteenth century, indigenous people in northern Brazil relocated to the
sertão in response to Portuguese colonization, and sertanejos became “adept at
coping with the climatic extremes.” Yet once human and livestock populations
grew, droughts drove refugees and raiding parties into urban areas. In 1692,
for example, indigenous raiders attacked Portuguese settlements during a
drought, causing colonial outmigration to Minas Gerais. Droughts in the eigh-
teenth century “became more frequent and more devastating,” with the most
severe episode lasting from 1723 to 1727. The persistent legacies of these prior
instances of migration and violence in response to droughts partly explain why
urban distrust of rural peoples again produced suffering among descendants of
indigenous Brazilians in the late nineteenth century. The magnitude of the
1877–9 crisis led to multiple kinds of displacement within Brazil. As Caviedes
remarks, climatic crises in 1877–9 and again in 1942 also prompted major
waves of migration of nordestinos to the Amazon basin, indirectly creating new
pressures on indigenous communities there.32
Since the twentieth century, South America’s indigenous populations have
coped with the effects of global warming. Mark Carey has documented how
a range of stakeholders, including indigenous farmers and shepherds in the
Andean highlands, have thought about and responded to glacial melting.
During the mid-twentieth century, the problem of melting glaciers brought
indigenous community members into more frequent dialogue with national
and provincial government officials, as well as glaciologists, engineers, devel-
opers, and eventually tourists.33 Although indigeneity is not Carey’s primary
interest, he reveals how indigenous communities had coping strategies in
place well before the 1940s. Rural residents of the region managed “crop-
lands and pastures that extend far into Cordillera Blanca canyons, right to the
edge of glaciers.” Yet, as Carey notes, “this rural population actually was less
affected by glacier disasters than were the urban residents.” Guided by oral
traditions and rituals that construed “glaciers and glacial lakes as enchanted
or capable of acting out against people,” indigenous peoples actively “stayed
away from alpine peaks and lakes” and “lived outside hazard zones where
floods and avalanches could pass.” By taking seriously indigenous ways of
knowing and relating to glaciers, Carey reveals “a discursive construction of
the Andean environment and its processes.” At glacial lakes, indigenous peo-
ple presented offerings of rima rima flowers or threw salt into the water “to
tame what they called chúkaro, a Quechua term meaning ‘raw nature.’” In
one sense, the rituals expressed a hope that humans “could help pacify nature
so long as this was done according to proper local customs instead of through
force or blind transgressions.” In another sense, they were a warning: “stay
away from the lake.”34
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 399

Carey closely interprets cultural responses to a sudden, climate-related catas-

trophe: the outburst flood that struck Huaraz, Peru on December 13, 1941.
The state-led recovery plan romanticized indigenous knowledge but also
­marginalized indigenous communities. Spanish speakers circulated stories of
rural residents appearing to warn residents of Huaraz about the flood, perpetu-
ating tropes that rural indigenous people were a part of nature, excluded from
modern history except when they could critique or interpret unusual events.
The flood created opportunities for cooperation, but by destroying the struc-
tures that segregated creoles and indigenous peoples, it also raised upper-class
anxieties about crime and looting. In the aftermath, some opposed plans to
rebuild in the flood’s path, citing indigenous practices. Most urban residents,
however, envisioned a rebuilt Huaraz as a symbol of “progress and modernity.”
Actual indigenous communities had a harder time securing relief or reform
after the flood. Officials in Lima lagged in responding to indigenous concerns,
giving priority to urban constituencies.35
Carey has also examined how climate change has brought rural indigenous
communities into dialogue with scientists. “Whereas few outsiders had any
interest in or control over the country’s glaciated mountains in 1940, locals
have since lost power and today comprise just one among many stakeholders in
the high Andes—and perhaps the least powerful.” At times, rural Andeans have
been deeply skeptical of glaciologists. Farmers around Lake Auquiscocha, for
example, attributed drought to a rain gauge that experts had installed to mea-
sure precipitation below melting glaciers. Locals quietly removed the rain
gauge then forcibly prevented technicians from reinstalling it, asserting control
over their environment. These examples show indigenous Andeans as more
than “just passive victims of historical processes beyond their control.”
Indigenous participation in climate change discussions has not fit neatly into
“rigid local versus national, expert versus Indian, or coast versus highland
demarcations.” Moreover, scholarship such as Carey’s raises awareness of
indigenous stakeholders in Peru and elsewhere.36

30.7   Pacific Islands

Pacific Island societies have also been affected by global changes in average
temperatures, including the MCA, LIA, and anthropogenic warming. Yet
because the Pacific world is extremely sensitive to ENSO cycles, stories about
climatic change and indigenous societies emphasize frequent swings and sud-
den crises.
Like indigenous peoples in other areas of the world, Pacific Island nations
experienced favorable conditions during the MCA, followed by a LIA combina-
tion of colder climate, more frequent storms, and a fall in sea level. LIA phenom-
ena presented challenges for all residents in the indigenous Pacific, but societies
living on the coastlines of the North, Central, and South American mainland
often coped better than islanders because continental residents had greater
400 T. WICKMAN

options to relocate inland. In spite of the vast distances and incredible diversity
within the Native Pacific, geographer Patrick Nunn has identified four LIA
trends affecting Pacific Islanders beginning c. 1300–1400 ce: conflict, decentral-
ization, reduced contact between islands, and new patterns in resource use.37
In New Zealand, several noticeable changes have been dated to around
1450, including migration away from the coasts and a reduction in both sea-
food harvesting and horticulture. Around this time, evidence of intentional
fires indicates increased reliance on the edible bracken fern, which Nunn calls a
LIA staple food in pre-settlement New Zealand. On some islands in the Pacific,
people responded to warfare by taking up residence at hilltop sites and in caves,
adjacent to marginal lands for cultivation. Hawaiians seem to have encountered
milder LIA conditions, and coped with changes by constructing fishponds.
Meanwhile, environmental historian Ryan T. Jones has shown that in the
northern Pacific “a strong Aleutian Low storm system fostered a strong oce-
anic orientation,” since LIA climatic patterns increased certain marine mammal
populations. Indigenous people participated in their commercial overhunting,
and when warmer conditions returned in the late nineteenth century, pressure
on these animals increased.38
Environmental historian Gregory Cushman has chronicled indigenous
responses to repeated La Niña droughts on central Pacific Islands. Oral history
from the equatorial island of Banaba tells how the earliest settlers survived the
first droughts by following land crabs to limestone caverns with pools of water,
and how community regulations ensured water conservation and social welfare
during drought. Banabans also looked for weather signs, such as the arrival of
tarakura (frigatebirds), “which foretell the arrival of small black rain clouds”
associated with the reversal of the equatorial current. Increasing Euro-American
influence in the Pacific world during the nineteenth century introduced new
problems and new options during droughts. During periods of ENSO-related
scarcity in the early 1860s, early 1870s, and early 1890s, labor recruiters recruited
Banabans and other Pacific Islanders as indentured workers to harvest guano in
South America or Pacific atolls. Around half never returned. Later, under Japanese
occupation during World War II, indigenous people on Banaba suffered starva-
tion, mass executions, and deportation. The impacts of wartime atrocities were
exacerbated by La Niña conditions in 1942. Diasporic pressures make it difficult
to keep these stories intact at the turn of the twenty-first century, but leaders such
as Raobeia “Ken” Sigrah have been doing just that, against great odds.39
Histories of indigenous persistence in the face of climatic challenges have
become crucial to twenty-first century Pacific Island nations asserting their sov-
ereignty in the face of new climate crises. Insular societies in the past may have
suffered more from climate change and colonialism, as Nunn has argued, because
it was difficult to relocate to a large hinterland. Nevertheless, many of these
island peoples would have stayed on their traditional lands for cultural reasons.
Many present-day Pacific Islanders have explicitly resisted identification as future
“climate refugees” in need of assistance to emigrate (see Chap. 31).40
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 401

30.8   Indigenous Knowledge and Contemporary

Research
Scholarship on anthropogenic climate change and the origins of the
Anthropocene has been slow to incorporate indigenous knowledge. This
apparent reluctance is ironic since this research has highlighted how indige-
nous peoples transformed environments and possibly altered global climate
over millennia, and since traditional stories organize natural and social histori-
cal information over long periods of time.41 In a widely cited essay on climate
change and the Anthropocene, historian Dipesh Chakrabarty has explored new
convergences between natural and human histories. Many indigenous leaders
and intellectuals have long rejected any separation between the two. When
indigenous leaders in the twenty-first century hold industrialized nations
responsible for altering the global climate, they are often expressing their com-
munities’ longstanding convictions about humans’ reciprocal relationships
with the natural world.42
Traditional stories passed down across many generations carry climate histo-
ries that go back centuries. Some stories can be connected to evidence from the
archives of nature, and other stories can supplement proxy-based climate
reconstructions. As Mark Carey has argued, “elders and climate experts in
indigenous communities possess knowledge accumulated over many genera-
tions that often focuses on areas without any scientific instruments to measure
or observe the processes or impacts of climate change.” At the same time, tribal
storytellers continue educating new generations about how humans have
always had profound effects on the natural world.43
Some of these stories now incorporate recent urbanization and industrializa-
tion. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, indigenous communities vari-
ously opposed or participated in the fossil fuel economy, and were among the
first to feel the disruptions of a warming climate. Energy historian Andrew
Needham’s history linking Navajo coal mines and electricity production for the
city of Phoenix in the 1960s and 1970s is just one story of these rapid upheav-
als in Indian country. Mark Carey has remarked that scholars “have a record of
how societies have been responding” to global warming for at least “a century
and a half.” Indigenous communities have been an important but overlooked
part of that record.44
In the twenty-first century, indigenous climate justice activists make up a
dynamic and influential trans-national political movement, and scholars and
community members are beginning to recover and fashion a usable past for this
moment of crisis, protest, and reform. Scholars from outside these communi-
ties have an opportunity to enrich public dialogue, activism, and policy by
documenting indigenous climate histories; their work should take into account
implications for contemporary communities with livelihoods and sovereignty
at stake. Or it may be that indigenous scholars will lead the way in writing and
synthesizing Native-centered climate histories, building on deep traditions of
402 T. WICKMAN

reflection about environmental change and human responsibility that now

interest scholars more broadly.45

30.9   Conclusion
In the last decade, an interdisciplinary scholarly field has coalesced around the
historical study of climate and indigenous societies. Two major factors have
energized this field: advances in historical climatology and indigenous leader-
ship in worldwide debates over responses to climate change. Anthropologists,
geographers, and historians have not only connected oral traditions and docu-
mentary archives to new tree-ring, pollen, and ice-core analyses; increasingly,
scholars in the humanities and social sciences have attempted to bring their
interpretive methods in line with the stated values and aims of tribal communi-
ties. Working in collaboration or consultation with indigenous intellectuals and
political leaders, scholars are finding new ways of telling climate histories.
Humanistic studies can complement climate reconstruction and correct
climatic determinist explanations of history, including indigenous history. In
some ways, histories of agriculturally oriented Native empires such as the
Maya opened the way for the study of climate and indigenous societies. Yet
such studies of the rise and fall of indigenous empires have created a template
that does not fit all Native societies. Scholars writing smaller, more focused
climate histories of indigenous communities have moved beyond old narra-
tives of collapse. Historians, geographers, anthropologists, and archaeologists
closely analyze Native ways of knowing, deciding, adapting, and remember-
ing in order to understand history of climate and indigenous peoples as
though from the inside. In many cases, printed and archival sources in
European languages are rich with information about indigenous activities in
the midst of past climatic upheavals. Yet, as the work reviewed here under-
scores, competence in Native languages may prove essential to understand
memories and meanings of historical climate change. Studies relying on oral
history and on documents written in Native languages have displayed a special
ability to recover stories of indigenous resilience and adaptation. As scholars
aim to recover and analyze insiders’ perspectives, the history of indigenous
responses to past climate changes can be quite different from the bird’s-eye
view provided by proxy data alone.46
Taken together, these smaller histories have diversified the kinds of stories
that count as climate history. It is harder than ever to generalize about the
effects of the LIA or the El Niño Southern Oscillation. In some ways, local
histories about indigenous peoples make it impossible to tell a unified narrative
about climatic crises and human responses. Yet the very heterogeneity of these
stories should be considered a strength, and work in this subfield promises to
invigorate the larger field of climate history in coming years.47
NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 403

Notes
1. For exemplary recent books reviewed below, authored respectively by an anthro-
pologist, geographer, and three historians, see Cruikshank, 2005; Endfield,
2008; Carey, 2010; Cushman, 2013; Zappia, 2014.
2. On Mayan society, see Demarest, 2004; Gill, 2000; Webster, 2002; Haug et al.,
2003; Peterson and Haug, 2005; Pringle, 2009. On Cahokia, see Benson et al.,
2009; Calloway, 2003, 99, 103. On ancestral Puebloans, see Benson et al.,
2007. On the MCA, see also Fagan, 2008; Foster, 2012; Richter, 2011;
Anderson, 2001; Jones et al., 1999; Stine, 1998. On the “convergence” and
“complementarity” of archaeology and oral tradition, in addition to those cited
below, see Crowell and Howell, 2013, 3.
3. Zappia, 2014, 18–40; Cruikshank, 2005.
4. Carey, 2012, 239. For big history, see Brooke, 2014. On narrative, see Endfield
and Daniels, 2009; Cronon, 1992.
5. For relevant surveys of global climate history, see Carey, 2012, 2014; White,
2012. For North American climate history, see White et al., 2015. For Latin
American climate history, see Prieto and García-Herrera, 2009; Diaz and Stahle,
2007; Cushman, forthcoming. For Pacific climate history, see Nunn, 2007. For
a review of historical geography, see Offen, 2014.
6. On cultural diversity, see especially Salick and Ross, 2009. On indigenous
knowledge and climate, see especially Green and Raygorodetsky, 2010.
7. For the Caribbean, not covered here, see Cushman, forthcoming. For limited
attention to sixteenth-century indigenous knowledge of hurricanes and climatic
phenomena in the Caribbean, see Schwartz, 2015, 5–9, 23–4, 36–7; Mulcahy,
2006, 14–16, 21, 34–35, 37, 40, 51.
8. On indigenous activists and tribal members responding to global warming, and
the consequences for climate history, see especially Carey, 2012, 239. On tradi-
tional peoples and climate change, see Salick and Ross, 2009. For African cli-
mate history, see McCann, 1999; Webb, 1995. For Australia, see Anderson,
2016.
9. Cruikshank, 2005, 8, 31, 39. See also Cruikshank, 2001.
10. Aporta, 2011, 9, 10, 16; Kaplan and Woollett, 2000; Crowell and Howell,
2013.
11. Aporta, 2011, 12; Wright, 2014; Bravo, 2009; Wilson and Smith, 2011; Watt-
Cloutier, 2015.
12. Fitzgerald, 2012, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 46.
13. Rice, 2009, 12, 30–31, 45, 48–49; Halttunen, 2011, 520–21. See also Richter,
1992.
14. Hall, 2015.
15. Zappia, 2014, 32, 36, 38, 42; Carter, 2009, 52, 69–74.
16. Zappia, 2014, 28–29, 35–36; Carter, 2009, 40.
17. White, 2014; Van West et al., 2013; Blackhawk, 2006. See also White, 2015;
Spicer, 1962.
18. Paar, 2009; Blanton, 2013; White, 2017.
19. Mancall, 2009, 2013; Kupperman, 2007; Bilodeau, 2014; Stahle et al., 1998;
Blanton, 2000, 2004; Grandjean, 2011; Piper and Sandlos, 2007; Parker, 2013;
White, 2017.
404 T. WICKMAN

20. Anderson, 1999, 16–17, 24, 59–61; Carter, 2009, 184–87; Knaut, 1995, 61,
161–62, 183; Ivey, 1994; Blackhawk, 2006; Wickman, 2015; Morrissey, 2015a,
2015b, 2015c.
21. On the way LIA conditions attracted human migration onto the Plains, see
Hämäläinen, 2008, 22, 2010, 177; Calloway, 2003, 272. On Comanches’
evolving ecological strategy and migration patterns, see Hämäläinen, 2010,
176, 177, 183, 187, 194, 196. On the winter vulnerability of horses, see
Hämäläinen, 2008, 240, 2010, 193–95.
22. Binnema, 2001, 19, 21, 24, 32, 47, 48, 49, 50, 141, 142, 143, 153.
23. Hodge, 2012, 366, 368, 374, 376–77, 382–83, 386–87. On winter counts, see
also Gallo and Wood, 2015; Fenn, 2014; Therrell and Trotter, 2011; Greene
and Thornton, 2007. For a study of Northwest Alaska around the same period,
see Jacoby et al., 1999.
24. Hämäläinen, 2008, 296, 297, 361; Jacoby, 2013.
25. Weisiger, 2009, 43–7, 131, 138–40, 163, 239.
26. Stahle et al., 2000; Acuña-Soto et al., 2002, 2004.
27. Endfield, 2008, 96, 127, 154.
28. Endfield, 2008, 8, 13, 112, 126.
29. Endfield, 2008, 15, 66–69, 82–84, 87.
30. Skopyk, 2010, iv, v, 5, 6, 10, 16, 18, 19, 26, 46.
31. Fagan, 2008; Binford et al., 1997; Cushman, 2015, 40–41, 57–63, 66–78;
Carey, 2012, 236; Chepstow-Lusty et al., 2009; Miller, 2007, 41–2; Carey,
2010, 35; Gregory Cushman, personal communication, 28 September 2015;
Cushman, forthcoming. See also Young and Lipton, 2006.
32. Cushman, 2013, 70; Aceituno et al., 2009; Caviedes, 2001, 100–08. On the
1877–79 crises around the world, see Davis, 2001. On ENSO, see also Fagan,
2008; Sandweiss and Quilter, 2008; Davis, 2001; Glantz, 2001.
33. Carey, 2010, 5, 24.
34. Carey, 2010, 15, 47, 48, 50.
35. Carey, 2010, 36, 42, 50–1, 54–5.
36. Carey, 2010, 4, 5, 15, 40, 44, 177.
37. Nunn, 2007, 121, 136, 140; Goodwin et al., 2014. See also Nunn and Britton,
2001; Jones, 2014b, 126.
38. Nunn, 2007, 137–38, 142, 149. On the northern Pacific, see Jones, 2014a,
2014b, 126, 130.
39. Cushman, 2013, 21, 85–6, 96, 109, 112, 114, 116–17, 230–31.
40. McNamara and Gibson, 2009; Farbotko and Lazrus, 2012.
41. Lewis and Maslin, 2015; Steffen et al., 2007; Ruddiman, 2005.
42. Chakrabarty, 2009.
43. Carey, 2012, 239; Green and Raygorodetsky, 2010.
44. Needham, 2014; Carey, 2010, 5. See also Aijazi and David, 2015; Chamberlain,
2000; Sabin, 1998; Santiago, 1998.
45. Maldonado et al., 2013; Klein, 2014; Grossman and Parker, 2012; Turner and
Clifton, 2009.
46. Cruikshank, 2005; Skopyk, 2010.
47. Carey, 2012; 2014.
 NARRATING INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS… 405

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 CHAPTER 31

Migration and Climate in World History

Franz Mauelshagen

31.1   Introduction
Historians of migration have worked out all kinds of economic and social
models to better explain their subject. Chain migration, social capital, and
family networks have been very much the focus recently, while climate has
remained more or less absent.1 “Environmental migration,” “climate migra-
tion,” and related concepts such as “environmental degradation” and “envi-
ronmental destruction” are sometimes mentioned in typologies of migration,
or else referred to in concluding remarks about the future of migration.2
Beyond that, histories of migration occasionally mention harsh weather condi-
tions and failed harvests. In some rare cases, studies refer to the Little Ice Age
(LIA) to explain recurring “natural calamities” and “extended periods of mal-
nutrition” that “caused short-term mass migrations and long-term population
displacement.”3
As has been the case with many themes in climate impact research, global
warming and the continuing debate about its consequences have created
demand for empirical studies on the relationship between climates and migra-
tions. That demand has increased since the IPCC Working Group II, which
assesses impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, expanded their coverage of
migration and the amount of scholarship on which they draw.4 However,
social scientists and historians have found it hard to apply concepts such as
“climate migration” or “climate change migration.” Many regard them as
simply deterministic or reductionist. Indeed, they are sometimes used in sim-
plistic ways. But the inability to capture the plurality of reasons and causes for
migrations in a single word or attribute is by no means unique to “climate

F. Mauelshagen (*)
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University of Potsdam,
Potsdam, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 413

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_31
414 F. MAUELSHAGEN

migration” and its variants. “Labor,” “military,” or “chain migration,” as well

as many other descriptive categories, could be questioned for the very same
reason. The difference is that they have long been accepted in disciplinary
traditions that neglect environmental and climatic factors. The “rise of the
economic paradigm” in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century migration the-
ory has also contributed to that neglect.5 Even studies in “seasonal labor
migration” have taken the meaning of seasonality for granted, most of the
time ignoring its complex and diverse environmental patterns that depend on
location and the ways in which people interact with the flora and fauna of their
surroundings.
Understanding the web of connections between climate history and migra-
tion history is by no means an easy task—and by all means more important
than a dispute over terminology. However, little of the relevant historiography
has been written specifically to address climate migration. Not climate, but the
global, has been the trend in the last two decades of migration research.6 More
recently, that perspective has reached out to the deep time of early migrations
of our species, Homo sapiens.7 This chapter applies both a global as well as
deep-time perspective, but of course it needs to be selective. In selecting and
presenting the material, gathered from different disciplines and periods, the
emphasis will be on evidence, approaches, and conceptual problems. For this
purpose, some case studies will be discussed more deeply than others.

31.2   Climatic Changes and the Peopling of the Earth

Throughout the past 100,000 years, as H. sapiens colonized the planet, envi-
ronmental and climatic conditions changed frequently and often dramatically.
During the late Pleistocene Epoch (c.2.6 mya–11,700 kya) and the transition
to the Holocene, climate oscillated between colder “stadials” and warmer
“interstadials” (see Chap. 15). For all but the past few thousand years, most
humans have lived as hunter-gatherers. Migration is an essential part of hunter-­
gatherer lifestyles, in particular that of big-game hunters, and a way they adapt
to their environments. However, hunter-gatherers have normally moved within
a more or less defined territory. Hence, those migrations that exceeded the
normal radius and ultimately resulted in the globalization of the human species
call for an explanation. Long-term variation in climate played a crucial role in
this development.
Progress in the field of human genetics over the last thirty years has largely
confirmed the “Out of Africa” theory. Analyses of human DNA have allowed
the distinction of haplogroups (that is, groups of common descent that can be
arranged chronologically and mapped geographically). Almost all non-African
groups can be traced back to a single African haplogroup.8 However, multiple-
dispersal models still compete with models preferring a single ancestral popula-
tion.9 Archeology is also open to both alternatives (see Fig. 31.1).
One or several groups of H. sapiens left Africa for the first time between 130
and 120 kya. They passed through the Sahara during a short warm and humid
 C,D 25 ?
H,T,U,V,W,X 30 A X
A*
I,J,K 40 A,C
40 G
B
B
F 40
N*N 50 M
85
L3

L1 75
160 40 A,C,D
L2

65
B

14

–32

Warm
–36

000
–40

18O 0/
–44

Cold
80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 ky BP

Fig. 31.1 A map of the peopling of the earth by Homo sapiens sapiens, showing major haplogroups of mitochondrial DNA (red letters),
approximate dating for the peopling of specific continents or regions (black numbers), and geoclimatic clues (indicated by arrows).10 Migration
MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY

routes are geographically imprecise and cannot be attributed to identifiable groups of humans. Note that the silhouettes of the continental
landmasses looked different from the present at many stages over the past 100 ky, because sea levels were up to 100 m lower than today when
ice covered great parts of the Northern Hemisphere during stadial periods of the Pleistocene, e.g. 65 kya, 40 kya, and 25 kya. Geoclimatic
415

clues are paralleled by a graph showing reconstructions of proportions of oxygen-18 (δ18O) per thousand in a Greenland ice core (GRIP) indi-
cating warm and cold periods. The blue line is the data average values for every fifty years.11
416 F. MAUELSHAGEN

Table 31.1 Evidence for Homo sapiens migrations out of Africa (several sources)a
Evidence Place/Mapping Dating (kya)

Archeological
 • Homo sapiens fossils Skhul, Qafez (Israel) c.100
 • Artifacts Eritrea’s Red Sea Coast 125
 • Stone tools Kota Tampan (Malaysia) >74
 • Liujiang Skull and partial skeleton Tongtianyan (China) 70–130
Genetic
 • mtDNA Split between Africa and Asia ~70
 • Y-chromosome Split between Africa and Asia ~50
Geoclimatic
 • Ice cores: temperature reconstructions Greenland (GISP2); Antarctica 125 and 85
 • Sediment cores indicating low sea levels Red Sea and Gulf of Aden 85
 • Eruption of Mt. Toba Sumatra 71–74

mtDNA = mitochondrial DNA; GISP 2 = Second Greenland Ice Sheet Project, which extracted ice cores of
3000 m in length
a
Data compiled from Wells and Read, 2002; Oppenheimer, 2004; Burroughs, 2005 and the internet presentation
“Journey of Mankind” (Bradshaw Foundation and Stephen Oppenheimer: http://www.bradshawfoundation.
com/journey/). All dating contains some degree of imprecision (specific to dating methodologies), in particular
where ranges are not indicated. Climate data from ice cores provide the highest temporal resolution and thus
allow for greater dating precision if recombined with the other data in the table.

period and moved into the Levant (based on H. sapiens fossils in Skhul and
Qafez—see Table 31.1). However, it is unclear whether these Levant migrants
survived to contribute to later human populations. During the following cold
period that occurred between 100 and 87 kya Neanderthals moved southwards
from Eurasia into the Middle East. By that time the Levant line of H. sapiens
had already died out or they had moved on. It is possible that they took a
southern migration route to the Indian subcontinent. A “high-resolution por-
trait of genetic diversity” among Aboriginal populations of Australia “found
that about 2% of genomes from individuals of Papua New Guinea ancestry
indicate that their ancestors separated from Africans earlier than did other
Eurasians.”12
A second, more effective dispersal event took place from c.85 to 40 kya.
This time, H. sapiens needed to look for a different exit from Africa, because
the Sahara had turned back into desert. Genetic evidence provides a sequence
for the subsequent separation of different human genealogies. First, there was
the separation between African and Asian populations followed by that
between populations in Asia and the Americas. After those two followed the
schism between populations of the Middle East and Europe. The dating
remains imprecise, but archeological evidence indicates that by around 70 kya
H. sapiens had ventured as far as Malaysia and China and by around 65 kya
had arrived in Australia. In multiple-dispersal models this could be related to
earlier outmigration from Africa, while for single-ancestry models a terminus
ante quem follows for the second exodus from Africa. Sinking sea levels due
to glaciation provide a further geoclimatic clue. Ice cores indicate rapidly
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 417

decreasing temperatures from 85 kya onwards. A group of H. sapiens crossing

the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb strait across the Red Sea provides the most plau-
sible scenario. As early as 125 kya humans had been settling on the coast of
Eritrea, sustaining themselves partly on shellfish. Presumably, the early inhab-
itants of the seashore reacted to cold conditions by extending their territory.13
Falling sea levels reduced the exchange of water masses between the Red Sea
and the Indian Ocean in the Gulf of Aden leading to strong salinization and
deterioration of plankton at the base of the marine food chain. Sediment
analysis shows an all-­time low of sea levels and of plankton in the Red Sea
starting around 85 kya. Therefore, in a plausible scenario, the inhabitants of
the Eritrean coast, perhaps under pressure from a shortage in seafood, crossed
the Red Sea estuary to the Yemeni coast around that time.14 Following their
exit from Africa, populations continued to move along the shores of the
Indian Ocean to India and then to Indonesia over a land bridge exposed by
the lower sea levels during the last ice age.
Anatomically modern humans had already reached Borneo and South China
c.74 kya, when Mount Toba (Indonesia) exploded in an eruption a hundred
times greater than that of Tambora in 1815 (see Chap. 35). The ash spread
north-west and covered India, parts of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal,
and the South China Sea. Stratospheric aerosols from the eruption brought a
six-year-long volcanic winter, and snow and ice covered much of the Northern
Hemisphere. Some have argued that these changes in planetary albedo trig-
gered the following stadial, which lasted approximately a thousand years.
However, recent computer simulations have raised doubts about this “instant
ice age” theory.15 According to another theory, the Toba eruption drove most
humans to extinction and created a genetic “bottleneck,” or serious reduction
of the human gene pool.16 However, archeological excavations in Jwalapuram
(southern India), where the deposit of ash is 2.55 m thick, demonstrate that
humans lived there both before and after the Toba eruption, still using the
same stone tools.17 Clearly, the eruption’s impact on the environment was
enormous. Owing to sudden cooling and prolonged aridity, tree cover in India
was reduced and replaced by savannah and grasslands.18 These environmental
changes must have posed serious challenges to humans, and we simply do not
know what strategies they used to adapt and survive.
Homo sapiens migrated into Europe more than 40,000 years ago, suppos-
edly from Anatolia, and soon replaced the Neanderthals.19 These arrivals are
identified with the Aurignacian culture (40–34 kya), famous for its cave paint-
ings and animal figurines.20 At the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
c.25 kya, ice shelves extended from Scandinavia to the Baltic Sea Basin, while
in Central Europe vegetation was changing from forests to steppe and ulti-
mately to tundra. During the LGM Central Europe became largely depopu-
lated. Humans had to retreat to other ecological niches.21 Other migrations in
the Northern Hemisphere are associated with the warmer climates of intersta-
dials in the Late Pleistocene. Sea levels offer further clues that help clarify the
first peopling of the Americas. There are ongoing debates about when people
418 F. MAUELSHAGEN

arrived in the Americas. However, it is undisputed that several movements of

H. sapiens entered by way of Beringia, the land beneath the Bering Sea, which
was exposed by the low temperatures and sea levels of the LGM.

31.3   Climate and Migration in Early Agrarian

Societies
The transition to agriculture and permanent settlements created new vulnera-
bilities to climate variability. Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had probably lived in
small groups of ten to thirty individuals, sometimes forming seasonally larger
groups of up to 100 members. They had relatively egalitarian social structures
and a high degree of flexibility in their lifestyles, and used a wide spectrum of
food—a kind of insurance policy in hard times. Moreover, their populations
were modest—perhaps never more than 10 million globally—and their mobil-
ity limited growth. Large-scale migration among hunter-gatherers was not a
matter of short-term climatic variability, but of extensive long-term shifts in
regional and global temperature and precipitation, which altered flora and
fauna and the migration of large game.
In the warming climate of the early Holocene, some hunter-gatherer com-
munities settled permanently in particularly fertile regions. In some cases, these
permanent settlements led to the cultivation of domesticated crops and animals
that humans came to depend on—in other words, agriculture. However, the
transition was not smooth. The Natufian culture of the Middle East developed
early forms of sedentism around 14 kya, but they had to revert to a nomadic
lifestyle when colder and dryer conditions returned during the Younger Dryas
(c.12.9–11.7kya).22 Only after that cold intermezzo and the onset of Holocene
warming did agriculture emerge again and become permanent in the so-called
Fertile Crescent. The relative stability of Holocene climate certainly provided
an important precondition for the spread of agricultural forms of life around
the world, particularly to northern latitudes and to the ecological margins of
higher altitudes (e.g., in the Andes).
Agriculture supported much larger populations, who spread from these
early centers, replacing and eventually marginalizing hunter-gatherer lifeways
almost everywhere. Yet agriculture generally exerted a novel kind of “grav-
ity,” drawing farmers to stay on the same land, rather than move away. Step
by step, agrarian regimes redefined migration—and its general condition—as
people became sedentary, sought protection against enemies, and built larger
forms of society organized in states protecting their territory against intrud-
ers, both human and non-human. Sedentism defined the meaning of settle-
ment and resettlement, and eventually borders—an idea born in agricultural
societies. At the same time, agriculture led to new ways of interacting with
the climate system (see Chap. 27). It meant that a long-term interaction
between humans and local environments was established, and farmers became
increasingly dependent on stable seasonal patterns of temperatures and
precipitation.
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 419

In modern times, agriculture also marginalized mobile pastoralism.

Historically, innumerable conflicts occurred between the two lifestyles, partly
because they used conflicting strategies in adapting to climate fluctuations.
Adapting their annual migratory routes according to weather conditions was a
common practice among pastoralists, while farmers were much more bound to
the soil. Increasing amounts of land claimed by farmers raised the potential for
violent conflict between the two groups. A long-term statistical analysis found
meaningful correlations among climate (temperature and precipitation),
“nomadic (pastoral) migration,” and conflict in Imperial China c.250 bce–
1950 ce, particularly between precipitation and the movements of pastoralists
(see Chap. 29).23
Larger-scale migrations are sometimes related to climatic changes. A recent
study of tree-ring chronologies from the Altai Mountains and European Alps
has found a synchronous cooling of summer temperatures between 536 and
660 ce. The beginning of that period witnessed an unusual sequence of large
volcanic eruptions in 536, 540, and 547. The authors propose the term Late
Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) for the entire period, and they suggest that
several population movements—the arrival of the Avars in Pannonia, the
Lombard invasion of Italy, the arrival of the Türks near the Black Sea—were
related to this climatic event.24 However, such ideas remain highly controver-
sial (see Chap. 32).
One of the best known and most closely debated cases of climate and migra-
tion in agrarian societies concerns the US Southwest during the thirteenth
century ce. The ancestors of the Pueblo nations of New Mexico and Arizona,
popularly known as the Anasazi, left some of the most impressive remains of
pre-Columbian cultures. These were their multistoried masonry dwellings, the
so-called “Great Houses,” at Chaco Canyon and elsewhere built during a
period known as the “Pueblo II era” (c.900–1150 ce). The Anasazi had
adopted maize agriculture during the early first millennium ce, and also grew
squash and beans and bred turkeys. They learned how to manage water and
created irrigation systems and a road network linking Chaco Canyon and
peripheral villages, mainly for the purpose of wood and food supply.
Chaco Canyon was abandoned in around 1150 ce in the middle of a major
drought that lasted from 1135 to 1180 and hit a population that had grown
considerably in the preceding decades. Many migrants headed for Mesa Verde
(Colorado) where they bunched together in cliff dwellings. However, after
another megadrought that occurred between 1276 and 1299, the Anasazi also
abandoned Mesa Verde and moved out of the Four Corners region. This final
exodus from Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde left behind the traces of vio-
lence.25 Some researchers do not regard these traces as a consequence of famine
and resource depletion, but as signs of social disruption independent of eco-
logical circumstances. Since Andrew Ellicott Douglass (1867–1962), the father
of dendrochronology, suggested that the late thirteenth-century drought had
been the main reason behind the collapse of Anasazi culture there has always
been controversy about the role of climatic fluctuations.26
420 F. MAUELSHAGEN

Our knowledge of Anasazi settlements is based on archeology or analogy

from present-day Puebloans and their agriculture. While tree rings provide pre-
cise dating for Anasazi buildings and records of past droughts, information on
Anasazi diet and population size is often more indirect. Anthropologists have
recently used computer simulations to model agricultural production based on
recent information on production by modern-day Puebloan peoples. One of
the earliest studies of this kind concluded that climatic fluctuations would not
have had dangerous consequences for maize production; however, those results
were disproven in later research.27 For Mesa Verde, population estimates, simu-
lations of maize production, and deer depletion suggest that Puebloans “expe-
rienced substantial subsistence stress.” Combined with climate-­ induced
immigration from other regions, which caused an increase in the local popula-
tion and thus enhanced resource depletion, the picture of climatic and social
push factors is as complete as it can be regarding the available evidence.
While dismissing monocausality, archeologist Larry Benson and others have
maintained that “climate change including drought was a primary push factor
in the reduction or migration of Anasazi populations during the middle-12th
and late-13th centuries.”28 Coping strategies such as storage or a temporary
return to hunting and gathering failed to bridge multiyear droughts. Thus,
according to the present state of research it is very likely that the out-migration
of the Ancestral Puebloans from the Four Corners Region occurred in the
context of two megadroughts (1135–1180 and 1276–1299), resulting from a
weakening or failure of summer “monsoon” rains in the American Southwest.29
Nevertheless, there is “no single, simple cause” but rather “a cascade of
events” that led to the depopulation of the Four Corners Region in the late
thirteenth century.30 Jared Diamond has told the story of the abandonment of
Anasazi settlements in Chaco Canyon as one of “rise and decline.” A period of
prosperity, emerging from favorable weather conditions, led to an expansion of
the population and consumption of resources such as wood, water, and crops.
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Chaco Canyon became the center
of Anasazi culture, connected to a periphery from which it drew ever greater
amounts of material resources. Thus, in Diamond’s narrative, as social com-
plexity increased the Anasazi left the path of sustainability and headed towards
greater vulnerability. The megadroughts and successive bad harvests were “the
last straw.” It is at this point where Diamond’s account diverges from Benson’s
and Kohler’s. For Diamond, climate change was only the proximate cause of
the collapse of Chacoan Anasazi culture, while the ultimate cause was resource
depletion. Diamond identifies this pattern throughout his popular history,
Collapse, to connect the history of societal collapse with the dangers of present
global warming.31 The end of Chaco Canyon points to the problem of path
dependency in the development toward more complex social structures, block-
ing the way back to more efficient and flexible relationships with the
environment.
However, Diamond’s assumption that the Ancestral Puebloans could have
persisted in Chaco Canyon had they only brought their own development to a
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 421

halt is questionable. The idea that the simpler social structures are always more
resilient to environmental crises overlooks that migration was a fundamental
part of that resilience (as described above). Moreover, economic history
research indicating that wider economic networks reduced the vulnerability of
communities to famine might challenge Diamond’s view.32 Connecting mar-
kets and resources balances risk, providing a kind of insurance against the
caprices of weather and their impacts on harvests.33

31.4   Little Ice Age (LIA) Climate Change

and European Emigration to the Americas

Periods of continuous cold spells and drought, or an unusual frequency of such

climatic conditions during a decade or two, posed serious challenges for agrar-
ian cultures around the world. In many cases people responded to such chal-
lenges by moving, as we have seen from the case of Anasazi migrations.
Assessing the “push” effects of climate on migration becomes much more chal-
lenging when considering periods of climate change lasting a century or more.
Some scholars have claimed that the LIA (see Chap. 23) “had a major
impact on migration as agriculture failed in various parts of Europe.”34
Referring to the LIA and its impacts on early modern Europe, the German
Advisory Council on Global Change has argued that “climate-induced deteri-
oration in people’s living conditions can also be said to have contributed indi-
rectly to the large-­scale migrations to the New World.”35 Historical research
supporting that bold statement will be hard to find. There is no long-term
trend of decline in early modern European economic history; rather a series of
ups and downs from the early fourteenth century onwards and a clear upward
trend in the eighteenth century, both in terms of population and production.
The historiography on transatlantic migration has failed to seriously consider
LIA climate change as a potential long-term cause that might have pushed
Europeans to the other side of the Atlantic. Instead, European historians have
preferred to integrate the story of transatlantic migration into more conven-
tional narratives of poverty in early modern Europe. However, it is question-
able whether the history of transatlantic migration can be grasped in purely
economic terms, ignoring the vulnerability of agrarian civilizations to climate
variability and agrometeorological risks.
Assessing the impact of LIA climate change on European emigration to the
Americas requires a meaningful rearrangement of the available evidence.
Several problems need to be addressed, starting with that of periodization and
timing. The LIA in Europe was not simply one long period of cooling, but
several multidecadal phases when unfavorable weather conditions were more
common (Chap. 23). The LIA peaked during the first and last decades of the
seventeenth century, when the transition to cash crop agriculture in the
­colonies was only just beginning. European subsistence crises probably only
began to make an impact on transatlantic migration during the Late Maunder
Minimum (1675–1715). By the time that the effect of short-term climate
422 F. MAUELSHAGEN

variability on migration to the Americas starts to become measurable, in the

eighteenth century, the worst of the LIA had passed. After some early stagna-
tion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when African slaves were by
far the largest immigrant group, European transatlantic migration peaked only
in the mid- to late nineteenth century, once railways and steamships provided
the logistics for mass migration for much more rapidly growing industrial
populations. Yet the cooling trend of the LIA was reversed after c.1860–70, as
greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal began to influence global
climate. More problems emerge with the quest for migration data. Prior to
1800, the statistics are either incomplete or simply missing. This does not
necessarily mean that the search for causal links between LIA climate change
and transatlantic migration is futile, but clearly there are no straightforward
answers.
One obvious approach to solving the puzzle is to look for cumulative effects
of climate-induced subsistence crises on emigration. The trajectory of Irish
migration to North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could
be exemplary in that it reveals striking coincidences between the peaks of Irish
emigration (based on estimates) and climatic extremes in 1717–18, 1725–9,
1740–1, 1754–5, and 1771–5. Scotch Irish migration from Ulster was particu-
larly significant in this context.36 The “Ulster diaspora” in America had already
formed during the seventeenth century. Ulster–American emigration reached
an estimated total of 70,000 for the period 1680 to 1750, a figure that more
than doubled between 1750 and 1820. The effects of the “great frost” in
1740–1 were particularly severe.
Nevertheless, Irish emigration to North America must be seen in the wider
context of population movements preceding or following these famine years.
Internal migration predominated, especially people moving away from the
countryside hoping to find labor and food in nearby towns or cities. Those who
departed from Ireland altogether before the nineteenth century came dispro-
portionately from the Scotch-Irish, Protestant, and Presbyterian minorities.
Many headed for the New England colonies and Pennsylvania, which had trade
connections with Ireland. Philadelphia became one of the main destinations of
chain migration following the 1740–1 famine, as migrants followed the paths
of relatives and friends who had already left Ireland in 1728–9. A great propor-
tion of migrants from southern Ireland headed for the Delaware Valley.37
There is a further problem relating particular subsistence crises and subse-
quent migration to the LIA. Subsistence crises are often connected with sea-
sonal variability, or even more short-term extremes or hazards, rather than
climatic trends and anomalies of years or decades, much less centuries. Claims
of climate-induced migration require appropriate temporal and spatial resolu-
tions, on the regional or local level. Statistical downscaling, based on existing
climate datasets of past centuries, rarely leads to reliable correlations for pre-­
modern eras.
Large volcanic eruptions, which produce impacts on a hemispheric or global
scale, could provide a way around some of these problems. Assessing the
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 423

impacts volcanic eruptions have on societies, indirectly through their effects on

the climate system, still requires data responding to the regional or local level.
But their climatic impacts, through injections of sulfate aerosol into the strato-
sphere, are not in doubt; nor is their role in producing some of the coldest
periods of the LIA, in conjunction with orbital and solar forcing and internal
climate variability (see Fig. 31.2).38 Volcanic forcing has become an essential
part in the story of the LIA, which makes it easier to link the (often global)
anomalies caused by major eruptions with longer-term trends (see Chap. 23).
In that sense, the Dalton Minimum (c.1790–1830) is one of the most
promising periods for the study of climate and migration. This period brought
lowered solar activity as well as several major volcanic eruptions: Lakagígar in
1783 (see Chap. 34), the unnamed eruption of 1809, and Tambora in 1815
(see Chap. 35). A strong La Niña event in 1788–90 followed by a severe El
Niño in 1791–3 added to the mix of forcings (see Chap. 34). Estimates are
available for migration from various places of origin to North America between
1783 and 1820 (see Fig. 31.3), and these estimates show peaks that correlate
well with the three major volcanic eruptions and El Niño Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) events above. Yet certainly the French Revolutionary Wars
(1792–1802) and, even more so, the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) contributed
to the crises, while the Continental Blockade between 1806 and 1811 ham-
pered emigration from Europe to America.
The 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora on Sumbawa (Indonesia) and the fol-
lowing “year without a summer” has been a model case since John D. Post
published his 1977 book The Last Great Subsistence Crisis in the Western
World.40 Not only did volcanic aerosols dim incoming solar radiation and cool
global temperatures, but they also caused various feedbacks in the climate sys-
tem (see Chap. 35). Throughout the summer of 1816, Western and Central
Europe suffered anomalous cold and damp conditions. Frosts affected harvests
in many places. Figures for Switzerland and Württemberg (southern Germany)
prove that transatlantic migration increased strongly in 1816/17—obviously a
direct consequence of the agricultural crisis during those years.41 South-west
German emigrants mainly came from peasant or artisan populations, which
suffered most directly from the crop failure. In addition to North America, this
group also migrated in substantial numbers to Poland and Prussia. When inter-
rogated, many of them mentioned the scarcity of food as their motive.42
Migration in 1816–18 also had a larger demographic and economic context.
Marked population growth during the late eighteenth century had contributed
to the precarious food situation, as had the practice of partible inheritance (the
parceling out of estates among heirs) in most of continental Europe.
Additionally, the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) flooded labor markets
with demobilized soldiers.43 On the whole, we are dealing with an ensemble of
social and climatic push factors for migration. Nevertheless, these factors alone
do not sufficiently explain the migration movements of these years. The worst
subsistence crises of past centuries in Central Europe—1570–3, the early
1690s, and 1770–3—had left populations in similar circumstance. Yet potential
 424

2,5
Solar (Lean C14)
2 Solar (Lean Be10)
Solar (Bard/Lean C14)
1,5
Aerosol
GHG
F. MAUELSHAGEN

W / m2
0,5

0 0

–0,5 –2
–1
–4
Volcanic
–6
W / m2

–8
Oort Wolf Spoerer Maunder Dalton
Medieval Max.
Min. Min. Min. Min. Min. –10

–12
1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000

Fig. 31.2 Radiative forcing, 1000–2000 ce, plotted based on data by Crowley, 2000: several reconstructions for solar forcing, greenhouse
gases (CO2), aerosols, and volcanic forcing. Note that scale for volcanic forcing is different from that used for other forcings.
 a) 40.000 Great Britain Ireland British North America Netherlands and North Germany France
Caribbean All Others Total
30.000

20.000

10.000

b) 0,5

0,3

0,1

–0,1 o
–0,3

–0,5

c) 0,2
0,1
0 0

W / m2
–0,1
Solar (Bar/Lean, C14) Volcanic –2
–0,2 GHG
–4
W / m2

–6
2
d)
1783 Laki eruption (Iceland) 1809 Eruption of Unknown Volcano 1
1788–90 La Eruption Mt. Tambora 1815
0
1791–3 Year without a summer 1816
–1
1788 Subsistence Crisis in France 1803–1815 Napoleonic Wars
–2
1789 French Revolution 1806–1811 Continental Blockade
1792–1802 French Revolutionary Wars –3

1780 1790 1800 1810 1820

Fig. 31.3 Migration and LIA Climate, 1780–1820: (a) Immigration to the United States, 1783–1820, by place of origin (estimates by
Grabbe, 2001: 93); (b) ENSO reconstruction, 1780–1820: the graph plots the minimum quality adjusted magnitude score attributed to each
MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY

El Niño or La Niña event by Gergis and Fowler, 2009: Table 9; (c) Global Radiative Forcing, 1780–1820, extracted from Fig. 31.2: solar
forcing shows the transition to the Dalton Minimum in around 1790. Note that the volcanic forcing for the 1783 Lakagígar eruption was
much more significant in the Northern Hemisphere than shown in this graph; (d) Timeline of events mentioned in the text, 1780–1820,
425

including volcanic eruptions, ENSO, and historical events, with annual temperature anomalies from 1960–90 averages for Central Europe in
the background.39
426 F. MAUELSHAGEN

migrants had not had the option of making the long journey overseas. What
happened in 1816–18 must be seen in the context of the new organization and
momentum in transatlantic migration that had grown up since the late eigh-
teenth century. In addition, farmers were legally granted increasing mobility
during this period in many parts of Europe; and last but not least, the attrac-
tion of the “New World” had grown over the preceding centuries, creating a
strong and persistent pull factor.

31.5   Acclimatization, Forced (Labor) Migration,

and Resettlement

Not only climatic events, but also ideas about climate shaped transatlantic
migration during the colonial period and into the nineteenth century.
Europeans were influenced in their decisions about migration by notions of
what new climates they would find in the New World and what those climates
meant for them. Experiences of unfamiliar environments and concerns about
“unhealthy climates,” particularly with regard to warm and humid atmospheric
conditions in the tropics, led colonists to compel others, particularly Black
Africans, to migrate in their place.
Until the late nineteenth century, most migration to the Americas came as
forced labor. The transatlantic slave trade was “the largest long-distance coerced
movement of people in history.”44 By the early nineteenth century, about four
times as many Africans as Europeans had traversed the Atlantic. The Spanish
and the Portuguese started the slave trade shortly after reaching the New
World. The slaves were sent from Portugal and the Atlantic islands, where
African slaves had been taken during the fifteenth century. The first known
voyage directly from Africa to the Americas was in 1526. Before 1550 slave
ships went to the Spanish Caribbean to sell Africans as forced labor on gold
mines, especially on the island of Hispaniola. After 1560, sugar began driving
slave traffic to Brazil. Responding to growing demand from Europe, plantation
slavery expanded to the eastern Caribbean in the early 1640s and then further
westward into the tropical and subtropical regions of North America.
Altogether, sugar plantations absorbed more than two-thirds of African slaves.
Initially, Spaniards and Portuguese had coerced Amerindians into working
for them on plantations. But indigenous populations declined dramatically
during the sixteenth century, as they fell victim to epidemics or violence.
European immigration never came anywhere near to meeting the labor
demands of colonizers. Only in the mid-nineteenth century did mass migration
from Europe overtake the slave trade from Africa. The logistics of that trade,
however, depended on intra-African practices of enslavement and traders such
as the Vili (north of the Congo), the Efik (in the Bight of Biafra), or the
Kingdom of Dahomey willing to sell slaves to European ship captains. The
greatest number of slaves were taken from West and Central Africa. Portugal
and Spain dominated the trade at first, before British imperial power expanded
into the Caribbean and North America. British embarkations outnumbered all
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 427

others by the end of the eighteenth century. But the end of the slave trade
dawned early in the nineteenth century, when Danish legislation declared it
illegal in 1802, soon followed by Britain and the United States. The institution
of slavery continued to be legal in the US until the thirteenth amendment to
the US Constitution in 1865, and it took another twenty-three years before
emancipation in Brazil—by far the greatest recipient of African slaves—finally
brought the transatlantic slave trade to a halt.
The climate system of the Atlantic, particularly wind directions and ocean
currents, had a strong influence on the routes taken by slave voyages in the age
of sail. It also shaped the seasonality of the slave trade, which for a long time
was assumed to come from the demand for workers in the colonies to harvest
cash crops. Recently, however, Stephen D. Behrendt has shown that the sea-
sonal character of the slave trade was defined by both sides of the Atlantic and
was therefore coupled with a much more complex ecology of plant growth.
The travels of slave vessels required as much coordination with the growing
seasons of crops and the demand for labor on the African coast as with the
colonies.45
The predominance of forced labor migration was highest in tropical and
subtropical colonies, where European settlers experienced high death rates
from tropical diseases such as yellow fever.46 Prevailing medical theories in
Europe attributed the suffering of white settlers to tropical climates, which
hosted supposedly “noxious exhalations.”47 Northern Europeans in particular
found climatic conditions very different from those of their home country, and
very different from their expectations (see Chap. 37). “People came to America
inadequately prepared, physically and psychologically, to cope with the envi-
ronment they actually encountered.”48 Their experience of unfamiliar climates
in the colonies was sometimes biased by unusual extremes—unusual that is by
the standards of modern historical climatology. Such extremes caused hardship
for most of the first settlements in North America, as well as Australia (see
Chaps. 24 and 34).49
Settler experiences of such unfamiliar environments generated a far-reaching
discourse about climate, both in the colonies and in Europe. These experiences
were expressed in pamphlets, travel narratives, and letters sent back to family
members who had stayed in Europe. Emigrants began to consider weather
conditions and climates in their choices of destination. Promotional publica-
tions for the colonies included often idealized descriptions of climate, tempera-
tures, and the annual cycle of seasons, while playing down the dangers of
potential hazards such as hurricanes—a practice that continued well into the
twentieth century. Moreover, the discourse about climate and weather also
included a (transatlantic) exchange of experiences about the success and failure
of plants and livestock.50
This discourse often circled around the idea of “acclimatization.” In France
the term acclimater (to acclimatize) was used in medical, agricultural, and zoo-
logical discourses on colonizing the tropical West Indies. By 1798, the verb
had found entry into the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française where it was
428 F. MAUELSHAGEN

defined as “to get accustomed to the temperature of a new climate.”51 Early

Spanish and English discussion of colonization had introduced the notion of a
“seasoning,” or adjustment necessary for Europeans to survive New World
climates and diets.52 In France and Britain, throughout the eighteenth and the
nineteenth centuries, the theory of acclimatization developed into a science
that included transplanting humans, plants, and animals into different climates.
“Faith in the malleability of animal and plant form and function typified the
French approach to acclimatization, and helps explain why the French
attempted to introduce everything from ostriches to yaks and llamas both in
their own country and in its dependencies.” Acclimatization only lost its appeal
after the diffusion of Louis Pasteur’s germ theory in the second half of the
nineteenth century and progress in parasitological research on tropical
diseases.53
Climate also played a role in debates about slavery and abolition during the
nineteenth century. Based on the alleged impossibility of “white” adaptation to
tropical climates, pro-slavery activists in the USA and elsewhere argued that
“blacks” and other “non-whites” were better adapted to perform the hard
physical labor required to maintain sugar, indigo, or tobacco plantations.
Caribbean slave societies also became deeply involved in discourses on acclima-
tization. For example, Robert Renny, an early historian of Jamaica, declared
the entire institution of slavery “even to be natural, to the inhabitants of warm
climates.”54
The idea of pre-adaptation to tropical climates also had some uncomfortable
implications for European colonizers themselves, such as the question of
whether adaptation to colonial climates would alter their bodies or characters.
Misleading reports about the flora and fauna of North America and the shrink-
ing of plants and animals brought into the colonies led the French natural
historian Comte de Buffon to conclude that colonists would suffer the same
degeneration, as historian Antonello Gerbi has discussed. American diplomats
and intellectuals (including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin) tried to
refute these ideas in their writings during the late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries.55
Ideas about climate and acclimatization influenced colonial population poli-
cies beyond the slave trade. Reflecting about a “downriver” extension of their
colony in New Orleans in around 1750, French officials hoped to recruit set-
tlers “from the frontiers of Italy and Spain […] because of the similarity of the
climate.” They also intended to accelerate the peopling of that area by “order-
ing the passage of two to three-hundred families with their slaves from
Martinique [another French colony, in the Caribbean] who are too crowded
there. Being accustomed to the hot climate and to the crops of the land they
would provide the best means to the other inhabitants to till part of the soil.”56
But there were many other ways of turning climate into an argument,
depending on perspective. After battling down the Trelawny Maroon rebellion
in Jamaica, the British deported several hundred Jamaican Maroons to Nova
Scotia in the summer of 1796. Settled in Preston, two miles away from Halifax
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 429

and from the white population of Nova Scotia, the Maroons started petitioning
for their removal to a warmer climate almost instantly when temperatures
dropped in the following autumn; and they continued petitioning after the
harsh winter of 1796–7 that they be allowed to go to a province “more conge-
nial to people of their complexion.”57 In response, Nova Scotia’s governor
John Wentworth (1737–1820) argued that living in a temperate climate might
actually cool the Maroons’ “fiery disposition” and help their moral improve-
ment.58 In the end, the governor’s efforts to hang on to the Trelawny Maroons
were in vain, as he met with resistance from other British officials and the white
population of Nova Scotia. In 1800, only a few years after their arrival in Nova
Scotia, the Jamaican Maroons were resettled in Sierra Leone.
Though merely a brief episode, the case of the “Maroons of Nova Scotia” is
instructive for two reasons: first, as an example of how discourses about adapta-
tion to a new climate became involved in acts of banishment, a type of forced
migration that was rather frequent in the early Atlantic world; and second, as
one of the early precedents to later debates on how African Americans would
acclimatize to the North when they moved there from the rural South, mostly
to the urban centers of the USA, during the Great Migration in the twentieth
century.59

31.6   Global Warming, Displacement, and Climate

Refugees
Industrialization during the nineteenth century brought a transition in global
demography, migration patterns, and climate. Populations began to urbanize
more than ever and labor migration was dissociated from the primary eco-
nomic sector, agriculture.60 The industrialization of agriculture increased food
production and made European and North American populations gradually
less vulnerable to crop failures. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards,
steamships and railways led to integrated commodity markets, bringing cheaper
American and Australian foodstuffs to the world, and evening out local and
short-term price fluctuations.61 What one economist has called “Europe’s
escape from hunger and premature death” supported an unprecedented and
sustained growth in European populations, despite emigration overseas.62
This escape from the “Malthusian trap” does not mean, however, that cli-
mate no longer played a role in migration.63 Rather it shifted the relationships
among climate, weather, and population movements. Even as populations
became less vulnerable to subsistence crises, many remained as vulnerable as
ever to climate-related disasters, the loss of agricultural livelihoods, or food
entitlement deficits when local markets broke down. The shift to global
­warming, starting in the late nineteenth century, and its acceleration since the
1990s has returned attention to these problems (see Chap. 27).
In fact, global warming has raised concerns about environmental mass
migration, which many expect to become a permanent global reality in the
twenty-first century.64 In the wider framework of the United Nations, environ-
430 F. MAUELSHAGEN

mental or climate migration usually surfaces as a humanitarian problem.

Population movements are expected to come overwhelmingly from developing
countries, which are considered most vulnerable to climate change. One of the
reasons for this assessment is their continued reliance on agriculture for employ-
ment and income. The wealth of developed countries is expected to make them
more resilient to the impacts of global warming.
In other contexts, climate change and migration come up as a security issue.
Anthropogenic global warming could generate resource conflicts, which might
further exacerbate international migration through feedbacks on people’s deci-
sions to move away from their home countries (see Chap. 29). Climate migra-
tion scenarios often treat environmental migration as a security problem,
particularly for the wealthy and highly industrialized countries of Europe and
North America—also among the greatest per capita emitters of greenhouse
gases (GHGs).65
The international framework of the debate on global warming has created a
focus on out-migration (or emigration, in contrast to immigration) and to what
degree it is forced. Discussions about the status of migrants in international
law, and whether they constitute “climate refugees” with a right to asylum,
have been intense and controversial.66 In the international arena, a sharp line
has been drawn between states sharing responsibility for causing anthropo-
genic climate change, the main per capita emitters of GHGs, and the “victims”
of changing climatic extremes and hazards. The main push for climate migra-
tion is expected to come from (1) climate-induced gradual environmental
changes leading to a shortage in resources, particularly land and water, and to
droughts with the possible consequence of famines; (2) rapid environmental
changes triggered by meteorological or climatic hazards; (3) flooding of low-­
level landmasses and the submergence of islands owing to rising sea levels.
Some historical examples for the first pattern have been discussed in the
previous sections of this chapter. The other two, meteorological and climato-
logical hazards and the comparatively slow rise of sea levels, often work
together. Landmasses are threatened by the complex interplay of melting polar
ice, oceanic heat dilution, erosion and subsidence, and natural hazards, operat-
ing on different timescales. Global warming poses direct threats to the national
sovereignty and territorial integrity of island states.67 Many islands in the Indian
Ocean and South Pacific are elevated only a few meters above sea level and are
no more than a few hundred meters wide. The adaptive options of those “sink-
ing islands” are very limited.68 The consequences of sea level rise are already
affecting the livelihoods of many islanders as salt water contaminates soils and
groundwater. The bleaching of coral reefs is reducing fish stocks. Tropical
cyclones (typhoons), which are expected to become more severe with more
energy feeding the interaction between warming ocean surfaces and a warming
atmosphere, accelerate erosion. Seven million people live in the twenty-two
island states of the South Pacific, including Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu, and the
Solomon Islands. Leaving their homes may be the only foreseeable option for
those people, their children, and grandchildren. An Alliance of Small Island
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 431

States (AOSIS) was founded in 1990, and negotiations about resettling the
populations of sinking islands have already been initiated, particularly in the
framework of the United Nations.
Climate trends and projections of temperature and precipitation changes
show that the industrial countries of the South Asian Pacific will also be seri-
ously affected by global warming. In fact, after Queensland (Australia) experi-
enced flash flooding in 2011, the township of Grantham became the focus of a
community resettlement project.69 Nevertheless, countries such as Australia
and New Zealand are not threatened as a whole by rising sea levels and are
considered to possess the adaptive capacity to handle the risks of climate
change. In the geography of global warming in the South Pacific they are
also expected to become destinations for climate migrants and the resettlement
of islanders. Their policies have been dominated by a “wait and see” approach,
which contrasts sharply with spectacular campaigns such as the government of
Tuvalu’s underwater meeting in 2009.70
The Bay of Bengal will become a future hotspot of climate migration with
an estimated half-billion people exposed to a variety of environmental prob-
lems, both enhanced by climate change and enhancing its effects.71 Sunil
S. Amrith has argued convincingly that projected climate change migration
should be seen in the context of the Bay of Bengal’s history: driven by British
imperialism in Asia it became “home to one of the world’s great migrations.”
An estimated 28 million people crossed the Bay in both directions between
1840 and 1940.72 Many migrant workers were exploited in land clearances on
the South-East Asian forest frontier for the cultivation of rice in Burma, tea in
Ceylon, and rubber in Malaya; these clearances brought major environmental
changes.73 The demise of the British Empire after World War II turned most of
the inhabitants of the Bay into citizens of independent nations, which came at
the price of free movement in the region. Rapid growth and concentration of
populations in urban centers around the Bay of Bengal, industrialization, and
the damning of rivers brought a new generation of environmental problems.
As in other great river deltas around the world, the coasts have been destabi-
lized. Relative sea level rise is influenced four times more by the sinking of the
land than the rising of waters, making the coasts more vulnerable than ever to
rapid erosion from cyclones. The Bay of Bengal also has its sinking islands, such
as Ghoramara, located 150 km south of Kolkata in the Sunderban delta. More
trouble for the region is expected to come from a more erratic Asian monsoon,
more frequent droughts, and flooding.
Natural hazards usually affect great numbers of people: 4.4 million experi-
enced the destruction of the “millennium flood” in West Bengal (India).74
When Cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Burma in May 2008, 85,000 people
were killed and 2 million displaced. “In one sense, climate-induced migration
is nothing new, as each year millions of people in Asia flee their homes to escape
flooding. Most of the time, however, these are temporary and short-distance
moves. The crisis will come if coastal regions have to be abandoned perma-
nently.”75 It is expected to hit the low-lying lands of Bangladesh first.76
432 F. MAUELSHAGEN

“The stark image of poor people forced from their homes by floods or by
sinking habitations haunt the imagery of climate change in the wealthy world,”
writes Sunil S. Amrith. There is a colonial tradition of seeing Asian migrants as
refugees from the misfortunes brought by climate. Severe El Niños in the
1870s and 1890s brought harvest scarcity and famine, particularly in India.
Both crises produced additional migration to Burma, Malaya, and Ceylon.
British officials and rubber planters took advantage of the surplus of workers
and justified “indenture abroad as preferable to starvation at home.”77 British
colonial administrators treated South Indian emigrants as refugees from the
monsoon, overlooking or denying that emigration was still a choice made fea-
sible by circumstances such as family contacts abroad or the availability of
credit. Their perception matched what the anthropologist August A. Grote
termed primitive migration—a type of migration “influenced solely by physical
causes affecting man’s existence.” Writing in 1877, Grote hypothesized that
primitive migration had occurred most frequently in “man’s” early history
“when he was unprovided with means of his own invention against unfriendly
changes in his surroundings.”78 Roland B. Dixon used the term in his migra-
tion article in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, and through William Petersen’s
influential typology of migration it entered many textbooks on the sociology of
migration, and works of demography, ethnography, and other subjects.79
In traditional typologies of migration, “primitive migration” is definitely the
oldest, perhaps the only, conceptual precursor of what is presently termed
“environmental” or “climate migration.”80 There is little awareness about this
prequel, but it should give us a lot to think about. Both concepts consider cli-
mate or the environment as only a push factor in people’s movements.81 In the
absence of adaptive capacity—thought to depend mostly on wealth and tech-
nologies to control the forces of nature—the environmental push may become
coercive: hence the ideas of “climate” or “environmental refugees.”82 In much
of the ongoing debate, “climate change migration” has become synonymous
with “forced migration.” That, however, risks overlooking that emigration is
still a choice, at least most of the time, and depends on a variety of circum-
stances that allow people to make that choice: for example, social networks
they can tap into at their destinations, the financial capacity to travel, or the
expectation of obstacles connected with migrating abroad. Attachment to place
may originate from family or friendship ties, immobile private property, or
other local resources—factors that may exert a certain “gravity” to stay in
place.83 Closed state borders and legal definitions of citizenship also hamper
people’s movements in the twenty-first century. There is a long history under-
lying that pattern, but it is not a historical constant.
Underlying the concept of “primitive migration” was the assumption that
technologically more advanced societies are better protected against “natural”
calamities and the fluctuations of climate. The risk geographies of climate
change migration today often seem to follow the same assumption. United
Nations policies of adaptation to global climate change are largely based on
assessments of technology, financial, and knowledge capital. By these s­ tandards,
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 433

Western industrialized countries are obviously better armed against the conse-
quences of climate change than non-industrialized nations. It is hardly surpris-
ing that developing countries are regarded as places where climatic changes are
expected to cause major societal instability, perhaps violent conflicts (“climate
wars”), but almost certainly mass migration.
It is altogether striking to see the degree to which risk geographies of global
warming resemble colonial risk geographies of past centuries.84 That does not
mean that they are to be dismissed altogether, but they could be misleading in
that they underrate the resilience of people living in developing countries and
overrate that of people living in the developed world. The forced displacement
among New Orleans citizens after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has become a
seminal example in this context. Many thousands of citizens who evacuated
their homes with plans of a quick return remained displaced after the storm.
Unexpectedly, many never returned to live in New Orleans.85 Similar kinds of
post-disaster mobility from metropolitan regions have occurred repeatedly in
the USA, as well as in many other countries, often in relation to river floods or
other types of flooding caused by storms.86 Yet the wider public in the West
never seems to perceive the domestic victims of meteorological or climatologi-
cal disasters as environmental migrants or climate refugees.

31.7   Conclusions
The issue of climate-driven migration calls into question the Durkheimian con-
sensus of the social sciences to prioritize social explanations for social phenom-
ena over environmental ones. Climate migration deserves recognition as a
research perspective just as much as other generally accepted types of migration
such as labor migration or “chain migration,” which acknowledges the rele-
vance of family and other ties among people (social capital). Without claiming
exclusivity, the concept of climate migration acknowledges the relevance of
people’s economic and cultural interactions with their environment. Without
that cultural context, there is the danger of deterministic or reductionist
explanations.
Present debates on the impacts of global warming have favored an analytical
perspective regarding climate merely as a push factor forcing mass emigration.
That perspective has emerged from national security concerns in Western
countries fearful of prospective “climate refugees.” However, reducing climate
to a push factor is too narrow, if not inadequate; and so is the idea that climate
migration is forced practically by default. Geographies of future climate change
migration have a tendency to resemble imperial risk geographies, merely
­replacing a bipolar world of metropole and colonies with one divided between
developed and less-developed countries. Historians have a capacity to unravel
that resemblance and question assumptions underlying mainstream discourse
on climate migration and refugees, one being that industrial societies are less
vulnerable and less exposed to the threats of climate change. Historians are well
advised to apply approaches open enough to allow them to explore the entire
434 F. MAUELSHAGEN

variety of human–climate interactions relevant to understanding migration. It

is probably from that standpoint that they can make the most valuable contri-
bution to current discussions.
The examples discussed in this chapter are far from comprehensive, but they
illustrate the multidimensionality and variety in patterns of migration and their
entanglement with climate variability and climate change. On the one hand,
whether people have been aware of it or not, the variability of the climate sys-
tem has interfered with people’s movements in one way or another. On the
other hand, climate has also been meaningful as a cultural construct—often an
ideologically charged one—a dimension that should not be ignored.87
The following typology summarizes the range of climate–migration rela-
tionships, along both a temporal scale, and the range of physical and cultural
connections:

1. Climatic or hydro-meteorological hazards (various examples). Climatic

and meteorological disasters have caused displacement in countless cases.
People affected by rapid-onset disasters may be left with little choice but
to move out of harm’s way. Displacement occurs as precautionary evacu-
ation (where early-warning systems are available) or soon after the event.
Displacement often becomes permanent, because post-disaster hazards
delay return until the displaced have built a new life in another place.
2. Monthly, seasonal, or annual variability and extremes (Anasazi and other
migrations). Weather extremes (hailstorms, unseasonable frosts, etc.) or
temperature and precipitation anomalies may lead to harvest failures fol-
lowed by a decline in food availability. In particular, failures of several
harvests in a row create stresses on agrarian populations. Complex rela-
tions between climate and culture, including cultural practices of food
production and coping strategies, mediate between climatic variability
and decisions about migration.
3. Seasonal (labor) migration. Harvest seasons vary greatly from region to
region and crop to crop, creating opportunities for labor migration.
Historians of migration have reconstructed several regional labor migra-
tion systems worldwide.88 Many of them were circular, meaning that
migrants returned home. Delays in harvests or declines in agricultural
production often reduced the demand for labor, making labor migration
sensitive to climatic fluctuations during growing seasons. Failures or
delays of the harvest created disturbances in the system to which laborers
needed to adapt in order to make a living. Future studies might find out
in what way. The transatlantic slave trade depended on harvest seasons
on both sides of the Atlantic, and the role of climatic variability in this
context also merits further study.
4. Climate change and migration on decadal to centennial scales: cumulative
effects. Assessing the effects of climate change on decadal to centennial
scales poses tricky questions of data availability and methodology.
Correlations between climate data and migration data may be helpful, as
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 435

they might indicate statistical significance; however, correlation alone is

never enough to make an argument. It is generally more promising to
analyze climate–migration relationships through single events and then
to assess the long-term effects mostly qualitatively. Methodological prob-
lems of attributing single push events to more long-term climatic
changes, however, make it advisable to distinguish between “climate
migration” and “climate change migration.”
5. Pleistocene climate change on millennial scales and the peopling of Earth.
Alternation between stadials and interstadials created many opportuni-
ties for, and limitations on, migration during the long history of the
peopling of Earth. Pleistocene migrations of anatomically modern
humans are almost impossible to reconstruct in detail. Nevertheless,
genetic, archeological, linguistic, and paleoclimatic evidence allows con-
clusions about its chronology.
6. Climate as an argument: Climate became a standard part of the argu-
ment justifying enslavement of indigenous American peoples, forced-­
labor migration from Africa, and colonial settlement or resettlement.
Thus in the geopolitical realm of colonialism, deterministic ideas about
climate exerted power over people and their movements. Climate ideas
also influenced free choices of destination, as was the case in the settle-
ment of California and the North American Sunbelt during the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries.89

Acknowledgment This book chapter is based on research funded by the German

Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, which allowed the two cooper-
ating institutions, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (Essen) and the
Rachel Carson Center (Munich), to establish and host a group of researchers working
on “Climates of Migration: Climate Change and Environmental Migration in History.”

Notes
1. Culver, 2012, 131, diagnosed an “absence of climate from migration history.”
2. Harzig et al., 2009, 6–7, 134–37; Oltmer, 2012, 120–22; Bade et al., 2011,
xxv; Oltmer, 2017, 218–23.
3. Hoerder, 2002, 169, on seventeenth-century China.
4. See McLeman, 2014, 54–56, for a survey on IPCC reports. While the first
report in 1990 “did not draw on any scholarly research about migration,” later
reports improved little by little.
5. Piguet, 2011, 3.
6. Hoerder, 2002; McKeown, 2004; Hatton and Williamson, 2005; Lucassen and
Gerardus, 2006; Lucassen, 2007.
7. Manning, 2005, Chaps. 2–4; Lucassen et al., 2010; also Earle et al., 2011.
8. The methodology of tracing early migrations by means of population genetics is
best explained by Knijff, 2010. For mtDNA analyses see Cann et al., 1987;
Vigilant et al., 1991; Ingman et al., 2000; Oppenheimer, 2004; for y-­chromosome
analyses see Underhill et al., 2000; Wells and Read, 2002; Burroughs, 2005,
436 F. MAUELSHAGEN

8–10 gives a short survey. Some principal drawbacks are pointed out by
Manning, 2005, 23.
9. See the most recent genomic histories of Aboriginal Australia and the peopling
of Eurasia by Malaspinas et al., 2016, and Pagani et al., 2016, as well as the sum-
mary of their results by Tucci and Akey, 2016.
10. This map is a compilation of similar representations of prehistoric migrations
from various sources (Burroughs, 2005, 12, 107; “Journey of Mankind”:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/).
11. Data archived at Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of
Copenhagen (http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/data/; last accessed on
April 30, 2016). Reference study: Johnsen et al., 2001.
12. Tucci and Akey, 2016, 179; cf. Malaspinas et al., 2016.
13. Marean et al., 2007; McBrearty and Stringer, 2007.
14. Fernandes et al., 2006.
15. Robock et al., 2009.
16. Ambrose, 1998.
17. Petraglia et al., 2007.
18. Williams et al., 2009.
19. Burroughs, 2005, 144.
20. Sirocko, 2010, 71–76.
21. Sirocko, 2010, 77–82.
22. Mithen, 2003, 29–55.
23. Pei and Zhang, 2014. The study does not deal with migration of the farming
population.
24. Büntgen et al., 2016.
25. Gibbons, 1997; Diamond, 2005.
26. Benson et al., 2007a, 2007b.
27. van West, 1994; Benson et al., 2007a, 2007b; Kohler et al., 2008.
28. Benson et al., 2007a, 189.
29. Benson et al., 2007a; Kloor, 2007.
30. Kohler et al., 2008, 153.
31. Diamond, 2005, 156.
32. Persson, 1999.
33. Schelberg, 2001 has made this argument in the Anasazi case.
34. O’Neill et al., 2001, p. VIII.
35. German Advisory Council, 2008.
36. Engler and Werner, 2015.
37. Engler et al., 2013.
38. Wanner et al., 2008, 1802–03.
39. Dobrovolný et al., 2010.
40. Post, 1977.
41. Ritzmann-Blickenstorfer, 1997, 49, 125; Hippel, 1984, 175.
42. Moltmann, 1979; for a survey on migration after Tambora see Behringer, 2015,
172–91.
43. Oppenheimer, 2003, 253.
44. David Eltis in his introductory essay to Eltis et al., 2016, online http://www.
slavevoyages.org/assessment/essays#. See also Eltis and Richardson, 2010 and
Rawley and Behrendt, 2005 for excellent accounts of the history of the slave
trade.
 MIGRATION AND CLIMATE IN WORLD HISTORY 437

45. Behrendt, 2009, 45, refers to Davis, 1962, 279–5 and 294, as well as to
Galenson, 1986, 33–37. For the meaning of seasonality for work routines on
British Atlantic plantations see Roberts, 2013, Chaps. 2 and 4.
46. Curtin, 1989; McNeill, 2010.
47. Rushton, 2014, Chap. 7, 184–219, 230–31.
48. Kupperman, 1982, 1277.
49. Kupperman, 2007; White, 2015; Gergis et al., 2010.
50. Livingstone, 1999.
51. Académie Française, 1798: “ACCLIMATER. v. a. Accoutumer à la température
d’un nouveau climat.”
52. Earle, 2012.
53. Osborne, 2000, 139–40.
54. Renny, 1807, 161.
55. Gerbi, 1973, Chaps. 1–4; also Gerbi, 1985.
56. Mémoire pour servir à l’etablissement de la Louisiane, Archives nationales d’outre-
mer: C13C1, fol. 9. I owe this example and the reference to Eleonora Rohland.
57. Maroon address to W.D. Quarrell (Esq.), in Campbell, 1990, 53–54.
58. Zilberstein, 2008, 230–31.
59. Morgan and Rushton, 2013, see 118 on the case of the Maroons, and 173 on
the general problem of unfamiliar climates and environments that exiles would
encounter in many places. For Canada, which was also among the destinations,
see Winks, 1997, 311 in particular.
60. Bade, 2000, 2007; Hoerder, 2002.
61. Achilles, 1982, 1991; Persson, 1999.
62. Fogel, 1992, 2004.
63. Brandenberger, 2004.
64. As early as 1975, the proceedings of the Toronto workshop on “Living with
Climate Change” stated: “In the past, climate changes have led to mass migra-
tions and to the growth and decay of major civilizations.” See United States
Congress, 1976, 435.
65. Barnett and Adger, 2007; Barnett, 2003; Lonergan, 1994; Myers, 2005;
Podesta and Ogden, 2007; German Advisory Council, 2008.
66. El Hinnawi, 1985; Black, 2001; Bates, 2002; McNamara, 2007; Biermann and
Boas, 2008a, 2008b, 2010; Hulme, 2008; McAdam, 2012.
67. Gerrard and Wannier, 2013, part II on sovereignty and territorial concerns.
68. Hummitzsch, 2009, 5; Nicholls and Nobuo, 1998, 15.
69. Okada et al., 2014.
70. Gemenne and Shen, 2009, 28.
71. Leckie, 2014; Price, 2016.
72. Amrith, 2013, 2.
73. See also Hoerder, 2002, 376–80.
74. McLeman, 2014, 124.
75. Amrith, 2013.
76. Shaw et al., 2013.
77. Amrith, 2013.
78. Grote, 1877, 222.
79. Dixon, 1933, 420; Petersen, 1958, 259; examples for the reception of Petersen’s
terminology are: Berry and Tischler, 1978, 100; Joshi, 1999; and Han, 2005,
27–30.
438 F. MAUELSHAGEN

80. Morinière, 2009 also recognized “primitive migration” as a precursor, though

without mentioning Petersen’s sources. For a broader discussion of precursors
and the disappearance of environmental and climatic factors from migration
studies in the course of the twentieth century see Piguet, 2011, 2–4.
81. McLeman and Smit, 2006.
82. Kates, 2000, 14–15. The quote is from Stern, 2007, 128.
83. Rohland et al., 2014.
84. Mauelshagen, 2015, 179–84; Greg Bankoff’s sharp analysis of “vulnerability as
western discourse” is particularly relevant in this context. See Bankoff, 2001,
29.
85. New Orleans and its surroundings have a long history of disastrous hurricanes
and Mississippi floods setting people on the move, see Rohland, 2015.
86. Gutmann and Field, 2010; Lübken, 2014 gives several examples of Ohio River
flooding and resettlement.
87. Mike Hulme in particular has emphasized the cultural dimension of climate in
the context of global warming discourse: Hulme, 2011, 2015.
88. Hoerder, 2002, 277–305.
89. Culver, 2012.

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 PART IV

Case Studies in Climate Reconstruction

and Impacts
 CHAPTER 32

The Climate Downturn of 536–50

Timothy P. Newfield

32.1   Introduction
The 536–50 ce climatic downturn has a contentious and imperfect history. Its
most basic characteristics long eluded consensus and disparate explanations
exist for its cause, chronology, geography, and impact. Was this anomaly inter-
regional, hemispheric, or global in scale? Was it a singular vast phenomenon or
a complex of near-simultaneous events? Was it terrestrial or extraterrestrial in
origin? Was it a cultural and demographic watershed or a minor incident incon-
sequential for all and unnoticed by most?
Histories of the downturn vary in part because reconstructions of its origin,
scope, and severity have evolved steadily since the anomaly was discovered in
the early 1980s.1 Its meaning for scholars of classical Maya Central America,
north–south dynastic China, migration-period Scandinavia, the late antique
Mediterranean, and other parts of the sixth-century world remains in flux. The
written evidence is finite, but interpretations of key passages have differed.
Some of the natural evidence, namely from ice, lakebeds, and trees, has proven
mutable, and perhaps some of it is still ambiguous. Not only do new ice-core
and dendroclimatological studies continue to appear at a good clip, but many

The Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada and the Princeton
Environmental Institute supported the research presented here. Elena Xoplaki and
Jürg Luterbacher read a draft of the chapter and provided comments and direction,
which proved most helpful. Sam White edited and improved the text, Gill Plunkett
and Andrea Burke answered tephra- and sulfate-related questions, and Matt Toohey
explained simulations of sixth-century volcanic climate forcing. Any errors are the
author’s.

T. P. Newfield (*)
Departments of History and Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 447

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_32
448 T. P. NEWFIELD

earlier studies have since been reinterpreted. Some relevant paleoclimate data,
including results pivotal to the event’s discovery, have been refined, reworked,
and retracted.
This is not to say that nothing about the anomaly is known for certain. Far
from it. Dozens of natural indices for pre-instrumental temperature and pre-
cipitation from around the globe, but the Northern Hemisphere in particular,
illuminate the downturn and its causes. It is clear that it was a major episode of
cooling, as dendroclimatology has long signaled, and it was possibly, but not
necessarily, global in scale. Indeed, dramatic cooling is seen clearly in many
proxies north of the equator, but a drop in Southern Hemisphere temperature,
severe or not, is less certain. Multimillennial temperature proxies there are few,
and uncertainties exist in some of the proxy records assembled.2 Still, down-
turn volcanism is archived in both Greenlandic and Antarctic ice, lending the
event a global history.
Several recent paleoclimate studies have underscored the downturn’s mag-
nitude and extraordinariness. For example, a new bipolar ice-core chronology
of volcanism paired with a composite of multimillennial-long Northern
Hemispheric tree ring chronologies identified the downturn eruptions as some
of the largest of the last 2500 years, and 536–45 as the second most extreme
decade of post-volcanic cooling over the same period. Of the sixteen coldest
summers north of the equator since 500 bce (compared to the paper’s modern
reference period of 1901–2000), six occurred between 536 and 550.3 A study
using Alpine and Altai trees found that the 540s was the coldest decade of the
Common Era in the European series and the second coldest since 100 ce in the
Central Asian series (with respect to 1961–90). Moreover, the authors of this
article established that the downturn’s abrupt temperature plunge ushered in
an unprecedented period of cooling—a Late Antique Little Ice Age—over
large swathes of Eurasia.4 Another new composite tree ring-based study, but of
European summer temperatures stretching back to antiquity, positioned the
536–50 dip as one of the coldest and most dramatic in the series. Over the
European peninsula, the decade-and-a-half came in at about 1°C colder than
the study’s modern reference period (1961–90). Seven years of the departure
were well below that mark.5 Most recently, modeling of the climate forcing of
the two largest downturn eruptions implied that they were each comparable to
the strongest eruptions of the last 1200 years and that together, over the
decade of 536–44, they exercised an impact on extratropical Northern
Hemispheric climate upwards of 50% larger than any decade-long cluster of
eruptions since 800 ce. North of 30° they were 1.5 times stronger than the
combined effects of the large 1809 unknown eruption and 1815 Tambora
event (see Chap. 35).6
The exceptionality and severity of the downturn are well established. Yet,
despite the prominence assigned to the event in “old” and recent paleoclimate
studies, it is important to stress that our understanding of it will continue to
evolve as more paleoclimate data emerges, existing data is perfected, and the
techniques of climate reconstruction continue to develop.7
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 449

The 536–50 anomaly has attracted a diverse set of scholars. Some are pre-
disposed to assign the downturn considerable historical agency, others not.
Often, these differences reflect more the intellectual background from which
they have arisen than the current state of knowledge about the downturn
itself.8 Paleoclimatologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, and
popular historians who prioritize paleoclimate data and presume that pre-­
moderns were weak and rigid in the face of abrupt environmental change have
adopted maximalist interpretations, leaning toward or embracing catastroph-
ism and determinism. Minimalist interpretations, less numerous, are mostly
limited to humanists who are shy of natural proxies and tend to write nature
out of history.9 So, at one extreme, the downturn has been privileged as an
“epoch-making disaster” and “the real beginning of the modern world,” and
at the other, it has been disparaged as the “latest Great Disaster theory” and a
demographically “marginal event.”10 Moderatist stances acknowledge the
anomaly’s extent and severity but emphasize its limited duration and the resil-
ience of contemporaries.11
This chapter surveys the evolution of research on the 536–50 downturn
from the early 1980s to 2016. It presents the written evidence for climatic
anomalies over the Mediterranean alongside the ever-growing wealth of rele-
vant ice core and tree ring scholarship, and it highlights changes in reconstruc-
tion and interpretation as scholars reworked old data and injected new data.
Judgments about its long-term historical significance are mentioned but not
assessed: there is space here neither to support nor to refute the numerous roles
that this downturn has been assigned.
In line with current evidence, the chapter concludes that the anomaly was a
discontinuous complex of phenomena whose effects were extreme but varied
across space and time. A cluster of very large volcanic eruptions triggered
exceptional cooling and possibly drought across several parts of the globe. This
was not simply a “536 event.” It was a decade and a half of marked cold, with
summer lows around 536, 540–1, and 545–6. It is a testament to advances in
paleoclimatology that we must speak now of a fifteen-year anomaly as opposed
to an episode of twelve or eighteen months’ duration. This volcanic climate
forcing led, via its effects on food production, to a pronounced but short-term
demographic contraction in several regions of the world. Although most assess-
ments of the downturn privilege written sources for dust veiling around the
Mediterranean—the so-called 536 “mystery cloud”—that clouding was but
one component of the event. In fact, its centrality to an explanation of the
multiple temperature plunges registered in the world’s trees or the violent vol-
canism catalogued in ice between 535 and 550 is debatable.

32.2   Texts
Five contemporary and independent accounts of the dimming of the sun
around 536 survive from the Mediterranean region. Four were fundamental to
the original formulation of the 536–50 downturn in the early 1980s; all five
450 T. P. NEWFIELD

have underpinned reconstructions and histories of the event since 1988.12 The
scholar Procopius—who spent 536 in Italy, Tunisia, and possibly Turkey, and
537 in Italy alone13—observes in his lengthy history of Justinian’s wars that in
536/7 “the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during
this whole year.” He continues, “it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse,
for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed.”14
Similarly, but from Rome, the senator and consul Cassiodorus, in a letter to his
deputy variously dated to late 536, 537, or mid-538, speaks of the dimming of
the moon and of the sun having lost its “wonted light” and appearing “bluish”
as if in “transitory eclipse throughout the whole year” without the might to
produce shadows at noon. He writes of “strange” weather with, as he puts it,
“a winter without storms, a spring without mildness and a summer without
heat.” In short, it was unusually cold and dry with a “prolonged frost and
unseasonable drought.”15 The Constantinopolitan administrator John the
Lydian in his work on signs and portents written in the early 540s reports the
sun dimming “for nearly a whole year” in 535/6, although it has been sug-
gested this date is a simple mistake for 536/7.16
The churchman John of Ephesus, who lived in southeastern Turkey (Amida)
and traveled much before settling in Constantinople in the early 540s, also
describes the event in the second section of his ecclesiastical history which sur-
vives in the third part of the late eighth-century compilation of the so-called
Pseudo-Dionysius, a chronicler of the Zuqnin Monastery near Amida. In this
work, the sun is documented as “covered with darkness” for eighteen months
in 530/1, and the sun’s rays visible for only two or three hours a day “as if
diseased.”17 The twelfth-century chronicle of Syriac Patriarch Michael the
Great, which made use of this text, includes a nearly identical passage, although
the daily sunlight is stretched to four hours and the date is corrected to 536/7,
presumably to John’s original.18 Lastly, the so-called Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor,
a Syrian monk who likely compiled his history in the third quarter of the sixth
century somewhere in southeastern Turkey (probably also Amida), observes
the darkening of the sun and moon from March 24, 536 to June 24, 537: “the
sun began to become dark at daytime and the moon by night.”19 He also refers
then to the Mediterranean in an “awkward phrase” usually translated as “stormy
with spray”20 but which could be read instead as “clouded by moisture” or
“confused by wet clouds.”21 Pseudo-Zachariah as well notes that the 536–7
winter in Syria was severely cold and unusually snowy, causing birds to die.22
Other texts document difficult weather at the time but not veiling. Notably,
Marcellinus Comes’ Constantinopolitan continuator remarks that 536 saw
“excessive drought” that destroyed western Asian pastureland and forced the
migration of 15,000 people from modern-day Iran to Syria.23
These accounts, truncated as such, have been taken “as is” with few qualms.
The exception is John the Lydian’s passage, which Arjava demonstrated was
often read too selectively.24 Unlike the other sources, this John offered an
explanation and range of the sun’s dimming.25 The sun became dim, he writes,
“because the air is dense from rising moisture.” This moisture “evaporated and
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 451

gathered into clouds dimming the light of the sun so that it did not come into
our sight or pierce this dense substance.” John also tells us the aqueous phe-
nomenon was European in scope; Persia and India, he specifies, were not
affected.26 As discussed below (see Sect. 32.7 “Collapse and Resilience”),
Arjava employs John’s remarks, alongside Pseudo-Zachariah’s vague com-
ments about a stormy or cloud-covered Mediterranean, to argue that mystery
clouding was circumscribed, tropospheric (that is, in the lower atmosphere),
and not volcanic in origin.
But just how much should we make of John’s interpretation? The Byzantine
may have been well informed about current events in Persia but likely not in
India,27 and he was present in neither to witness clear skies firsthand. He may
also spare Persia and India sun dimming since he conceived of them as being
dry, or at least drier than Mediterranean Eurasia: “India and the Persian realm
and whatever dry land lies toward the rising sun were not troubled at all.” In
any case, his understanding of the cause of the sun’s dimming, whether his own
or another’s,28 need not be accurate.
There is then the East Asian evidence, which requires closer attention than
it has been given or can be given here. In the eastern region between the
Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, for example, there are reports of drought, early
frost, and snow in 536, and then very unusual summertime cold, frost, and
snow in 537. Particularly adverse conditions are reported in 536 for Ching
state, south of Shandong peninsula. The eighteenth-century encyclopedic
compilation, Gujin Tushu Jicheng, contains references to a dire drought in
537 in Gansu, Henan, Shanxi, and Xi’an provinces. There is also a hint of
atmospheric clouding, since sources from southern China report that Canopus,
the second brightest star, could not be seen at either the spring or fall 536
equinoxes. Additionally, the early seventh-century Nanshi chronicle refers to
“yellow dust” that “fell like snow” in 536 and 537. In the latter year, it “filled
scoops when picked up.” The dust was almost certainly Gobi sand (not volca-
nic ash), but this signals that 536 and 537 were unusually dry.29 Further
droughts are cited in 542, 543, 547, and 550.30
In the Japanese Nihon Shoki, likely compiled between 681 and 720 from
earlier sources, there is a brief mention of people “starving of cold” and hunger
in summer 536. It also includes references to the necessity of public granaries
in “preparation for evil years,” grain distribution to regions underserved by
granaries, and the construction of new granaries to deal with “extraordinary
occasions.”31 The thin Silla Annals of Korea’s Samguk Sagi, from the southeast
of the peninsula, record the winter blossoming of peach and plum trees in 540,
and (presumably extraordinary) snowfall in spring 541, but nothing else poten-
tially relevant for the years 535–50.32 The Koguryo Annals of the Samguk Sagi,
which concern a large region on either side of the Yula and Tumen Rivers,
report this unusual blooming but not the snowfall. Importantly, this text
observes in 536 that “due to a severe drought during the spring and summer
officials were dispatched to relieve the suffering of the people.” Following this
drought, and a plague of locusts, there was famine in 537.33
452 T. P. NEWFIELD

Read separately or together, these passages suggest something atmospheri-

cally and climatologically unusual during and after 536. It is hardly clear, how-
ever, whether the Mediterranean clouding was linked to events reported in
China, Korea, or Japan, or to European accounts of food shortage addressed
below. From the written sources alone, it remains altogether unknown whether
sun veiling extended far beyond Byzantine territories. Yet support for vast vol-
canic dust veils and climatic impacts emerges when the written evidence is
combined with high-resolution tree ring-based indices for sixth-century tem-
perature and precipitation.

32.3   Tree Rings

Multiple dendroclimatological studies identify an unusually cold-dry anom-
aly between 536 and 550. Some studies consider several indicators of tem-
perature and precipitation, including tree ring width (TRW), maximum
latewood density (MXD), cell wall thickness, and the variability of stable
carbon and oxygen isotopes (δ13C and δ18O). Tree ring-based climate
reconstructions have commonly isolated 536–50 as one of the coldest peri-
ods of the last several millennia. Many of these studies find temperature
declines of 1.5–4 °C below their referenced instrumental series for one or
more years of the downturn. Thin growth rings as well as one or more rare
frost rings, which indicate growing-­season freezing, are not uncommon
across the roughly fifteen-year period. Such poor growth is often related to
impacts of major volcanic eruptions on climate and associated sudden drops
in temperature.34 Mature trees at high altitudes or high latitudes archive
these drops best. Low elevations specimens, in contrast, speak to precipita-
tion. Relevant dendroclimatology has emerged at a rapid rate and has
revealed a severity and abruptness lost in lower-resolution climate proxies.
High-resolution tree ring studies illustrate that the downturn exceeds the
magnitude and the temporal and spatial scope of the anomaly suggested in
the written evidence.
Too many relevant tree-based studies have appeared to discuss them indi-
vidually here. Table 32.1 summarizes twenty-eight of these publications. The
vast majority survey thousands of years of climate and simply mention (or
depict) the 536–50 downturn as a truly extraordinary but brief climate depar-
ture. Baillie authored the first studies to integrate tree ring data into the discus-
sion of a 536 event (5). In his 1991 and 1994 papers, he drew on published
tree ring material concerning northern Sweden and California (1, 3). He also
introduced an unpublished TRW series of bristlecone pines from Nevada that
showed exceptionally poor growth in the late 530s and 540s—with nadirs at
536–7, 540–1, 546–7, and 552–3—and compiled a composite of fifteen oak
TRW series from England, Ireland, Germany, and Scotland that revealed
536–50 as an extreme trough, with lows at 536 and 540–1 and recovery in
537–8 and 546–7. In Irish oaks, 540 was identified as the worst growing year
of the last several millennia.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 453

Baillie’s work has been confirmed repeatedly in reassessments of European

and US data and in new series from these and other regions. The 536–50 cool-
ing stands out in 1500- and even 7500-year-long chronologies. Multiple and
varied analyses of all but two of the more than ten tree ring series encompassing
the downturn show it as an exceptionally pronounced period of temperature
and/or precipitation anomaly.
Naturally, there is some variation among chronologies and analyses. Most
series (about 85% of those in Table 32.1) are chiefly temperature sensitive. A
few (e.g., 12, 14, 20, and 24–25—three of which come from Qinghai Province,
China) specifically concern precipitation, and neither the degree of deviation
nor the years identified as most extreme are always the same. Most studies con-
sider TRW alone. One recent study (24), however, demonstrates the array of
measurable parameters. Ring width, cell-wall thickness, and cellulose δ13C and
δ18O were assessed with specific attention to the 530s and 540s in three multi-
millennial larch series from Russia’s northern Krasnoyarsk Krai, northeastern
Sakha Republic, and Altai Republic. TRW minima were established in the
northerly Krasnoyarsk and Sakha chronologies at 536 and 541, and in the
high-altitude Altai chronology at 536 and 539. Exceptionally thin cell walls
were visible in the Sakha series at 536 and 541 and in the Altai series at 536 and
537. Cell-damaged frost rings could be seen in the latter at 536, 537, and 538.
Pronounced δ13C declines, telling of a cold but moist growing season, were
visible at 536 in the Krasnoyarsk and Sakha series. Krasnoyarsk δ13C values
remained low until the 550s, with a 538 minimum, while Sakha values showed
respite at 537 and another plunge at 541. Altai δ13C values hardly varied.
Exceptionally diminished δ18O values were uncovered at 536 in the Altai series,
indicating a very cold growing season, but δ18O remained steady at Krasnoyarsk
and Sakha. Taken together, this data indicates multiple unusually short grow-
ing seasons during the downturn and June–July temperatures dipping well
below the referenced instrumental series (by up to 4 °C in the Altai series).35
One explanation for the variation in the years of extreme temperature depar-
tures is that TRW is less sensitive than MXD to sudden cooling and TRW may
give an extended response to cold events.36 Furthermore, not all tree species
respond equally to climatic phenomena, and high-latitude chronologies—as
opposed to high-altitude ones—seem to give a sharper and lagged response to
sudden cooling.37 Still, in all but two studies surveyed (3, 24), 536 marks the
downturn’s onset.38 One study of pines from Finland (8) illustrates in particu-
lar how abrupt the event could be. The series identifies the July of 535 as the
warmest of the last 7500 years and the 535–6 interannual transition as the
second most extreme since at least 5520–5519 bce. There is also some discrep-
ancy regarding moisture. While the northern Siberian Krasnoyarsk and Sakha
chronologies (24) register cold-wet conditions, Central European and central
Chinese series (12, 14, 20, 25) tell of a cold-dry downturn.
Two other growth minima center around 540–1 and 545–6 ce. In multiple
series, many of the intervening and subsequent years show growth minima as
well: notably 537, 539, 541, 542, 543, 544, 547, and 549. Some studies
Table 32.1 Twenty-eight dendroclimatological studies (1990–2015) relevant to the 536–50 downturn
454

Location Span Parameter Observations

1 Sweden, Norrbotten County 500 ce–1980 ce TRW, MXD April–August 536 5th coldest in series, 1.5 °C below SIM; summer cold
trough late 530s & early 540s.
2 Sweden, Norrbotten County 500 ce–1980 ce MXD July–August 536 2nd coldest in series at 2 °C below SIM; multiyear cold
period around 540.
T. P. NEWFIELD

3 USA, California State 1 ce–1980 ce TRW June–January 536, 535, 541 2nd, 3rd & 4th coldest, 3.13 °C, 3.07 °C &
2.93 °C below SIM; 542–61 coldest 20-year stretch, 1.95 °C below SIM.
4 Chile, Los Lagos Region 1634 bce–1987 ce TRW Extreme poor-growth period (December–March temperatures) c. 540.
5 Composite European Series & See text TRW See text.
USA, Nevada
6 Mongolia, Zavkhan Province 262 ce–1999 ce TRW, MXD Frost rings, MXD evidence exceptional cold at 536; TRW evidence, August–
July temperatures, 536–45 cold trough, nadirs at 536 & 543; TRW
minimum at 543; respite 538.
7 Russia, northern Krasnoyarsk 212 bce–1996 ce TRW June–July 536 4th coldest in series (estimated at 3.5 °C compared to average
Krai instrumental observation period (1933–89) temperature of 9.6 °C); 533–52
3rd coldest 20-year period in series.
8 Finland, Lapland Regions 5520 bce–1999 ce TRW July 536 1.78 °C below SIM; 541–50 4th coldest non-overlapping 10-year
period, 1.17 below SIM; 542–51 coldest decade of last 4000 years, 1.33
below SIM; July 535 warmest, 6.17 °C above SIM; 535–6 2nd most extreme
interannual fluctuation.
9 Sweden, Norrbotten County 5407 bce–1997 ce TRW Severely cold June–Augusts around 540; multiple frost rings & TRW minima;
1 of 6 coldest short periods in series.
10 Russia, north Krasnoyarsk Krai 431 bce–1996 ce TRW June–July 536 5th coldest in series (estimated at 3.7 °C compared to average
instrumental observation period (1933–89) temperature of 9.6 °C, or 2.8 °C
below SIM); cold trough spanning late 530s & 540s.
11 Sweden, Norrbotten County 5407 bce–1997 ce TRW Exceptionally cold June–Augusts between 536 and 553; lows at 536, 542,
544–5, & 550.
12 China, Qinghai Province 326 bce–2000 ce TRW 536 first year of decade plus of low May–June precipitation.

(continued)
Table 32.1 (continued)

Location Span Parameter Observations

13 Sweden, Jämtland County 2893 bce–1998 ce TRW Several very low summer temperatures between 536 & 550; minima at 536,
539, 542, & 544.
14 China, Qinghai Province 515 bce–2000 ce TRW Several years (July–Junes) of very low precipitation in 530s & 540s.
15 USA, Arizona State 266 bce–1997 ce TRW 534–43 6th coldest ‘short period’ in series at 1.34 °C below SIM.
16 Norway, Troms County 320 ce–1994 ce TRW Exceptionally low July temperatures in mid 530s–540s, some of the deepest
plunges in series.
17 Austria, Tyrol State 5125 bce–2000 ce TRW Trough of cold May–Septembers 536–52; lows at 545 & 549.
18 USA, Arizona, California, 3000 bce–2002 ce TRW Remarkably cold ‘warm seasons’ in 536, 537, 541, 542, 543, 545, & 547;
Nevada cold trough 536–47; frost rings 536 & 541; 2/5 sixth-­century frost rings &
6/7 sixth-century ring-width minima took place between 536 and 550.
19 Sweden, Norrbotten County 500 ce–2004 ce TRW, MXD Sharply cold April–Augusts in mid 530s & 540s; multiple lows in range of 2
°C below SIM.
20 Central European Composite 500 bce–2000 ce TRW Dry April–Junes in northeast France, northeast & southeast Germany & cold
Series June–Augusts in Austrian Alps; cold-dry lows c. 537, 542, 545, & 550.
21 Finland, Lapland Region 5500 bce–2000 ce TRW 536 one of the five coldest Julys in series at more than 3 °C below SIM;
summer 542 nearly as cold.
22 Sweden, Norrbotten County 500 ce–2008 ce TRW, MXD Several sharply cold May–Augusts mid 530s & 540s; lows 536, 542, & 545.
1 of coldest short periods in TRD and MXD series.
23 Sweden, Norrbotten County & 5510 bce–1999 ce TRW, MXD Summer 542 2nd coldest over last 2000 years in TRW & MXD series, 5th
Finland, Lapland Region TRW, 1 ce–1997 ce coldest in TRW series; summer 536 less frigid, 36th in TRW series; yet 536 1
MXD of 10 coldest years 1–1000 ce in MXD series.
24 Russia, north Krasnoyarsk Krai, See text TRW, MXD, See text.
northeastern Sakha Republic, CWT, δ13C,
Altai Republic δ18O
25 China, Qinghai Province 2637 bce–2011 ce TRW Extremely dry July–Junes mid 530s & 540s; follows drier short periods in
late 300s & late 400s; last short dry period for 600 years.
26 USA, California, Nevada 2575 bce–2006 ce TRW Exceptionally cold July–Septembers mid 530s & 540s.
THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50

27 Austria, Upper Austria State 88 ce–2008 ce MXD Sharply cold July–Septembers around 540; especially light ring at 536.

(continued)
455
Table 32.1 (continued)
456

Location Span Parameter Observations

28 Composite European Series 1 ce–2000 ce (ES), TRW, MXD 1.6 < 2.5 °C drop June–August 536, 1.4 < 2.7 °C drop June–August 541,
(ES), Composite Northern 500 bce–2000 ce against preceding 30 years in ES with lows at 536, 541, 543, 544, 545, 546,
Hemispheric Series (NS) (NS) 549; in ES 536–40 2nd coldest run of June–Augusts; in NS 535–50 has 6 of
13 strongest tree-growth reductions 500 bce–1250 ce & 536–45 strongest
T. P. NEWFIELD

decade-long tree-growth reduction (coldest decade) 500 bce–2000 ce;

536–45 & 546–55 2 of 10 coldest decades in NS.
TRW = Tree-Ring Width; MXD = Maximum Latewood Density; CWT = Cell Wall Thickness; δ13C = Stable Carbon Isotope; δ18O = Stable Oxygen Isotope; SIM = Series Instrumental
Mean. 1 K. Briffa et al., “A 1400-­Year Tree-Ring Record of Summer Temperatures in Fennoscandia,” Nature 346 (1990), pp. 437 (Fig. 2), 439. 2 K. Briffa et al., “Fennoscandian
Summers from AD 500: Temperature Changes on Short and Long Time Scales,” Climate Dynamics 7 (1992), pp. 116 (Fig. 8), 117. 3 L. Scuderi, “A 2000-Year Tree Ring Record
of Annual Temperatures in the Sierra Nevada Mountains,” Science 259 (1993), p. 1435. 4 A. Lara and R. Villalba, “A 3620-Year Temperature Record from Fitzroya cupressoides Tree
Rings in Southern South America,” Science 260 (1993), p. 1106 (Fig. 3); Cf. R. Villalba, “Interdecadal Climatic Variations in Millennial Temperature Reconstructions from Southern
South America,” in P. Jones et al., eds., Climatic Variations and Forcing Mechanisms of the Last 2000 Years (Springer, Berlin, 1996), pp. 164 (Fig. 1), 170 (Fig. 5). 5 M. Baillie,
“Marking in Marker Dates: Toward an Archaeology with Historical Precision,” World Archaeology 23 (1991), pp. 233–238; idem, “Dendrochronology Raises Questions about the
Nature of the AD 536 Dust-Veil Event,” The Holocene 4 (1994), pp. 213–15. 6 R. D’Arrigo et al., “Spatial Response to Major Volcanic Events In or About 536, 934 and 1258:
Frost Rings and other Dendrochronological Evidence from Mongolia and Northern Siberia,” Climatic Change 49 (2001), pp. 241–42; R. D’Arrigo et al., “1738 Years of Mongolian
Temperature Variability Inferred from a Tree-Ring Width Chronology of Siberian Pine,” Geophysical Research Letters 28 (2001), pp. 544–45. 7 M. Naurzbaev and E. Vaganov,
“Variation of Early Summer and Annual Temperature in East Taymir and Putoran (Siberia) over the Last Two Millennia Inferred from Tree Rings,” Journal of Geophysical Research
105 (2000), p. 7324. 8 S. Helama et al., “The Supra-Long Scots Pine Tree-Ring Record for Finnish Lapland: Part 2, Interannual to Centennial Variability in Summer Temperatures
in 7500 Years,” The Holocene 12 (2002), pp. 683 (Table 3), 685 (Table 4), 686. 9 H. Grudd et al., “A 7400-Year Tree-Ring Chronology in Northern Swedish Lapland: Natural
Climatic Variability Expressed on Annual to Millennial Timescales,” The Holocene 12 (2002), p. 663. 10 M. Naurzbeav et al., “Summer Temperatures in Eastern Taimyr Inferred
from a 2427-year Late-Holocene Tree Ring Chronology and Earlier Floating Series,” The Holocene 12 (2002), pp. 732, 734 (Table 4). 11 H. Grudd, “A 7400-Year Tree-Ring
Chronology in Northern Swedish Lapland: Natural Climatic Variability Expressed on Annual to Millennial Timescales,” The Holocene 12 (2002), p. 663; Larsen et al., “New Ice
Core Evidence,” L04708 (Fig. 1). 12 Q. Zhang et al., “A 2326-Year Tree-Ring Record of Climate Variability of the Northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau,” Geophysical Research
Letters 30 (2003), p. 1739 (Fig. 3); C. Zhang and Q. Zhang, “Is There a Link between the Rise and Fall of the Tuyuhun Tribe (Northwestern China) and Climatic Variations in the
fourth–seventh centuries AD?” Journal of Arid Environments (2016), p. 148. 13 B. Gunnarson et al., “Holocene Humidity Fluctuations in Sweden Inferred from Dendrochronology
and Peat Stratigraphy,” Boreas 32 (2003), pp. 348–49, 351–52, 355–56; Larsen et al., “New Ice Core Evidence,” L04708 (Fig. 1). 14 P. Sheppard et al., “Annual Precipitation Since
515 BC Reconstructed from Living and Fossil Juniper Growth of Northeastern Qinghai Province, China,” Climate Dynamics 23 (2004), p. 876. 15 M. Salzer and K. Kipfmueller,
“Reconstructed. Temperature and Precipitation on a Millennial Timescale from Tree-Rings in the Southern Colorado Plateau, USA,” Climatic Change 70 (2005), pp. 473 (Fig. 4),
476 (Table IV). 16 A. Kirchhefer, “A Discontinuous Tree-Ring Record AD 320–1994 from Dividalen, Norway: Inferences Climate and Tree-Line History,” in Mountain Ecosystems:
(continued)
Table 32.1 (continued)

Studies on Tree Line Ecology, eds. G. Brill and B. Keplin (Berlin, 2005), p. 225. Though this chronology stretches back to 320, detailed analysis is presented only for 587–980 and
1507–1993 and the severity of the downturn has to be inferred from Fig. 3. 17 K. Nicolussi et al., “Holocene Tree-Line Variability in the Kauner Valley, Central Eastern Alps,
Indicated by Dendrochronological Analysis of Living Trees and Subfossil Logs,” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14 (2005), pp. 221–34; Larsen et al., “New Ice Core
Evidence,” L04708 (Fig. 1). 18 M. Salzer and M. Hughes, “Bristlecone Pine Tree Rings and Volcanic Eruptions Over the Last 5000 yr,” Quaternary Research 67 (2007), pp. 62
(Table 2), 63 (Table 4), 65 (Table 6), 66. 19 H. Grudd, “Torneträsk Tree-Ring Width and Density AD 500–2004: A Test of Climatic Sensitivity and a New 1500-Year Reconstruction
of North Fennoscandian Summers,” Climate Dynamics 31 (2008), p. 853. 20 U. Büntgen et al., “2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility,” Science
331 (2011), pp. 580, 581 (Fig. 4); Kostick and Ludlow, “Dating of Volcanic Events,” p. 16 (Fig. 1). 21 S. Helama et al., “A Chronology of Climatic Downturns through the Mid-
and Late-Holocene: Tracing the Distant Effects of Explosive Eruptions from Palaeoclimatic and Historical Evidence in Northern Europe,” Polar Research 32 (2013), p. 15866
(Fig. 2). 22 T. Melvin et al., “Potential Bias in ‘Updating’ Tree-Ring Chronologies Using Regional Curve Standardisation: Re-Processing 1500 Years of Torneträsk Density and
Ring-Width Data,” The Holocene (2013), p. 371 (Fig. 5). 23 P. Jones, “Cool North European Summers and Possible Links to Explosive Volcanic Eruptions,” Journal of Geophysical
Research: Atmospheres 118 (2013), p. 6263. 24 O. Churakova et al., “A Cluster of Stratospheric Volcanic Eruptions in the AD 530s Recorded in Siberian Tree Rings,” Global and
Planetary Change 122 (2014), pp. 145–49; O. Churakova et al., “Siberian Trees: Eyewitnesses to the Volcanic Event of AD 536,” Pages Magazine 23 (2015), pp. 64–65. 25 B. Yang,
“A 3500-Year Tree-Ring Record of Annual Precipitation on the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau,” PNAS 111 (2014), p. 2906. 26 M. Salzer et al., “Five Millennia of Palaeotemperature
from Tree-Rings in the Great Basin, USA,” Climate Dynamics 42 (2014), p. 1524 (Fig. 6). 27 M. Klusek et al., “Multi-Century Long Density Chronology of Living and Sub-Fossil
Trees from Lake Schwarzensee, Austria,” Dendrochronologia 33 (2015), pp. 46 (Fig. 4), 47. 28 M. Sigl et al., “Timing and Climate Forcing of Volcanic Eruptions for the Past 2500
Years,” Nature 523 (2015), pp. 547–48, Extended Data Table 5
THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50
457
458 T. P. NEWFIELD

(e.g., 28) identify another low in the early 550s. The year 538 is a “respite” or
good growth year in most (but not all) studies; and some chronologies identify
respites in 537, 542–3, and 547–8. The cold trough of 536–50, then, repre-
sents a general and significant departure from normal temperature and—at
least in western China, southern Russia, and Central Europe— from normal
precipitation. It was not a period of consistent poor-growth conditions, but in
the vast majority of dendroclimatological studies, it remains one of or the cold-
est short periods on record (see, for example, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18,
20, 22, 24, 28). The tree ring-based Old World Drought Atlas, not included
in Table 32.1, also demonstrates that climate forcing was not steady. Yet it does
suggest that the downturn was by and large dry north of the Alps. The sum-
mers of 549 and 550 emerge as rather wet in the atlas, but those of 536,
538–41, 546, and 551 seem to have been very dry.39 A 2015 study (28), using
a composite northern hemispheric tree ring chronology spanning 500 bce–
2000 ce, established the consecutive decades of 536–45 and 546–55 as the first
and tenth coldest decades in the series, respectively. The same trees also put six
of the thirteen most significant tree-growth anomalies (coldest years) between
500 bce and 1250 ce within the limits of the downturn. A forthcoming study
reconfirms these findings.40
Of course, this dendroclimatology presents challenges. Most tree rings that
provide a temperature signal come from high-altitude or high-latitude sites—
that is, thinly populated regions far removed from written descriptions of dust
veils and famines. Temperature signals obtained from trees are more homoge-
nous than precipitation signals and can be regionally representative,41 but there
is a dearth of crop-level climate data. The climate signals obtained from trees
reveal neither winter temperature nor winter precipitation but only growing-­
season conditions; yet winter precipitation is fundamental for food production in
many parts of the world. Moreover, even though sulfates logged in Antarctic ice
cores reveal that the downturn was at times global in scope, at least from 540 (see
Sect. 32.5 “Ice Cores”), most of the proxy data comes from north of the Tropic
of Cancer and is Eurasian in focus. The available South American dendroclima-
tology (4), which seems to register a temperature plunge about 540, does little
to fill out the downturn’s impacts in the Southern Hemisphere. Multimillennial
Tasmanian and New Zealand TRW series indicative of November–April tem-
peratures do not register significant or unusual downturn cold, though it has
been suggested that they reflect volcanic climate forcing poorly.42
Finally, tree ring evidence cannot yet confirm the climate impacts of the
Mediterranean mystery cloud described in Byzantine sources. There is still
only one truly Mediterranean chronology spatially and temporally consistent
with the documented veiling: a floating Constantinopolitan series thought to
span 398–610 ce.43 TRW analysis of that series, however, returned neither a
severe 536–50 cold trough nor extreme lows at 536 or 540. Narrow but
“non-­anomalous” rings are apparent at 537 and 541. These results are not as
surprising as they may seem. Low elevation, mid-latitude trees typically tell us
about precipitation, not temperature. Rather than failing to indicate major
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 459

­ ost-­
p eruption cooling, these rings may instead evidence some anomalous
post-­eruption dryness.44 In any case, work remains to be done on this series.
The authors observe that the date range of the series is not absolute; Aegean
trees may experience better-than-average growing conditions in cold anoma-
lies or, as is more likely, fail to register cold anomalies altogether; and this
particular chronology may provide a microclimate signal rather than a “broader
regional or hemispheric” one.45 The tree ring series closest to the documented
clouding that register the downturn temperature plunge come from the Alps
(17, 20, 27–8).46
A vast array of tree ring graphs could be presented that demonstrate the
abruptness and severity of 536–50 summer cooling. Figure 32.1 presents
Christiansen and Ljungqvist’s 2000-year-long multiproxy temperature recon-
struction for the extratropical Northern Hemisphere (north of 30°) alongside
the PAGES 2k Consortium’s tree-based temperature reconstruction for
Europe. Figure 32.2 presents sixth-century sections of these series as well as
composite tree ring temperature reconstructions for Scandinavia and the Alps.
The downturn registers clearly in all four series, but there are differences. The
PAGES and Scandinavian reconstructions are rather choppy. The
­hemisphere-­wide and Alpine series suggest more sustained low temperatures.
In addition, they indicate that the downturn persisted well into the 550s.

32.4   Other Proxies

The fact that tree rings demonstrate a cold trough at the same time that written
sources describe clouding and food shortages suggests but does not prove a
link. Other archives—including cave formations (speleothems) and ice cores—
can offer further information about global and local climate histories.
Studies of stable isotope variability in speleothems offer data on regional
climates. Like trees, these cave formations can provide annually resolved prox-
ies of past temperature and precipitation.47 For example, studies of layer thick-
ness in a speleothem outside Beijing, China, indicative of May–August
temperature, and analysis of oxygen isotope variability in a Wanxiang Cave
(Gansu, China) speleothem reflective of May–September precipitation, have
turned up evidence of rapid climate change during the 530s and 540s. The lat-
ter shows a major δ18O spike around 536, indicating the most sudden and
severe drought conditions in the 1810-year chronology.48 This speleothem
may reveal the climate triggers of famine in eastern China in the 530s, as den-
droclimatology may the triggers of famine in temperate Europe.
Many less-resolved climate proxies also reveal 536–50 cooling and drying. For
instance, an analysis of ice accumulation and oxygen isotope variability in ice
cored from Peru’s Quelccaya glacier reveals a pronounced cold-dry period last-
ing about two decades around 540; dendrochronologically dated fossil wood
demonstrates that Switzerland’s Lower Grindelwald glacier advanced from 527
to 578; a study of alkenone in varved lake sediments in northeastern China shows
a marked decline in spring-summer temperatures about 540; and an assessment
 460
T. P. NEWFIELD

Fig. 32.1 Summer temperature anomalies for the past two millennia. Summer temperature anomalies noted by Christiansen and
Ljungqvist (2012) are with respect to 1880–1960. The PAGES June–August temperature anomalies are relative to 1961–90. Five tree-based
temperature reconstructions are rolled into the Scandinavian series and four into the Alpine series [the data comes from Büntgen and Tegel
(2011)]. These European series reflect June–August temperature anomalies with respect to 1860–2004. The author thanks Ulf Büntgen for
sharing this data and Inga Labuhn for drawing these graphs
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 461

Fig. 32.2 Summer temperature anomalies 500–600 ce. Summer temperature anoma-
lies noted by Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2012) are with respect to 1880–1960. The
PAGES June–August temperature anomalies are relative to 1961–1990. Five tree-based
temperature reconstructions are rolled into the Scandinavian series and four into the
Alpine series [the data comes from Büntgen and Tegel (2011)]. These European series
reflect June–August temperature anomalies with respect to 1860–2004. The author
thanks Ulf Büntgen for sharing this data and Inga Labuhn for drawing these graphs

of water-table depths in Tierra del Fuego peat bogs roughly indicates a shift from
drier to wetter conditions around 550.49 There are also isotopic assessments of
gases trapped in polar ice. For example, analysis of argon and nitrogen isotopes
from the Central Greenland GISP2 core (resolved to about twenty years) estab-
lished a sharp multiyear temperature drop around 540.50 Although there are
uncertainties, work on oxygen isotopes in Antarctic ice suggests that temperature
did not fall much over the frozen continent in the mid-sixth century. In fact, it
may have risen.51
Naturally, poorly resolved proxies are less valuable where high-resolution
indices are already available. Nevertheless, in regions such as Central America—
where many think the downturn hit hard—low-resolution proxies are all we
have.52 Paleoclimatology in this region has focused on climate trends underly-
ing the so-called Maya classical collapse (750–1000). However, the Maya
“hiatus”—a sharp break between the Early and Late Classical periods, spanning
462 T. P. NEWFIELD

about 535–95—has not gone unnoticed. Archaeologically, the period saw a

leveling off or decline in stelae and monumental building, and potentially pop-
ulation contraction and settlement desertion. Increasing δ18O values in a sedi-
ment core taken from the Yucatán Peninsula’s Punta Laguna in the mid-1990s
indicate an “exceptionally arid event” at 585 ± 50 and a study of gypsum hori-
zons in the sediment of neighboring Chichancanab Lake also seemed to reveal
a hiatus-era drought about a decade long. Later studies, however, suggested
that this drought was not dire.53
More recently, an annually resolved study of oxygen isotope variability in a
Yucatán stalagmite turned up evidence of severe multiyear droughts (increased
δ18O) in the early sixth century comparable to later “collapse”-era droughts. Yet
the study fixed these droughts at 501–18 and 527–39, so predating the 536–50
downturn.54 Analysis of a Belizean speleothem has also identified a drought
around 517 (±0.5–3 years).55 Considering the chronological uncertainties in
these records, however, it remains possible that one or more of these arid inter-
vals were linked to the eruption of 539/40. Less firmly dated evidence of sixth-
century drought in Central America comes from δ18O analysis of a roughly
resolved sediment core from Guatemala’s Salpetén Lake,56 titanium in a marine
core taken off the coast of Venezuela in the Cariaco Basin,57 and analysis of plant
δD in lacustrine cores from the Dominican Republic’s Laguna Castilla.58 Not all
of these proxies necessarily reflect the 536–50 downturn. Higher-resolution
indices that span the mid-sixth century are very much needed for this region.

32.5   Ice Cores

Assessment of sulfate in polar ice provided the first indications of a mid-sixth-­
century climate anomaly. While tree rings archive annual changes in growing-­
season climate, ice layers archive sulfate and tephra from large or local volcanic
eruptions. Different dating methods have produced slightly different results for
eruptions. Sulfuric acid aerosols are deposited as sulfates months and possibly years
after eruptions. Evidence of massive tropical eruptions can appear at both poles.59
A study published in 1980 first identified an acid horizon from a major mid-­
sixth-­century eruption in a south Greenlandic ice core, dated to 540 ± 10.60 A
similar horizon was identified at about 535 in the Greenlandic Dye-3 ice core two
years later.61 A few years after that, both of these signals were redated to around
516.62 Volcanic acid layers subsequently emerged in the GISP2 core at 530 ± 2, in
the GRIP core at around 527, and the Dye-3 core at around 530—all too early for
the reported 536 clouding.63 The GISP2 ice core section pertaining to the mid-
500s (likely “from A.D. 620 to 545”) was lost during retrieval and no relevant
signal was detected for several years in other Greenlandic or Antarctic archives.64
Then studies in 2004 and 2007 found a major volcanic signal in the Antarctic
Dronning Maud Land and Dome-C cores dated to 542 ± 1; and in 2008 Larsen
and his team uncovered two significant signals in Dye-3, GRIP, and NGRIP
Greenlandic cores at 529 ± 2 and 533/4 ± 2.65 The latter, it was argued, related
directly to the 536–50 climatic downturn. Following a comparison of sixth-
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 463

and seventh-century volcanic horizons, this team proposed that Antarctic ice
core dates be shifted back six years and Greenlandic dates up two to three years,
meaning that an eruption possibly accountable for the 536 event would be
evident in multiple cores at both poles. Only months later, however, dendro-
chronologist Baillie proposed that the dates of these newly detected acidities be
bumped up six or seven years, which would put major eruptions at around 535
and 539. These eruptions could explain the Mediterranean clouding and the
poor growth registered in trees around 536 and 540.66
This redating was not immediately accepted. A 2011 study of a new South Pole
core dated an “unusually large” eruption to 531 ± 15; and a 2012 study found a
major volcanic signal in an East Antarctic core and finely dated it, via the counting
of annual ice layers, to late 531.67 The authors of the first study proposed that a
single large eruption was behind their strong 531 ± 15 signal and the 542 ± 17
Antarctic signal identified in 2004, but they wagered that the source event occurred
about 535 rather than 539 (the pull of Mediterranean clouding was stronger it
seems than narrow tree rings at 540–1). The authors of the latter study agreed that
the Greenlandic and Antarctic signals at 533 and 542 referred to a signal episode,
as Larsen proposed, but they fixed it a date of 531–3—which meant it could no
longer explain either the clouding of 536–7 or the thin tree rings of 540–1.
Then in 2013–15, several studies came out refining both the dating and
scale of eruptions identified in ice cores. The first of these found both of
Larsen’s large eruptions, at around 529 and 534, in new ice cores from
Greenland and Antarctica.68 The second, using additional Antarctic cores,
found signals at 543 ± 17 and 515 ± 18 and tied them to Larsen’s Greenlandic
horizon of 533/4 ± 2 and the 536 event.69 Another 2014 paper, combining a
reappraisal/redating of multiple existing Antarctic cores with several new and
existing ones, identified an eruption at 531 as a bipolar “global-scale” event,
and the fifth-largest eruption of the last 2000 years—big, but a not insignifi-
cant demotion.70 A 2015 analysis of several Greenlandic cores, which employed
Baillie’s six- to seven-year bump, then found large sulfate horizons at 535/6
and 539/40. It located the second, but not the first, of these eruptions in
Antarctic cores.71 Most recently, glacier ice from the Western Belukha Plateau
in Siberia’s Altai Mountains was shown to contain high sulfate levels rather
roughly dated at 520 ± 100, 540 ± 100 and 550 ± 10, one of which was
assigned to the 536 event. Study of the oxygen isotope variability in this core,
indicative of seasonal air temperature, also suggested that the most prominent
of these signals was associated with some of the coldest temperatures (lowest
δ18O) of the first millennium ce in the region.72

32.6   Origins
Soon after a major mid-sixth century eruption was detected in Greenland ice,
scholars turned to Byzantine writers to fill out the details of an important cli-
matic event.73 Once they had connected the acid horizons in ice cores and the
narrow and frosty tree rings to historical descriptions of mystery clouding,
464 T. P. NEWFIELD

natural scientists essentially concluded that the phenomenon was volcanic in

origin, extended far beyond the Mediterranean Sea, and had an extra-­
Mediterranean source.
Large, violent volcanic eruptions can inject tens of millions of tons of ash,
hydrochloric acid, and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. The first and sec-
ond fall to earth within weeks. The sulfur dioxide, however, mixes with water
in the atmosphere to produce fine sulfuric acid aerosols. If these reach the
stratosphere, they can dim incoming sunlight on a hemispheric or even global
scale for multiple years. In the stratosphere, sulfuric acid aerosols absorb and
backscatter solar radiation, warming the stratosphere’s temperature but low-
ering that of the earth’s surface. Recent eruptions, far less explosive than
those during the downturn, are known to have lowered global temperatures
by 0.1–0.4 °C for upwards of three years, with more dramatic cooling in the
first three months where veiling was densest. At the height of the 1991
Pinatubo event, a downturn of 1.3 °C was observed instrumentally.74 The
1815 Tambora eruption—still smaller in most proxies than the sixth-century
volcanism—is thought now to have lowered temperatures by upwards of 4 °C
(see Chap. 35).75
Various volcanoes have been blamed for mid-sixth-century cooling. The first
proposed, in 1980, was Mount Churchill, Alaska, whose eruption had been
radiocarbon dated to around 700 ± 100.76 This possibility was dismissed shortly
thereafter for an eruption at Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, then radiocarbon
dated to 1430–1390 bp and dated, by Stothers, to 540 ± 90.77 Rabaul was soon
rejected, too, in favor of a Northern Hemisphere eruption: in 1986, an
Antarctic ice core had emerged showing a horizon only at around 505 and it
was surmised that the clouding around 536 originated north of the equator,
though by then the ice core signals for a big event in the mid-530s had been
redated.78 Following the 2004 detection of a large volcanic episode in Antarctic
ice, Rabaul was reproposed as the source of the downturn; however, subse-
quent studies of the eruption site reassigned Rabaul’s eruption to the seventh
century (first to around 633–70, then around 667–99), taking it once more
out of contention.79 In his popular history, Catastrophe, Keys assigned the
cooling to a super-eruption at Indonesia’s Krakatau, which he thought severed
Sumatra and Java.80 This proposal gained little currency.
In any case, a single massive eruption could not account for more than a
decade of cooling, as paleoclimatologists have now long acknowledged.
Moreover, as the trees tell us, the cold was not constant. Recent assessments of
polar ice affirm that multiple unique sources underlay the downturn, including
a cluster of large eruptions; the first two, and the largest, occurred at 535/6
and 539/40.81 The record of sulfates in Arctic and Antarctic ice firmly places
the first eruption in the Northern Hemisphere, quite possibly at high latitudes,
and the second in the tropics.82 Additional downturn volcanism, smaller but
still large, around 545/6 and 550/1, has attracted less attention.83 The ice
core records strongly suggest that the downturn only became global with the
eruption at about 540. Indeed, while the eruption of around 536 left a big
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 465

mark on Greenlandic ice, it is, so far, only faintly visible in Antarctica in the
West Antarctic Ice Sheet core. The follow-up 540 eruption is very visible in
both Antarctic and Greenlandic ice. Recent work on sulfur isotopes, using sam-
ples from the Greenlandic Tunu13 core, confirms that eruptions both around
536 and around 540 were stratospheric, that the former was high-latitude
Northern Hemispheric, and that the latter was near equatorial.84
Tephra and palynological studies led, in 2009, to the dating of a major
explosive event at Mexico’s El Chichón to the early sixth century. This event,
fixed at 550–650 in 1984 and 553–614 in 2000,85 was proposed to have
occurred precisely in 539, following the dendroclimatological data for severe
cooling about 540—rather than reports of mystery clouding, which the authors
suggest was sourced by a local tropospheric Mediterranean eruption.86 A year
later, it was argued, Ilopango, El Salvador, was the source of dark Mediterranean
skies in 536. A reappraisal of physical evidence for Ilopango’s Tierra Blanca
Joven (TBJ) eruption, considered the largest Central American volcanic event
of the last 84,000 years, moved the episode’s date up from 260 ± 114 to
495 ± 55, and a fragment of a tree carbonized in the TBJ event was given a date
consistent with 535, making Ilopango a very good fit.87 However, the more
recent finding that the second major eruption of the downturn (c. 540) was
near the equator, unlike the first atmospheric-clouding event, has led one
team of scholars to bump Ilopango to 539/40.88 A separate study concluded
that an eruption site at about 15°N best matched the distribution of the rem-
nants of volcanism found in polar ice at 540.89 Ilopango sits at 13.67°N and El
Chichón at 17.21°N. Another possibility raised for the northern high-latitude
eruption that initiated the downturn is Haruna, Japan.90 The major Plinian
eruption of this mountain, northwest of Tokyo, has been dated archaeologi-
cally to the mid-500s.91 If Haruna erupted in about 536, detailed analysis of
tephra lodged at the 535–6 mark of Greenland’s NEEM core, still in part being
worked on, suggests that it was not alone. This work finds that there were
multiple eruptions around 535. Although it is uncertain how many of these
events were stratospheric, the tephra implies several North American sources,
casting doubt on Haruna’s role.92 North American or not, the ice core data
concurs that a large eruption of 535/36 was Northern Hemispheric and
mid-latitude.93
The veiling observed over the Mediterranean in 536 and the global cooling
registered in tree rings could have different origins. Silence in other European
texts,94 and the absence of severe cold at 536 in the Constantinopolitan tree
ring chronology (assuming those trees register cold events, which they very
well may not), both suggest that the observed veiling may have been tempo-
rally and spatially limited.95 In his 2005 analysis of the literary sources, Arjava
argued that Mediterranean observations of veiling only testify to an affected
zone north of 35° or 40°.96 Earlier, however, it was argued that since observers
north of 40° report twelve months of veiling and John of Ephesus (thought
then to be have been somewhere between 30° and 37°N) reported eighteen
months of veiling, the eruption should be located south of 30/37°N.97 These
466 T. P. NEWFIELD

estimates are a touch rough, but they could still agree with the tephra-based
reasoning that the eruption at around 535 was North American and with the
conclusion, pulled from ice cores, that the event was extratropical. They also fit
with the abovementioned modeling, which finds the densest aerosol loading
for the 535/6 eruption north of 30°.98
Nevertheless, it is possible that a smaller Mediterranean eruption caused the
mystery cloud at the same time that some larger event initiated the downturn.
Mediterranean volcanic activity is restricted largely to central and southern
Italy (Etna, Stromboli, Vesuvius, and Vulcano) and the southern Aegean (Kos,
Methana, Milos, Nisyros, Santorini, and Yali). Much ancient and medieval vol-
canism in the region remains obscure. Scholars have harnessed various written
and archaeological sources as well as archaeomagnetic dating of lava flows and
radiocarbon dating of tephra layers to construct eruption series for individual
sites.99 Many Mediterranean events, such as the 1631 ce Vesuvian eruption, the
most lethal in that mountain’s history with perhaps 8000 dead, were explosive,
but did not affect climate.100 Some, such as the 472 ce “pollena” eruption from
that same “extinguisher of all green things,” left traces in the archaeological,
ice core, and tree ring record but still did not greatly shift climate.101 Marcellinus
Comes wrote that this eruption “showered the whole surface of Europe with
fine particles of dust” and was celebrated annually on November 6 in
Constantinople some 1200 km away. Another Byzantine tells us that the ash in
the imperial city was four fingers deep.102
There is no witness of a large Mediterranean eruption or ash fallout in
535–50. In 536, Procopius reported rumbling at Vesuvius alongside a descrip-
tion of a typical volcanic event.103 Between 472 and 536, that mountain had
already vomited ash and lava in a regional event in July 512.104 Procopius’
account has led some volcanologists (seemingly unaware of the dendroclimato-
logical and ice evidence for the downturn) to assign the mystery clouding to
the Campanian site.105 Yet there is also archaeomagnetic evidence for “a large
explosive eruption” at Stromboli in 550 ± 50.106 A local eruption at either site
might account for the reported dimming of the sun and a greater, distant event
detectable in the form of the first dip in global temperatures discerned in tree
rings, speleothems, and polar ice. A new Alpine ice core extracted in 2013
along the Swiss–Italian border may soon shed light on this matter.107
Not all researchers, however, have thought a volcano responsible. Before the
recent redating of many major eruptions—when it still appeared that there were
no volcanic horizons in polar ice plausibly related to the 536–50 climatic down-
turn—some scholars proposed that a “medium-sized asteroid” struck “one of the
world’s oceans” or a comet disintegrated in the upper atmosphere (“an airburst”)
and ignited “one or more large-scale forest fires.” Both asteroids and comets
were thought capable of filling the atmosphere with debris, which could reflect
enough sunlight to cause a decade-long “climatic recession” beginning in 536.108
Several authorities judged an extraterrestrial vector a “much less likely” expla-
nation than a volcanic event even without evidence for an eruption,109 and
Baillie, the principal advocate of the impact theory, retracted his proposition in
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 467

2008.110 Nevertheless, in 2004, it was mathematically determined that a comet

of less than one kilometer in diameter could generate multiple, successive years
of dust veiling, and it was suggested that the earth may have been struck by such
a rock as it passed through the Taurid meteor complex, as it does every
November–June, and which is thought to have broken up around 500 ce.111 In
2008, iron oxide and silicate spherules, alongside other plausible ejecta indica-
tors, were recovered in meltwater at the “lost” 536 mark of the GISP2 core,
again suggesting an impact event. Further analyses found nickel and tin particles
and a high concentration of calcium. The latter was interpreted as calcium car-
bonate (a primary component in seashells) following the discovery at the same
horizon of an assemblage of tropical and subtropical marine-life microfossils—a
first for Greenlandic ice cores. Based on the radiocarbon dating of the formation
of the Gulf of Carpentaria crater (Australia), the crater’s chemical similarities with
this GISP2 horizon, and the size of extraterrestrial rock considered necessary to
generate both the crater and the observed dust veil, a team of scholars proposed
that an impactor 640 m in diameter landed in Australia, causing the 536 event.112
To account for these findings, these scholars argued that the downturn’s
first low had multiple origins: a major volcanic eruption coincided with a comet
impact and/or a low-latitude oceanic “explosion.”113 The possibility of multi-
ple origins of the first low around 536 cannot be discounted.114 Other phe-
nomena were also raised as potential causes when ice core evidence for
volcanism was still lacking: an “interstellar cloud” of unknown origin and, for
Mediterranean dimming specifically, a tropospheric “damp fog.”115 It is cer-
tainly clear that multiple events forced the downturn as a whole: at least several
large explosive volcanic eruptions, the first (one but possibly two or more116)
535/6 in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly at Haruna but more certainly in
northern North America, and the second a near equatorial “global” event
about 539/40, perhaps Ilopango or El Chichón.

32.7   Collapse and Resilience

Much has been written on whether the 536–50 climatic downturn—however
understood—caused cultural, demographic, or socioeconomic change. As with
many pre-modern short-term climate events, its human impacts are difficult to
discern where the written sources are “thick,” enigmatic where they are thin,
and nearly imperceptible where they are non-existent. Archaeology, the sole
source of relevant data for most affected regions, is incapable of revealing the
downturn’s toll with precision. No matter how vast and severe, the human
implications of climate anomalies are often hard to tease out of the material
record.
There has been a tendency among historians to ignore or downplay the
paleoclimatic evidence, to demote the anomaly to a minor atmospheric inci-
dent, and thereby understate its cultural, demographic, and economic signifi-
cance. These scholars miss an opportunity to see the downturn for what it was
and to highlight the resilience of contemporary societies to abrupt and severe
468 T. P. NEWFIELD

climatic anomalies. Indeed, many prefer to write history as though sixth-­

century peoples (and pre-modern organic agrarian economies in general) were
undisturbed by dramatic temperature fluctuations.117 At the other end of the
spectrum, many natural scientists, and some historians and archaeologists who
prioritize climate proxies, have described the event as a watershed, an almost
unparalleled phenomenon that shook sixth-century societies. These scholars
tend to view sixth-century peoples as highly vulnerable to environmental
change, socioeconomically weak and rigid, and consequently incapable of
adapting to an anomaly of this scale.118
The 536–50 downturn was a significant and rare event. Yet claims that it
spawned a new era—whether in the Americas, Asia, or Europe—are as
­groundless as suggestions that it did not affect contemporary peoples are short-
sighted. Although no account directly connects the Mediterranean mystery
clouding of 536 to famine, qualitative evidence for harvest quality in the 530s
and 540s suggests that the downturn did drive some demographic and eco-
nomic change. A comparative approach that considers the effects of lesser vol-
canic episodes on better-documented populations also suggests that the
sixth-century eruption cluster would have negatively affected harvests in many
regions. It is the cultural and socioeconomic effects imputed to these food
shortages that remain questionable.
It has long been recognized that sudden drops in summer temperature of
0.5–1 °C or more can have disastrous consequences for food production in
temperate regions by shortening the growing season, limiting arable land, and
augmenting the risk of harvest failures.119 But proxies must be employed care-
fully to understand the downturn’s effects on crops, and gaps in the paleocli-
mate data must be acknowledged also. The impact of a spectacularly cold and/
or dry year would have varied from region to region, harvest to harvest, and
plant to plant. Regions already cold and dry perhaps suffered more than warm
and wet ones. As noted, trees reveal only growing-season conditions, and their
temperature signals do not offer the timing and precision needed to fully
understand the impact of a year’s weather on crops. Not only the severity but
also the timing of a downturn’s climatic shifts within the growing year are
important (see Chap. 27).
Here, analogies with more recent eruptions are instructive. Multiproxy
paleoclimatology indicates that large tropical eruptions of the last 500 years
have caused cold-dry summers but wet-warm winters in the Northern
Hemisphere for two or three years, unlike large high-latitude eruptions
which forced cold-dry winters and summers.120 The first and second lows of
the downturn, therefore, may have affected crops differently. In the
Mediterranean, where winter precipitation is fundamental, the tropical event
of 539/40 may have been beneficial in some ways. Its climate forcing may
also explain the aforementioned blossoming of Korean fruit trees in the win-
ter of 540. That said, warm-wet winters would not have been a boon for
food production in all regions, and a shorter growing season is detrimental
for crops everywhere.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 469

Moreover, if most sixth-century societies were able to absorb one bad year,
very few were able to absorb successive harvest failures. Back-to-back years of
extremely poor growing conditions were certain to take a toll. Sharp cooling
of 1.5 to 4 °C in consecutive years should be expected to have generated sig-
nificant subsistence crises—true famines, in other words.121 It has been shown
that at least eight volcanic events between 750 and 950 registered in polar ice
correspond to harvest failures recorded in European sources.122 Not one of
these eruptions or food shortages created catastrophe, although each
undoubtedly eroded human numbers through hunger and associated epi-
demic disease. The eruptions and cooling of 535–50 were significantly more
severe, suggesting that they would have generated more widespread and ruin-
ous harvest failures. Yet, such events are not easily detected in sixth-century
sources. We surely cannot generalize about an intercontinental famine span-
ning 536–50.123
At least one region, Thrace, was already suffering dearth on the eve of the
mystery cloud. Justinian referenced a grain shortage there in a novella
(decree) directed to a local consular, dated June 15, 535.124 The initial low of
the downturn presumably worsened that dearth. In addition to the description
of the mystery cloud, the letters of Cassiodorus give several indications of crop
failures. In 537, he wrote of a general food shortage throughout the provinces,
failed harvests in Liguria, and “starving people” in Lombardy, but a rich Istrian
harvest (of grapes, olives, and grains). In 538, he reports growing-season frost
and drought injuring grain, fruit, and grape crops, as well as general food scar-
city, although his letters also mention “an exceptionally abundant” previous
harvest that should be able to stave off present penury. In 538, he also observed
another good grape crop in Istria but Friulians and Venetians suffering a dearth
of millet, wheat, and wine crops.125
John the Lydian stated bluntly that the dimming of the sun destroyed crops,
and John of Ephesus observed that it harmed the harvest and prevented fruits
from ripening (“all the wine had the taste of reject grapes”), but neither speaks
of widespread hunger.126 Pseudo-Zachariah wrote simply of the 536–7 winter
causing “distress” in Syria.127 The provisioning, disruptions to agriculture, and
destruction of arable associated with the initial phase of Justinian’s Italian
reconquest (535–40) caused multiple local Italian shortages and possibly wors-
ened a general agricultural crisis.128 John the Lydian and Pseudo-Zachariah
may indicate that a food shortage existed beyond the theater of war. Other
sources shine some light here. The Liber Pontificalis documents a hard short-
age within besieged Rome in 537 but also a great subsistence crisis “through-
out the entire world”—one so dear that, according to a report from a Milanese
bishop, Ligurian mothers were driven to consume their own children.129
To the north, Irish annals document a “failure of bread” in 536 and 539
(the latter is possibly a doublet), and the Welsh Annales Cambriae speak of a
“mortality in Britain and Ireland” in 537.130 Severe food shortages are reported
in China as well. In the eastern region between the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers,
the cold summer of 537 is written to have caused widespread harvest failure
470 T. P. NEWFIELD

and triggered a famine the following autumn. Unusual weather is associated

with famine and human mortality for multiple years in China, in 536, 537, and
538. The population of a kingdom north of the Yellow River is reported to
have declined 70–80%.131 There are indications, as noted, that harvests were
poor in Korea (then south and north of the Yalu River) and Japan too.
These texts convey short-term demographic shocks in several regions of
Eurasia, but not a vast long-term crisis across continents. Europe and the
Mediterranean certainly did not then “decline into the Dark Ages.”132 The
dearth of evidence for a vast population crisis in 536–7, and the lack of any
mention of poor harvests or mortality in the sources for some regions, may
reflect the success of some peoples and the failure of others to cope with the
poor harvests that the downturn caused. Alternatively, the lack of evidence for
a pan-Eurasian crisis may reflect the unequal effects of volcanic dust clouding
as well as geographical and seasonal variation in the downturn’s climatic effects.
The aforementioned simulations of downturn volcanism suggest that the dens-
est aerosol loading from the two largest eruptions was by and large confined to
the Northern Hemisphere. Clouding in 536 was severe north of 30°N and
540 clouding north of about 5°N. But the clouding of both events was mark-
edly worse north of 50°N. The same study identified the Baltic region in par-
ticular as hard hit.133 A multiproxy study that covers China’s sixth-century
climate also suggests, albeit with some uncertainty, that the downturn did not
everywhere cool temperatures and that its effects varied regionally. Indeed, at
least one area of East Asia (far northeastern China) seems to have experienced
warming.134
Absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. Yet, the downturn
has been posited as the cause of massive population contraction in some regions
altogether lacking written records. Some scholars have considered this anomaly
a plausible explanation for the considerable demographic and socioeconomic
change revealed by archaeology in late migration period Scandinavia and late
classical Maya Central America. In Scandinavia, successive widespread harvest
failures and famine are thought to account for declining sixth-century settle-
ment numbers, abandonment of arable and pasture, and a noticeable increase
in gold hoards. The chronology of these phenomena and the dating of the
archaeology, however, require that such bold claims be softened. Most of the
gold hoards are only roughly dated to the first half of the century, others to
mid-century. One deposit can be affixed a narrower 525–50 date.135 Neither
the decline (or shifting) of settlement nor the contraction of cultivation can be
assigned precisely to the mid-530s either. In fact, both phenomena clearly pre-­
date 500. For example, Göthberg’s data on the number of (excavated) settle-
ments in Uppland province (Sweden) spans millennia. It shows an unprecedented
sixth-century “collapse” in the range of 75% of sites, but a gradual decline had
set in from about 300 ce.136 Likewise, the abandonment of tens of well-worn
gravesites in Västmanland province (Sweden) can be assigned a rough sixth-­
century date, but such burial ground desertion was nothing new there.137
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 471

These uncertainties have not stopped some scholars from assigning vast con-
sequences to the downturn in Scandinavian and Baltic countries.138 These
include the reorganization of power structures, property rights, trade net-
works, and burial customs, as well as a contraction in metallurgy and craft
production: all phenomena only loosely discernable in the material record and
vaguely dated to the sixth century.139 More tenuous are associations between
the downturn and mythical bouts of severe weather, for instance the dimming
of the sun, moon, and stars, and the Fimbulwinter—a three-year-long, snowy,
frost-laden winter that precedes Ragnarök, the destruction of the known
world.140 Yet, the paleoclimatology and climate modeling does indicate that the
downturn greatly affected climate in this region.
An ocean away, Gill has argued that the downturn accounts for the Maya
“hiatus” described above. He accordingly assigned a firm start date of 536 for
this Mesoamerican interval, drawing on high-resolution dendroclimatology
from elsewhere. Gill implicated El Chichón, then with a large eruption roughly
dated to the fifth or sixth century, and tied 536 aridity and cold to unrest, con-
flict, and population collapse: “a genuine demographic disaster” of 70–73% in
“large areas” of the Maya Lowlands.141 How dramatic the effects of downturn
volcanism were in this world region, however, remains to be seen. In the mod-
eling mentioned already, Central America, unlike Scandinavia and the Baltic, is
largely spared both the brunt force of the 536 event and also the worst of the
larger 540 event.142
The downturn is commonly thought to have affected populations in and
beyond these regions through harvest failures and famine. In Europe and
Western Asia, mass poisoning and pandemic disease are also implicated.143 One
theory connects population contraction in late migration period Scandinavia to
the widespread poisoning of common grains (cold-tolerant rye but also barley
and wheat). It is hypothesized that the anomalous weather encouraged the
growth and spread of the parasitic plant fungus Claviceps purpurea, causing
ergotism.144 This theory hinges partially on the extensive cultivation and con-
sumption of rye, the grain most vulnerable to ergot, in pre-downturn
Scandinavia. Another theory holds that the downturn drove neighboring
Estonians to start cultivating rye.145
The downturn’s connection to the well-known Justinianic Plague is more
complex.146 Many scholars have rightly grouped the demographic effects of the
climate anomaly with those of the first wave of this pandemic.147 Procopius
reports the arrival of the fast-spreading lethal disease in the Nile Delta region
in mid-July 541. Through him and other witnesses, we can piece together the
pathogen’s subsequent dissemination through Western Asia and Southern
Europe between 541 and 543. Other regions of Asia, Africa, and Europe were
certainly affected, too, before and after this 541–3 window. Ireland was likely
hit in 544.148 The sudden and dramatic mortality in the plague may have pre-
cluded famine during the 540s and partially explain the absence of evidence for
dearth following the second eruption of 539/40.149
472 T. P. NEWFIELD

Some scholars have proposed that the climate anomaly actually caused or
triggered the pandemic.150 The proposed connections between the two events
depend on the Yersinia pestis diagnosis of the pandemic and the path envi-
sioned for the pathogen’s dissemination. Keys has argued that a drought fol-
lowed by extreme rainfall fostered a population explosion of sylvatic rodents in
East Africa (where there is no high-resolution data for climate in 536–41 or the
sixth century generally).151 The rodents expanded their natural range and
spread the pathogen eventually to commensal rats in the Mediterranean.152
Other scholars have found the basic tenets of this theory plausible.153
Historians long favored a Central or East African origin for the Justinianic
Plague (Y. pestis now possesses enzootic foci in rodents there).154 Genetic stud-
ies have recently concluded, however, that the Y. pestis found in Justinianic
Plague-era graves from Bavaria ultimately came from northwestern China.155
An alternative theory, by historian Stathakopoulos, that the drought-triggered
migration of 15,000 people from Iran to Syria introduced the pathogen to the
Mediterranean region, better suits this recent finding.156 So too does
McCormick’s proposal that the pathogen reached Pelusium at the eastern edge
of the Nile Delta via the Red Sea and points further east.157 It should be noted
that although the Y. pestis strain isolated from late antique skeletons best
matches plague strains found in northwestern China, it is not impossible that
the Justinianic Y. pestis emerged from a region closer to the Mediterranean
than East-Central Asia. Extinct reservoirs could have existed for this north-
western Chinese-like strain in, for example, Africa or West Asia. It has also been
proposed, though Y. pestis is not an opportunistic infection, that the downturn
heightened plague mortality through harvest failure, famine, and malnutri-
tion,158 and that the unusual weather encouraged the dissemination of pneu-
monic plague, bubonic plague’s more mortal variant, which does well in colder
climates, as it spreads most effectively in closed indoor environments.159
Of course, if the climate anomaly did lend itself to this pandemic, it can
account only for the initial occurrence, not the subsequent thirteen to seven-
teen outbreaks which took place over the next two centuries.160 Although cli-
mate anomalies are thought to underlay many European recurrences of the
Black Death (via their effects on bubonic plague-carrying Asian rodent popula-
tions),161 and are generally considered vital in the history of disease,162 similar
environmental triggers have not been established yet for reappearances in the
Mediterranean world of the Justinianic Plague.163 It is worth noting, however,
that recent genetic research indicates that the Y. pestis introduced to Europe
with the Black Death seems to have become endemic or enzootic in some
European regions.164 Were this also shown for the Justinianic Plague, the
downturn could be firmly implicated in the erosion of West Asian and European
populations through plague from the mid-sixth to mid-eighth centuries. In
other words, if the downturn was instrumental in spreading the plague to the
wider Mediterranean region after 541 and if, once there, the plague focalized
in one or more reserviors, then the downturn undoubtedly had a major demo-
graphic impact.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 473

Downturn-driven dearth and malnutrition may explain why the initial out-
break of 541–4 seems to have spread farther and persisted longer in Europe
and Western Asia than later outbreaks. Malnutrition may have raised mortality
slightly, and poor harvests possibly fostered wider and longer lines of trade,
facilitating disease transmission. On the other hand, the downturn may have
inhibited the dissemination of a pathogen hosted in part by commensal rodents
which favor warm climates and depend partially on stored grains. Similarly, the
exceptional summer cold may have lessened the burden of malaria, a tempera-
ture-sensitive parasitic disease transmitted by anopheles mosquitoes.165
In whatever way it was related to the Justinianic Plague, it is reasonable to
think that the 536–50 climate anomaly caused some demographic contraction
in many parts of the world. Not all scholars have affixed significant cultural and
economic change to this depopulation. A number of historians see the 536–50
event not as a significant driver of change but as a short cold trough in a larger
multicentury climate reorganization (or “deterioration”166) of late antiquity
(that for some predates 536 but for others starts in 536), which fostered a large
but gradual agricultural and demographic transformation of late antique
Western Europe and the Mediterranean.167 Some emphasize the downturn’s
unfortunate timing. From a Byzantine perspective, the cooling and aridity
drove a “reduction of revenues and available resources in a time of high expen-
diture and rising insecurity.”168 This moderatism takes the position that socio-
economic and environmental explanations of change are not mutually exclusive.
Such scholars find direct, mono-causal links between the downturn and long-­
term agrarian or population trends “quite unconvincing.” Yet, they do not
dismiss the anomaly outright. Rather than a watershed, it was an accelerator of
change already underway.169
Similar approaches have emerged for other world regions.170 Scholars of the
northern and southern dynasties in China have argued that the anomaly con-
tributed to—but did not cause—political instability, since poor harvests affected
the collection of grain taxes and shrank state resources.171 One recent study of
the downturn in Central America held that it brought severe drought but
argued that Maya cities were unevenly affected: some were prepared to absorb
and respond to sudden climate “deterioration,” others not. Calakmul, for
instance, experienced profound growth, even “florescence,” during the hia-
tus.172 Differences in aridity and elevation also meant some settlements were
more vulnerable than others. Already dry cities suffered more from arid epi-
sodes. Of course, water access and management mattered greatly as well in
Maya cities, if they relied on tribute for access to reservoirs that could dry up
in droughts.173 A focus on hydrology has led to the suggestion that low-lying
coastal sites were most resilient during the “hiatus” and “collapse.”174
In short, the downturn’s effects were complex and varied, more indicative
of the dynamism of human–environment relationships than of system col-
lapse.175 The ability of contemporary populations to be resilient in the face of
poor harvests should not be underestimated. Poor yields were not new any-
where in the 530s and contemporaries can be expected to have possessed a
474 T. P. NEWFIELD

number of coping strategies to ward off dearth.176 Scholars who propose that
the downturn generated widespread famine in Europe and Western Asia may
overestimate reliance on grains. Although the sudden onset of successive years
of severe cooling would have affected adversely plant life of all sorts, not just
sown crops, including grasslands, silvopasture, and possibly aquatic flora essen-
tial for animal and fish populations, traditional ecological knowledge and col-
lective memory, however difficult to discern now, would have ensured some
adaptive capacity across the globe.177 Of course, neither harvest failures nor the
ability to cope were everywhere equal, and some populations would have been
more resilient than others, as crop varieties, cropping strategies, and systems of
agrarian production and management varied tremendously. There may have
been, as such, big variations in mortality over relatively small spaces.

32.8   Conclusion
The 536–50 downturn has no definitive history yet. Paleoclimatology now
makes clear that a cluster of very large volcanic eruptions underlay the anomaly,
including explosive events around 535/6 and 539/40, and lesser but still large
eruptions in about 545/6 and 550/1. Each of these events shows up in tree
rings in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The first eruption was one of the larg-
est of the last several millennia in the Northern Hemisphere. The second, a
tropical eruption, was bigger. From 540, the downturn appears to have gone
global. That said, more high-resolution paleoclimatology is needed, particu-
larly data from the Southern Hemisphere. Proxies that reveal winter conditions
and multiple climate parameters are also badly needed. Data on the impact of
downturn volcanism on precipitation is sparse. Yet, while our understanding of
the downturn’s spatial and temporal contours will improve, its exceptionality
and severity have been well established. The uniqueness of the event is locked
in trees and other natural archives. Written descriptions of the Mediterranean
mystery clouding are no longer the most telling evidence.
Historians must keep apace as more natural proxies of sixth-century tem-
perature and precipitation come into play and existing proxies are perfected.
Local, regional, and global histories continue to assign the event different
degrees of importance, depending on the inter- or multidisciplinarity brought
to bear, the priority given to different categories of evidence, as well as the
resiliency envisioned of contemporary societies. To understand the origins,
extent, severity, impact, and human responses we must bridge disciplines and
weave together paleoclimatic, written, and archaeological data.
That temperatures fell dramatically in the mid-sixth century, and that mul-
tiple regions experienced especially dry conditions, does not mean catastrophe
ensued. Resiliency and vulnerability to sudden and severe climate anomalies will
have differed between and within contemporary cultures. Even in the worst-
affected regions (perhaps Central America and Japan if the eruptions took place
there), people would have been affected unequally according to the uneven
distribution of, or entitlement to, resources. It has been proposed that the
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 475

effects of the dearth in Sweden varied between classes, that elites with larger
reserves of foodstuffs and ability to participate in long-distance trade had a bet-
ter chance of survival as well as a “window of opportunity” to seize deserted
lands and better themselves.178 Of course, not all regions were equally affected
to begin with: veiling density and distribution varied, so too the effect of cool-
ing and drying on agro-ecosystems. By carefully interweaving the information
afforded by natural archives with understandings of the ability of cultures to
respond, we will begin to tease out how the 536–50 downturn registered with
people on the ground. Neither unnoticed nor a demographic watershed, this
anomaly was remarkably severe and unusual in recent millennia. It remains a
major episode in environmental history warranting further investigation.

Notes
1. A handful of antiquarians and Byzantinists drew attention to accounts of a c. 536
Mediterranean mystery clouding before the 1980s (Stathakopoulos, 2003,
247–49), but none envisioned this atmospheric phenomenon was part of a
European, Eurasian, hemispheric, or global climatic event before NASA scientists
Stothers and Rampino: Stothers and Rampino, 1983a, 412, 1983b, 6357,
6362–63, 6367, 6369; Stothers, 1984; Rampino, 1988, 87–88. Early Byzantinist
scholarship notably includes Koder, 1996, and Farquharson, 1996, 266–68,
76–77.
2. Masson-Delmotte et al., 2014; Steig et al., 2013, 373; PAGES 2K Consortium,
2013, Tab. 1, Fig. 2; Jones et al., 2009, 6, 7. Although there remain many large
gaps in our knowledge, limited evidence indicates temperature was not unusual
in the mid-sixth century near the South Pole. Recent simulations of the climate
forcing of downturn volcanism also suggest that the Southern Hemisphere was
relatively unaffected: Toohey et al., 2016, 406. It is notable that Tambora too
appears not to have much disturbed extratropical climates south of the equator:
Raible et al., 2016, 569, 572, 582. The climate forcing of that 1815 eruption was
slightly less than that of the c. 540 event: Sigl et al., 2015, 547–48, Extended
Data Tab. 4. Yet, as Raible et al., 2016, remark (576), a dearth of climate records
in the Southern Hemisphere may account for Tambora’s poor showing in the
south. Of course, there are even fewer records for the sixth century.
3. Sigl et al., 2015, 547–48, Figs. 2 and 3, Extended Data Tabs. 4 and 5.
4. Büntgen et al., 2016. This LALIA falls within a longer period of less extreme
cooling (known by many names, including Vandal Minimum, Late Roman Cold
Period, Migration Period Pessimum, and Early Medieval Cold Anomaly) that
commenced, depending on the proxy employed, in the fourth or fifth century
and petered out in the seventh or eighth century. For example, Büntgen et al.,
2011, 581; McCormick et al., 2012, 191–99.
5. Luterbacher et al., 2016, Fig. 1.
6. Toohey et al., 2016, 401, 405, 406, 410, Fig. 2.
7. Some historians have over-generalized the fragility of paleoclimate dating: try
Moorhead, 2001, 143. The dendroclimatological data has proven robust. The ice
core data is trickier. Yet the former cannot be problematized on account of the
challenges the latter can present.
476 T. P. NEWFIELD

8. Bondesson and Bondesson, 2014, 63, for instance, claimed the cause of the
downturn, which they consider both vast and severe, “remains unclear,” and
they seem to suggest the event was restricted to the mid-530s, even though its
­volcanic origin was reconfirmed in 2008 (and only since reinforced) and its
decadal duration was made evident no later than 1994.
9. The notable exception is Arjava, 2005, 73–94. Many in the humanities continue
to read the paleoscience through Arjava’s paper, though much has changed
since 2005. See Power, 2012, 190; Lee, 2013, 290.
10. Keys, 2000; Wickham, 2005, 549.
11. McCormick writes of a “tremendous volcanic winter” in 536 with widespread
atmospheric effects that “must have had serious economic and human conse-
quences” but which only “weakened and did not destroy” the Roman Empire
revived under Justinian: McCormick, 2013, 72, 88.
12. Cassiodorus’ first appearance: Rampino, 1988, 87.
13. Cameron, 1985, 14.
14. Procopius, 1916, IV.14, 328–29.
15. Cassiodorus, Variae 12.25, 518–20.
16. Lydian, 1897, 25. On the misdating: Arjava, 2005, 80.
17. Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, Chronicle, 65.
18. Michael the Syrian, 1901, 220–21.
19. Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, Chronicle 9.19, 370.
20. Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, Chronicle, 370 n. 305.
21. Arjava, 2005, 79.
22. Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, Chronicle 10.1, 399.
23. Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, 39.
24. Arjava, 2005, 80–83; Stothers and Rampino, 1983b, 6362.
25. Notably: Stothers, 1984, 344–45; Rampino, 1988, 87: “the densest and most
persistent dry fog in recorded history was observed during AD 536–537.”
26. Lydian, 1897, 25; Arjava, 2005, 80.
27. By which John may have meant Ethiopia or southern Arabia. Sixth-century
Byzantines sometimes confused the two: Sarris, 2002, 171; Schneider, 2015,
184–202.
28. It was suggested John borrowed his explanation from Campestris who lived
centuries earlier. Arjava thinks this dubious: Arjava, 2005, 81.
29. Keys, 2000, 253; Abbott et al., 2014b, 413.
30. Weisburd, 1985, 91–94; Houston, 2000, 71, 73, 77. Whether there is textual
evidence for exceptional cold and drought in West Asia and Europe in the 540s
remains to be determined. Previous searches have centered on 536.
31. Aston, 1896, 34–35.
32. Shultz, 2012, 122–24. There appears to be nothing potentially related to the
downturn in Paekche Annals of the Samguk Sagi.
33. Koguryo Annals of the Samguk Sagi, 168–69. There appears to be nothing
potentially related to the downturn in the Paekche Annals of the Samguk Sagi.
34. LaMarche and Hirschboeck, 1984, 121–26 (cf. Parker, 1985); Briffa, 2000,
87–105; Gao et al., 2008; Cole-Dai, 2010, 824–39.
35. Churakova et al., 2014, 145–49.
36. Esper et al., 2013, 2, 2015.
37. On these issues: Esper et al., 2015, 62–70; García-Suárez et al., 2009, 183–98.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 477

38. 535 registered as the second coldest June–January in an early TRW study of a
Sierra Nevadan pine chronology spanning 1–1980 ce (536 placed first), TRW
and cell wall thickness analysis also drew attention to a 532 cold plunge in the
aforementioned Altai series, and TRW analysis of the associated Sakha series
revealed a pre-downturn 533 low. These Russian lows may be connected to local
volcanism and suggest that the downturn had an early start in Siberia.
39. Cook et al., 2015.
40. Büntgen et al., 2011.
41. For instance: Esper et al., 2013, 736, Fig. 3.
42. Cook et al., 2006, 689–99; Larsen et al., 2008.
43. Pearson et al., 2012.
44. Major low-latitude eruptions, like the c. 540 event, are known to reduce global
mean precipitation: Iles et al., 2013. Fischer et al., 2007, finds drier conditions
in Central and Eastern Europe after more recent large (tropical) eruptions. Also
Luterbacher and Pfister, 2015.
45. Pearson et al., 2012, 3405, 3411–12. Vesuvius’ 472 eruption also does not
register in this series. Narrow rings are apparent, however, at the 475 mark (see
below), perhaps indicating a post-472 eruption dry spell.
46. Esper et al., 2013, 736, Fig. 3.
47. See Fig. 2.6 and references there cited in Luterbacher et al., 2012, 103.
48. Tan et al., 2003, 1617; Zhang et al., 2008, 940, 941 (Fig. 1).
49. Holzhauser et al., 2005; Thompson et al., 1985, 973, 1994, 85, 87, 92. The
second study indicates dryness recommencing c. 570, following a decade-long
hiatus, and continuing until 610. Chu et al., 2011, 789–90; Van Bellen et al.,
2015, 1, 9. The Patagonian dry period, which seems to predate but span the
downturn, is visible as well in another southern South American proxy too:
Moreno et al., 2014.
50. Kobashi et al., 2011.
51. See note 2 above.
52. Sixth-century sections of long high-resolution Central American proxies are
wanting. The region is held to suffer heightened aridity following large erup-
tions—see Gill and Keating, 2002, 125–33.
53. Hodell et al., 1995, 393 (Fig. 3); Curtis et al., 1996, 41, 44–46; Hodell et al.,
2001, 1368 (Fig. 2), 2005, 1421, 1424 (Figs. 10, 15). These studies focus on
the more severe and prolonged droughts corresponding to the classical “col-
lapse,” not the hiatus, though the latter is visible in them. The very existence of
severe and prolonged classical-era droughts, however, has been questioned. The
Chichancanab data has been reassessed and it has been argued that the arid
cycles identified in the aforementioned 2001 and 2005 papers are “method-
ological artifacts”: Carleton et al., 2014, 151–61. Dry conditions evident in the
Chichancanab data, though, appear in other independent proxies from the
region: Wahl et al., 2014, 23.
54. Medina-Elizalde et al., 2010, 260 (Fig. 7).
55. Webster et al., 2007, 1, 12, 13–14.
56. Rosenmeier et al., 2002, 183, 185, 188–89.
57. Haug et al., 2003, 1733 (Fig. 2).
58. Lane et al., 2014, 93, 95.
59. Gao et al., 2008; Cole-Dai, 2010, 824–39.
60. Hammer et al., 1980, 235.
478 T. P. NEWFIELD

61. Herron, 1982.

62. Hammer, 1984, 51–65; Clausen et al., 1997, 26,707–23.
63. Zielinski, 1995, 20,939, 20,944; Clausen et al., 1997, 26,707–23.
64. For instance: Cole-Dai et al., 2000, 24,435, 24,438–39; Kurbatov et al., 2006.
On the missing GISP2 section, Zielinski, 1995, 20,940, 20,949, 20,953.
65. Traufetter et al., 2004, 141; Severi et al., 2007, 367–74; Larsen et al., 2008.
66. Baillie, 2008. Recently supported by Sigl et al., 2015, 543.
67. Ferris et al., 2011; Plummer et al., 2012, 1931, 1933–36.
68. Sigl et al., 2013, 1159.
69. Motizuki et al., 2014, 785, 798.
70. Sigl et al., 2014, 693, 694, 695.
71. Sigl et al., 2015, 544, 545, 547–48; also Büntgen et al., 2016.
72. Aizen et al., 2016, Fig. 5a.
73. Stothers and Rampino, 1983b, 6357, 6362–63, 6369; Stothers, 1984, 344–45.
74. Simarski, 1992, 3–5; Kelly and Sear, 1984, 740–43; Bradley, 1988, 221–43;
Schmincke, 2004, 259–72.
75. Luterbacher and Pfister, 2015, 246.
76. Hammer et al., 1980, 233, 235. This ‘White River Ash’ eruption was redated
recently to 833–50/847 ± 1: Jensen et al., 2014, 875–78.
77. Stothers and Rampino, 1983a, 412, 1983b, 6362; Rampino, 1988, 88. Cf.
Heming, 1974, 1259.
78. Stothers, 1999, 717.
79. Traufetter et al., 2004, 141, 145; McKee et al., 2011, 27–37, 2015, 1–7.
Stother’s 540 ± 90 date was shown as well to be a mistake.
80. Keys, 2000, 277–78, 86–91.
81. Sigl et al., 2014, 695, 2015, 547–48. The second eruption had been earlier put
in the tropics: Ferris et al., 2011 (who dated it to c. 535) proposed a “low lati-
tudes” site and Larsen et al., 2008 (who dated it to 533/4 ± 2) were confident
the eruption took place near the equator. Larsen et al., 2008, assigned the first
event (with a 529 ± 2 date) a “more northerly source.”
82. Sigl et al., 2013, 2015.
83. Both seem to register only in Greenlandic ice: Sigl et al., 2015, 547 (Fig. 5).
84. Andrea Burke, personal correspondence, June 20, 2016.
85. Tilling et al., 1984, 747–49; Espíndola et al., 2000, 90, 93, 102.
86. Nooren et al., 2009, 97, 101, 106–07. It is not specified why the dendroclima-
tological data for widespread cooling c. 536 was overlooked. Recently, Nooren
et al., 2017 has again assigned the eruption to El Chichón.
87. Dull et al., 2010. Dull had previously dated the eruption to 410–535 and, more
precisely, c. 430, Dull et al., 2001, 25, 27; Dull, 2004, 238, 243. A wide mid-
fourth- to mid-sixth-century window is advanced independently in Mehringer
et al., 2005, 199, 203–04, and Kitamura, 2010, 28.
88. Sigl et al., 2015, Extended Data Tab. 4 puts the Ilopango event at 540.
89. Toohey et al., 2016, 410.
90. Suggested by Larsen et al., 2008, but assigned to 529 ± 2 before being bumped
by Baillie to c. 535.
91. Suzuki and Nakada, 2007, 1545, 1565; Soda, 1996, 40.
92. Sigl et al., 2015, 547; Gill Plunkett personal communication June 20 and 22,
2016.
93. Toohey et al., 2016, 406.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 479

94. Gregory of Tours, Marius of Avenches, John of Biclaro, Victor of Tunnuna,

and Isidore of Seville mention nothing plausibly related to Mediterranean sun
dimming 536–7.
95. Pearson et al., 2012, 3402–14. One might also question why Cassiodorus had
to inform his deputy about the dust veil (see above). If it were a major event,
would he not have known? See also Grattan and Pyatt, 1999, 173–74, 77–78;
Arjava, 2005, 73–94. Not long before the important study of Larsen et al.,
2008, which established evidence for a volcanic origin of 536 clouding at both
poles, Larsen advised Arjava (p. 77 n. 24) “nothing of interest” was found in
Greenlandic ice layers between 531 and 550.
96. Arjava, 2005, 81–83.
97. Rampino, 1988, 87–88.
98. The modeling employed written accounts of clouding duration to help con-
strain the height of the eruption column. However, ice core data was used to
establish the eruption’s latitude, which is the important factor for understand-
ing the latitudinal spread of volcanic aerosols. Matt Toohey, personal corre-
spondence, November 1 and 2, 2016.
99. For instance: cf. Tabs. 1 and 7 in Principe et al., 2004, 705, 716–17, 719.
100. Oppenheimer and Pyle, 2009, 444; Mrgić, 2004, 238. Others, notably Rosi
and Santacroce, 1983, 250, consider the most mortal Vesuvius eruption that
of 472.
101. Rosi and Santacroce, 1983, 250–51, 253–55; Pearson et al., 2012, 3406
(Fig. 4). On 472: Kostick and Ludlow, 2015, 8–13.
102. Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, 25; John Malalas, Chronicle, 14.42, 205–06;
Chronicle Paschale, 90–91. For discussion, Stothers and Rampino, 1983b,
6361–62; Kostick and Ludlow, 2015, 8–13. These scientists also link Hydatius’
account (35) of poor weather in northern Portugal to this event (Chronicon,
ed. T. Mommsen MGH AA XI p. 35), though Hydatius’ text stops in 469 and
this passage should be fixed a late 460s date.
103. Procopius, 1919, VI.4, 324–27.
104. Cassiodorus, 1886, 261–62. Discussion: Macfarlane, 2009, 109–11; Cioni
et al., 2011, 789–810.
105. See Principe et al., 2004, 705–07, 710 who attribute a 14C dated tephra layer
to 450 ± 50 to 536 (not 472 or 512) and speak of “an explosive eruption” that
“must have occurred” considering evidence for Mediterranean clouding.
Stothers and Rampino note 536 was “probably not” Mediterranean in origin,
but Vesuvius may have erupted after Procopius left Campania: 1983b, 6362,
6367.
106. Arrighi et al., 2004.
107. http://climatechange.umaine.edu/colle_gnifetti_2013_.
108. Clube and Napier, 1991, 49; Baillie, 1994, 216, 1999; Rigby et al., 2004,
123–26. Further discussion of the impact of extraterrestrial impactors: Napier,
2014, 391–92.
109. For instance: Stothers, 2002, 4; D’Arrigo et al., 2003, 257.
110. Baillie, 2008.
111. Rigby et al., 2004, 123–26.
112. Abbott et al., 2008.
113. Abbott et al., 2014a, 2014b.
114. Kostick and Ludlow, 2015, 15.
480 T. P. NEWFIELD

115. Baillie, 1994, 216; Arjava, 2005, 79, 80, 93.

116. See note 92 above.
117. Moorhead, 2001, 147–48, concentrates on Mediterranean mystery clouding,
misdates Cassiodorus’ letter to 533, ignores other accounts of sun veiling, and
emphasizes the “remarkable ability” of human societies to “bounce back from
disasters, including widespread failures of crops.”
118. Tvauri, 2014, 35, is well versed in the paleoclimology of the downturn (30–32)
and suggests “primitive” agrarian technology then in Baltic countries made
contemporaries especially vulnerable to famines far worse than those of the
historical period. He proposes that a “single incident of famine” could erode
centuries of population growth.
119. Parry and Carter, 1985.
120. Fischer et al., 2007.
121. The food shortage spectrum: Garnsey, 1988, x, 6, 20–37, 271.
122. McCormick, 2007b, 878–89; cf. Newfield, 2013, 125–48. Later examples:
Atwell, 2001, 32, 42–62.
123. The 1257–8 eruption, recently assigned to Samalas, Indonesia, and long
known as the largest of the Common Era, did not generate widespread famine.
Unlike downturn events, however, dendroclimatology indicates this event did
not much affect climate. Stothers, 2000, 361–74; Timmreck et al., 2009;
Mann et al., 2012, 202–05; Anchukaitis et al., 2012, 836–37; Esper et al.,
2013, 736.
124. For discussion: Stathakopoulos, 2004, 265.
125. Cassiodorus, 1886, 519–20; 12.22 (513–14); 12.27 (521); 12.28 (523–24);
12.26 (520–21).
126. John the Lydian, 1897, 25; Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, Chronicle, 65;
Michael the Syrian, Chronique, 220–21.
127. Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, Chronicle, 10.1 (399).
128. Procopius documents several tactical siege shortages then: Stathakopoulos,
2004, 270–77.
129. Davis, 2000, 56. Note the reconquest reached Liguria in 538 and this episco-
pal report was delivered in person in Rome over the winter of 537–38 meaning
the dire situation in Liguria is to be assigned to 537. Milan suffered a multi-­
month-­long siege during the war, but in 538–39, also after this report.
130. Charles-Edwards, 2006, 94–95; Williams, 1965, 4. Note the CELT (Corpus
of Electronic Texts) transcription of the Annals of Ulster dates the bread failure
to 538: www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100001A/index.html.
131. Weisburd, 1985, 93. Weisburd implies Chang State’s summer snow and
autumnal famine occurred in 536 in the text, but the map caption (also p. 93)
seems to date these events to 537.
132. Grove and Rackham, 2001, 143–44; Diaz and Trouet, 2014, 168.
133. Toohey et al., 2016, 401, 406, 408–09, 410, Fig. 2.
134. Ge et al., 2010, Figs. 2 and 3.
135. Axboe, 1999, 186–88, 2001, 119–35. Bondesson and Bondesson, 2012,
167–70, discuss a twenty-item deposit dating to the second quarter of the sixth
century.
136. Discussed in Gräslund and Price, 2012, 433–34; also Price, 2015, 258–59.
Continuity is seen at many settlements.
137. Löwenborg, 2012, 10–13.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 481

138. Gräslund and Price, 2012, 431–36; Löwenborg, 2012, 5–7; Tvauri, 2014,
32–34, 35–39, and references therein. Detailed discussion of a sixth-century
site where bread was found as a burial offering: Arrhenius, 2013, 1–14.
139. Löwenborg, 2012, 5, 8–10, 15–17, 19–23; Tvauri, 2014, 39–40, 42–43,
44–47, 48.
140. The Fimbulwinter was recorded first in the late Viking period and long thought
by modern scholars to be rooted in the climatic transition away from a warm
Scandinavia Bronze Age about 600–450 bce: Pettersson, 1914, 24. More
recently it was assigned to the downturn: Axboe, 1999, 187; Gräslund and
Price, 2012, 436–40.
141. Gill, 2000, 228–33, 245, 287, 313, 318.
142. Toohey et al., 2016, 401, 406, 408–09, 410, Fig. 2.
143. For example: Koder, 1996, 277; Farquharson, 1996, 266; Houston, 2000, 73,
74; Gräslund and Price, 2012, 433, 438; Löwenborg, 2012, 7, 17–18, 22;
Tvauri, 2014, 32, 35, 36, 46, 48.
144. Bondesson and Bondesson, 2014, 61–67.
145. Palynology indicates a sixth- or seventh-century date for the wide sowing of
rye in Estonia: Tvauri, 2014, 30, 47–48, 49.
146. Justinianic Plague: Stathakopoulos, 2004, 110–54; Horden, 2005, 134–60;
Little, 2007.
147. Cheyette, 2008, 155–56; Gräslund and Price, 2012, 434; Löwenborg, 2012,
7, 17, 19, 24; Tvauri, 2014, 35; Headrick, 2012, 39–40; Kostick and Ludlow,
2015, 16. Long ago, Farquharson emphasized that the downturn was part of
“an extraordinary clustering of events,” which included pandemic and epizo-
otic disease: 1996, 267.
148. Maddicott, 1997, 10–11, 17.
149. Campbell has observed that the Black Death’s arrival in England forestalled a
sequence of exceptionally poor harvests from creating famine: Campbell,
2010, 301–04; Campbell, 2012, 140, 144–47, 159.
150. Stathakopoulos, 2003, 254 observes that Seibel lumped this Justinianic Plague
and mystery clouding together as though they were causally associated in his
1857 work. Recent linkages include: Brown, 2001, 92–94; Stathakopoulos,
2003, 253–54, 2007, 100; McCormick, 2003, 20–21, n.33; Horden, 2005,
152–53; Sallares, 2007, 284–85; McCormick et al., 2012, 198–99; Gräslund
and Price, 2012, 433–34; Lee, 2013, 290; Sigl et al., 2015, 548; Haldon et al.,
2014, 123; Izdebski et al., 2015.
151. Though low-resolution paleoclimatology now illuminates a pronounced
humid period setting in about 550 in Central Africa: Oslisly et al., 2013. In
Western and Northern Africa, there is evidence for dry conditions. Low-
resolution hydroclimate proxies in Chad and Algeria identify the sixth century
as fitting into a two- or three-century dry period. In some proxies from Ghana
and Senegal, this dryness is part of much longer-term aridity. In others, from
Nigeria and Cameroon, dry conditions appear to set in abruptly in the sixth
century. Reconstructions from Eastern Africa are more variable. The sixth cen-
tury is the last of a long humid period in parts of Kenya. But proxies from other
areas, like Tanzania, indicate dry conditions setting in abruptly in the mid-sixth
century. Conversely, wetness sets in suddenly in Rwanda, Namibia, and north-
east South Africa in the mid-sixth century: Nash et al., 2016, 6–8.
152. Keys, 2000, 16–23.
482 T. P. NEWFIELD

153. For example: Sallares, 2007, 284–85; Stathakopoulos, 2007, 100; also Lee,
2013, 290. Horden expressed skepticism, Brown thought the temperature
sensitivity of plague-bearing rodent fleas problematic to Key’s theory, and
McCormick suggested that the connection was more complex than Keys
allowed, though he too thought that the two events connected via the effect of
climate change on rodent populations: Horden, 2005, 152–53; Brown, 2001,
92–94; M. McCormick, 2003, 20–21, n.33.
154. Biraben and Le Goff, 1975, 50, 58, 64; Sarris, 2002, 169, 170–72; Sallares,
2007, 251, 285–86 thought the plague popped up closer to home, possibly in
Egypt.
155. Morelli et al., 2010, 1140–3; Harbeck et al., 2013; Wagner et al., 2014, 323;
Feldman et al., 2016.
156. Stathakopoulos, 2003, 254.
157. McCormick, 2003, n.33; McCormick, 2007a, 303–04.
158. McCormick et al., 2012, 198–99.
159. It is not limited to cold climates or seasons, but pneumonic plague does gener-
ally require close contact for transmission. Sallares, 2007, 241–42, 286.
160. Unless the disease became endemic or enzootic following the initial introduc-
tion. Justinianic recurrences: Biraben and Le Goff, 1975, 58–60;
Stathakopoulos, 2004, 113–24; Horden, 2005, 138–39, n.6.
161. Schmid et al., 2015, 3020–25; Kausrud et al., 2010, 112; Ben-Ari et al., 2011.
Campbell has demonstrated the Black Death occurred, in Europe, within a
distinct climatic anomaly: Campbell, 2010, 287, 300–05; Campbell, 2012,
144–47.
162. McMichael, 2015.
163. Though see Kausrud et al., 2010.
164. Bos et al., 2016; Seifert et al., 2016.
165. The same would apply to other mosquito-borne diseases. In Europe, both
vivax and malariae varieties of malaria were well established south and north
of the Alps by 550. Gowland and Western, 2012; Newfield, 2017.
166. See note 5 above.
167. For example: Stathakopoulos, 2004, 166–67, 268; Cheyette, 2008, 155–56;
Devroey and Jaubert, 2011, 10; Izdebski et al., 2015.
168. Farquharson, 1996, 267.
169. Arrhenius, 2013, 13.
170. Widgren, 2012, 126, 131–33; Nunn, 2007, 9. In Satingpra, Thailand, a
downturn drought is seen as spurring major irrigation works: Stargardt, 2014,
129–30.
171. Houston, 2000, 71, 74.
172. Dahlin and Chase, 2014, 127–55.
173. Lucero, 1999, 814–22.
174. Dunning et al., 2012, 3652–57.
175. Turner and Sabloff emphasize spatial and temporal variability in the effects of
Maya droughts: Turner and Sabloff, 2012, 13,908–14.
176. A survey of late antique Mediterranean famines: Stathakopoulos, 2004, 23–30,
35–56.
177. Smit and Wandel, 2006, 282–92; Berkes, 1993, 1–10.
178. Löwenborg, 2012, 22–23.
 THE CLIMATE DOWNTURN OF 536–50 483

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 CHAPTER 33

The 1310s Event

Philip Slavin

33.1   Introduction
In the 1310s, northwestern Europe experienced two environmental crises,
each on a catastrophic scale. First, between approximately July 1314 and July
1316, there were twenty-four months of extreme weather, characterised by
almost incessant torrential rain in summer, autumn, and spring, and then frost
during winter. The disastrous weather resulted in three back-to-back harvest
failures and omnipresent food dearth. Because of both anthropogenic and
demographic factors, the ‘Great Famine’ of the 1310s became probably the
single harshest subsistence crisis in Europe of the last two millennia. Second,
between around 1314 and 1321, Europe was devastated by a disastrous cattle
pestilence, most likely caused by rinderpest. In order to appreciate the environ-
mental and biological foundations of the two disasters, it is necessary to con-
sider their wider ecological and climatic contexts.

33.2   The Wider Climatic Context: Transition

from the MCA to the LIA

Despite much progress in the last two decades, the climatic reconstruction of
the past remains far from straightforward, and there are still more questions
than answers.1 Nevertheless, scholars have reached a solid consensus regarding
some long-term palaeoclimatic trends. It is now generally accepted that by the
second half of the thirteenth century (c. 1250–70), some profound climatic
changes were under way. After some 200 years dominated by warm climate
(the Medieval Climate Anomaly, or MCA), when average annual temperatures

P. Slavin (*)
School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 495

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_33
496 P. SLAVIN

approached those of around 2000 ce, the North Atlantic region entered a new
climatic phase, in effect a transition from the MCA to the Little Ice Age (LIA)
(see Chap. 22).
This transition, a part of a much broader global climatic shift, is a highly
complex and still poorly understood phenomenon. Although its chronology is
debated among both historians and palaeoclimatologists, it would be reason-
able to place it at about 1270–1420. Around 1270, we witness a shift to a
highly unstable climatic regime marked by high variability of year-to-year sea-­
surface and air temperature and great variance in year-to-year precipitation lev-
els. This was caused by a general weakening of the North Atlantic Oscillation
(NAO), especially since the 1320s, to the point that by the 1430s it became
strongly negative. This shift created stormy conditions and cold spells, which
became predominant for the duration of the LIA.2 These conditions were a
stark contrast to those of the MCA, dominated by a strong positive NAO,
when strong winter westerlies brought mildly wet and relatively warm weather
to northwestern Europe and arid conditions to the Mediterranean and North
Africa (see Chap. 23).
In addition, there was a gradual reduction in solar irradiance, partially caused
by major volcanic eruptions in 1257, 1268, 1275, and 1341/3.3 In particular,
solar irradiance was depressed between around 1280 and 1340, a period known
as the ‘Wolf Minimum’. During this period, levels of solar irradiance were sig-
nificantly lower than average for the period 1000–1500 ce.4 Piecemeal weaken-
ing of the NAO on the one hand and reduced levels of sunshine on the other
meant gradual cooling. Indeed, Greenland witnessed a period of severe cold
spells, peaking in 1303, 1320, and 1353, while Iceland saw sea-ice formation
along its northern coast in the 1310s and 1330s.5
These macroclimatic shifts and climate instability are reflected in various
types of climate proxies all over Northern Europe. Thus, between the 1270s
and the 1380s, sea-surface temperatures fluctuated a great deal from year to
year in the North Atlantic Ocean,6 and in the waters of Atlantic France.7 In
England, summer precipitation levels varied significantly from year to year,
reflecting the corresponding annual fluctuations in sea-surface conditions of
the North Atlantic, as indicated in the Greenland ice-core record.8 Thus, the
summers of 1315 and 1316 were very wet, followed by a relatively dry summer
in 1317, an excessively dry summer in 1318, and a fairly wet summer in 1319.
The period 1315–18, overlapping with the Great Famine years, coincided with
unusually warm North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, which created atmo-
spheric conditions encouraging unusually wet, cold, and stormy weather all
over Northern Europe.9
There is further physical and biological evidence of the increasing cooling
and storminess in Scotland and northern England during the second half of
the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth century. As recent
archaeological and palaeobiological evidence from the Western Isles has
revealed, commercial fisheries declined significantly because of changes in the
migratory behaviour of herring and other deep-sea species.10 Similarly, there
 THE 1310S EVENT 497

are archaeological indications of sand-blowing and dune deflation events

across both the west and the east coasts, which ruined the quality of soil and
reduced the arable production capacity of Scotland and, evidently, northern
England. In some regions, arable land was abandoned altogether.11 The graz-
ing season shrank by approximately one month, with adequate grass no longer
growing in early May and late September.12 The reduced growing season
would have produced less annual biomass for grazing animals, and this fact
would have made livestock husbandry more challenging and costly than
before.

33.3   The Weather Anomaly of 1314–16

Such was the climatic context for the abnormal weather of 1314–16. Torrential
rains seem to have spread all over northwestern and north-central Europe,
from western Poland in the east to Ireland in the west, from northern Italy in
the south to Norway in the north. However, the only place where a meticulous
reconstruction of seasonal weather is possible is England. This is largely due to
the uniquely rich English source material, consisting of chronicles and mano-
rial accounts. Manorial accounts were financial and agricultural reports ren-
dered on an annual basis by estate officials of local lords. Although these
documents were concerned primarily with the financial income, expenditure,
and agricultural production of those manors, there are occasional references to
seasonal weather conditions, especially in the case of bad weather. The written
and statistical sources can be complemented by evidence from the archives of
nature, chiefly tree rings and speleothem bands (see Chap. 3).
Taken together, the following picture emerges. The downpour started in
summer 1314, possibly around July. By harvest time, namely late August–early
September, the torrent was strong enough to disturb harvesting. The flooding
continued into autumn, persisting into October and possibly November.13 We
are unaware if the flooding stopped temporarily at some point in the late
autumn or early winter, or if it turned right into snow, as some documents sug-
gest.14 The winter crops failed miserably, which indicates frost, hail, or ice
storms. The torrent kept coming in the spring of 1315, pouring incessantly
into the summertime, disturbing mowing and harvesting.15 The rain was
accompanied by severe gales and thunderstorms, which destroyed buildings
and felled trees.16 As a recent palaeoclimatic study of late medieval Norfolk
concludes, April–July temperatures in 1314 and 1315 were remarkably low,
standing at ~11.92 °C and 11.79 °C, respectively, or 1 °C lower than average
for the period 1250–1330.17
The rain poured during the harvest period, making harvesting long and
challenging. In some places, the harvest of 1315 continued until October. The
winter and spring of 1316 were excessively rainy and stormy.18 The pluvial
weather continued into the summer, and the downpour was so strong that in
some places spring fields lay submerged under water by the harvest time.19 It
seems that the rain stopped during the harvest, and the weather finally turned
498 P. SLAVIN

dry.20 At the same time, it appears that the winter of 1317 was cold, and there
are several references to snow and frost.21 In any event, the short-term weather
anomaly was certainly over by spring 1317.

33.4   Agricultural Production Destroyed

The weather anomaly had a destructive impact on both vegetation and food
resources. First, there were three back-to-back crop harvest failures in 1315,
1316, and 1317. The annual composite gross yields (that is, the ratio between
the present year’s harvest and the amounts of crop sown in the previous year)
stood, respectively, at about 25, 35, and 14% below the average late medieval
figure. The net yields (the ratio between the present year’s harvest minus the
harvest share used as seed-corn and the amounts of crop sown in the previous
year) were much lower, standing at about 38, 50, and 26% below average in
1315, 1316, and 1317, respectively.22 In the case of the 1315 and 1316 har-
vests, legumes and winter grains (wheat, rye, the wheat-rye mixture known as
‘maslin’, and winter barley known as ‘bere’) performed much worse than the
spring grains (barley, oats, and barley-oat mixtures). Weather conditions were
particularly harsh in winter, when wheat, rye, and winter barley germinate and
legumes are planted (usually in late January–early February). There are refer-
ences to snowy conditions, but it is also possible that that at some point the
flooding turned into hail or ice storms, stunting the growing winter grains and
the recently planted legumes. Indeed, as some recent studies have demon-
strated, hail storms and ice storms can be devastating for field crops, much
more than snow.23 In 1317, on the other hand, it was oats that fared worse
than other crops, despite the fact that the weather seems to have normalised by
spring 1317.
In actual figures, the composite gross per-seed yields (ratio between this
year’s harvest and the previous year’s seed) were approximately 2.76 in 1315,
2.39 in 1316, and 3.16 in 1317 (compared with approximately 3.70 in non-­
famine years around 1300). The net per-seed yields (gross yields minus seed-­
corn) were approximately 1.68 in 1315, 1.32 in 1316, and 2.08 in 1317. After
the deduction of one-tenth of the harvest paid in tithes, the figures are deflated
to about 1.40 in 1315, 1.09 in 1316, and 1.76 in 1317. It is true that in theory
the tithes should not be regarded as a loss, because tithe-owners would usually
redistribute them for sale at local markets. But given the excessively high prices
of the famine years, very few tenants had the means to purchase additional
grain. In other words, an average English tenant was left with virtually nothing
to eat.
While net crop yields stood at about 38, 50, and 26% below average, the
calorific decline may have been even worse. As several English chronicles nar-
rate, grains were devoid of their usual nutrients because of the lack of the sum-
mer sun. As a result, the poor-quality bread could not satisfy people.24 Although
any interpretation of this report might be speculative, we should bear in mind
that excessive rain can damage maturing grains and reduce their calorific value
 THE 1310S EVENT 499

in several ways. It can create mould, namely micro-fungi, which encourage

biodegradation through mycotoxins.25 It can also reduce the quality and size of
kernel contents (germ and endosperm).26 Perhaps most importantly, it causes
unwanted sprouting of seeds, whereby enzymes break down the kernel starch
and reduce the calorific value, nutrients, and quality of flour.27 In any event, the
reports of bad bread incapable of satisfying people undoubtedly indicate that
the disastrous weather not only ruined harvests but also damaged harvested
grains. Although impossible to quantify, it is likely that relative calorific loss was
greater than relative volume loss. In other words, if crops yields stood at, say,
50% below average, the calorific loss may have reached as much as 60 or 70%.
When talking about arable produce, one often focuses too much on kernels
and forgets about stalks. Straw was a major component of fodder for animals,
and it was undoubtedly affected by the torrential rain as well. Although poor
grain yields implied a high proportion of straw in unthreshed sheaves, the wet
conditions of the famine years would not allow local producers to dry it quickly
and efficiently in order to produce the best livestock feed. If unsheltered, inun-
dated straw tends to become dirty, mouldy, rotten, and hence dangerously
unfit for animal consumption.28 Straw was an especially crucial fodder during
wintertime, when grass grew poorly or not at all, and animals were stall-fed.
The disastrous weather also had a profound impact on grassland, a far more
important source of animal feed than straw. It may be argued that pasturage
fodder, deriving from both pasture grass and meadow-mown hay, was the
backbone of the late medieval economy, which was so dependent on healthy
working plough-horses and oxen to ensure a steady supply of food for humans.
Here, it is important to distinguish between permanent pasture and mow-
able grassland, which was converted to hay. While the torrential rain of 1314–16
destroyed much arable, it also produced grass in great abundance, to the point
that the supply well exceeded demand, and the value of pasturage declined a
great deal. At the same time, the incessant rain made mowing extremely diffi-
cult and costly. As a result, much grass remained unmown, destined to be
consumed by water and rot. But even in those instances, when some meadow
was mown, it could not be easily dried and converted into hay, on account of
the torrential rain. In many cases, putrefying hay encouraged the activity of
parasitic fungi, bacteria, worms, and gastropods. It appears that the consump-
tion of putrid herbage was the single most important factor contributing to the
outbreak of sheep and cattle murrains during the famine years. As we shall see
below, one possible cause of sheep mortality was a liver fluke epizootic, while
the bovine murrain of 1315–16 (not to be confused with the rinderpest pan-
zootic of 1319–20) could have been brought about by either Barber’s pole
worm or by mycotoxic mould.
The torrential rain had an equally devastating effect on vineyards. There are
numerous references to the destruction of the wine harvest in Normandy, the
Paris region, and other parts of northern France. In some areas, the vintage
declined by 50% in 1315 and 1316 and by some 80% in 1317. Similarly, the
bad weather ruined vineyards of the Rhineland. In those instances, when grapes
500 P. SLAVIN

were harvested and processed, the quality of wine appears to have been
­deplorably sour.29 Furthermore, making wine was impossible in parts of north-
ern Italy, because of the rainy weather in the summer of 1315.30 In England,
viticulture was practised on a very limited scale, confined primarily to the
southern counties. However, there can be little doubt that local vineyards were
damaged at least as badly as on the Continent.
Other, minor sectors of agriculture deserve discussion, too. One such sector
is fruit horticulture. The available evidence is scarce—only a few manorial
accounts from south English estates. The paucity of evidence can be explained
by the fact that horticulture contributed only a small fraction of total caloric
intake, and fresh fruit and vegetables were traded on a small scale and in an
informal manner.31 Moreover, in many instances, the accounts seem to have
under-recorded real produce yields. Still, the few accounts from southern
England shed some light on the depression within the horticultural sector. As
they indicate, in 1315 and 1316, very few apples were picked. At Shapwick
(Somerset), 2.5 quarters (=840 lbs) of apples were harvested in 1315, com-
pared to 16 quarters (5376 lbs) in 1314. At Westonzoyland (Somerset), the
apple harvest amounted to 11 quarters in 1315, compared to 27 quarters in
1314. At East Meon Church (Hampshire), only one quarter was picked in
1315 and no apples were harvested in 1316—in contrast with 27 quarters in
1312.32 Two main factors are essential for good fruit tree yields: sufficient solar
irradiance and sufficient pollination by pollinating insects, primarily bees and
butterflies. Cold and rainy springs hinder fruit tree blossoming and prevent
insect pollination. Additionally, bees and butterflies (and other insects, with the
exception of mosquitoes) cannot fly in the rain. To make things even worse,
cold and rainy winters increase mortality rates of insects, because they are
unable to secure food. Finally, the torrential rain of 1314–16 undoubtedly
encouraged gastropods, that is slugs and snails, both notorious destroyers of
leaves. Taken altogether, it is hardly surprising that those few accounts record-
ing orchard production reported abysmally low figures.
The low levels of fruit harvest were closely related to the health of bees,
often managed in garden beehives to produce honey and wax, both highly
commercial products.33 As with horticulture, beehive management is reported
in few English manorial accounts, but those few documents clearly indicate
that the rainy and freezing winters of the famine years greatly increased honey-
bee mortality. For instance, at Werrore and Cosham (Hampshire), five out of
eight swarms died during the winter of 1315–16 ‘because of excessively rainy
weather’.34 Similarly, at Pilton (Somerset), thirteen out of seventeen swarms
died in the course of the winter of 1314–15.35 The same manors also reported
depressed yields of honey and wax.
Salt production was yet another sector severely depressed by the inclement
weather. In the late medieval period, salt making depended much on natural
evaporation of brine (created by the formation of pools of seawater on the
beaches during high tide in late spring).36 Clearly, the flooding of 1314–16
would have prevented the evaporation of brine, and stoking fires around the
 THE 1310S EVENT 501

salt ponds to quicken evaporation would have been extremely wasteful and
inefficient.37 Although there is no way to quantify the decline in salt produc-
tion during the crisis, there are more than enough narrative references to the
extent of the disaster. There was widespread deficiency of salt in England, and
one fourteenth-century English chronicle states that the excessive flooding
destroyed salt production in (northern) France.38 Although England boasted
several important salt-producing centres, especially in Cheshire and
Lincolnshire, it still depended much on foreign salt, imported primarily from
Bourgneuf Bay (on the frontiers of southern Brittany and Poitou) but also
from Brittany, Normandy, and Lüneburg (Lower Saxony). Although the tor-
rential rain poured over the Breton, Norman, and Saxon salterns, the Bourgneuf
salterns were located outside of the climate anomaly zone and there is no evi-
dence that salt production was disrupted there. However, the disruption of salt
production within the climate anomaly zone drove an increased demand for,
and dependence on, the Bourgneuf salt all over Northern Europe, which tre-
bled and quadrupled salt prices in northern France and England.

33.5   From Shortage to Famine

Although the environment played a central role in initiating the shortage, it did
not by itself create famine. The transformation of shortage into famine—or to
use Amartya Sen’s terminology, the transformation of ‘food availability decline’
(FAD) into ‘food entitlement decline’ (FED) (see Chap. 27)—depended on
purely anthropogenic, and especially institutional, factors.39 Once the harvest
was collected and tithe paid, an average tenant would have been left with very
little food supply, since the return from harvest barely exceeded the seed invest-
ment in the previous year. The consequences were especially harsh in those
lands caught in a so-called Malthusian trap: namely, population was too large
in relation to available resources. Thus, in England—where the population was
somewhere between 4.75 and 5.25 million people on the eve of the famine,
where over one half of the total population lived on less than ten acres of land,
and where, according to one estimate, about 41% lived below the poverty
line—an average tenant’s parcel of land could not possibly provide sufficient
food.40 Grain-based products, primarily bread and ale, contributed about 70%
of the caloric intake of an English commoner, which translates into about 1400
kcal per day.41 Under those circumstances, well over half of the required kilo-
calories had to be secured from outside the tenancy strips, namely from local
markets.
There was very little grain available for sale at local markets. This was not
because of the abysmally low yields: after all, if crop harvests failed by, say, 50%,
it implied that at least some grain should still have been available for sale, espe-
cially given that many wealthy producers would still end up with a surplus. The
disruption of grain supply to local markets may be explained by the reluctance
of the same producers to make their cereal stocks available for sale. As the
manorial accounts indicate, in the course of the first fiscal year of famine
502 P. SLAVIN

(September 1315 to September 1316) only about 30% of the 1315 grain
­harvest was released for sale by the spring of 1316, while the rest was hoarded
in expectation of high prices. Here the issue of storage played an enormous
role. Because of widespread poverty and crowding, peasants rarely had efficient
storage facilities. To make things even worse, inclement weather ruined local
granaries and barns. In contrast, better-off producers had both the storage
space and means to make repairs as necessary. In addition to the storage issue,
we also have to account for the rise in transportation costs. The abnormal
weather turned the roads muddy and impassable, which meant that horse- and
ox-­drawn transportation became more time consuming and expensive.
Shipping became even more costly and dangerous, not only because of the
high tides and storms, but also because of the ongoing piracy in the North,
Irish, and Celtic seas.42
Pirate attacks, often targeting food supplies, should be seen in a wider con-
text of ongoing warfare. The most violent theatre of war was in the British
Isles, where north English counties, southeastern Scotland, and the eastern
parts of Ireland were devastated in the course of the ongoing Anglo-Scottish
War (1296–1328). To this we should add the rebellion of Llewellyn Bren (28
January–18 March 1316) in south Wales. In the course of hostilities, all sides
engaged in environmental destruction, including the desolation of arable fields,
pasture, woodland, and wildlife resources, as well as plundering of granaries
and barns, thus cutting local communities off from their access to food.43 In
addition, Louis X of France invaded Flanders in August 1315, but this short-­
lived invasion was doomed to fail because of the inclement weather, which
destroyed French soldiers’ provisions and discouraged them from fighting.44 In
Sweden, there was civil war between King Birger Magnusson and his magnates
in 1317–18, which ultimately led to the king’s downfall.45
It was due to those anthropogenic factors that transactions costs went up,
driving abnormally high grain prices. In England, the selling price of one quar-
ter of wheat (424 lbs) rose from 7 shillings in September to 24s in June. The
average annual wheat prices were 15s and 16s a quarter in 1316 and 1317,
respectively—that is, about three times higher than in an average ‘non-famine’
year around 1300.46 Black market prices rose even higher: in one instance, a
quarter of wheat was selling for an overwhelming 44s.47 Grain prices rose in a
similar manner in northern France, the German Empire, the Low Countries,
and Central Europe.48 As we have seen, salt prices in England and northern
France trebled and quadrupled.49 There is also evidence of a rise in apple prices
in England, owing undoubtedly to the depression of orchard production dur-
ing the crisis years.50
The disruption of grain supplies and excessively high market prices left the
poorer elements totally helpless in the face of the crisis. This was especially true
in those regions that suffered from overpopulation (most of England and
northern France, the Low Countries, and presumably the western parts of the
German Empire).51 In other words, this seems to have been a classical
Malthusian scenario, when there were too many hungry mouths and too few
resources. The oversupply of agricultural labour meant low (and virtually
 THE 1310S EVENT 503

s­ tagnant) nominal wages and excessively low real wages (nominal wages deflated
by the Consumer Price Index). At no other point were living standards in
England so low; and although the scarcity of data does not allow any quantifi-
cation, the same was probably true of other famine-stricken parts of Europe.
This point is especially crucial in explaining hunger and malnutrition. As we
have seen, the abysmally low crop yields implied that at least half of England’s
population needed to secure additional food from outside of their parcels,
namely from local markets. The omnipresent poverty and the depressed real
wages, however, meant that for many this was not a viable option.

33.6   Malnourishment and Mortality: Humans

The adverse combination of environmental and anthropogenic factors ulti-
mately condemned both humans and domestic animals to malnourishment and
mortality. At first, local communities attempted to take up the slack by switch-
ing their dietary patterns. In England, there is much evidence for an increase in
livestock consumption, especially pigs, the quintessential peasant animal.
However, as one English chronicler narrates, there were not enough legumes
to fatten swine, and therefore ham, bacon, and lard could be produced only on
a limited scale.52 The shift from arable to pastoral husbandry would have been
a highly expensive enterprise, unaffordable for the majority of famine-stricken
peasants, who lacked both the necessary start-up capital and physical space for
animal management. To make things even worse, there were (as we shall see in
the next section) several outbreaks of livestock diseases in the 1310s, which
made the task of securing healthy animals all the more challenging. According
to the same chronicler, ‘even flesh of animals began to be deficient, and eggs
and other dairy products began to disappear too. One could hardly find capons
or geese; sheep were lacking, because of their murrain.’53 Another English
chronicler stated that no one dared to eat the meat of animals that perished
from murrain.54
It was in this context that the poorer elements of society had to resort to
famine foods, consisting of otherwise inedible and repugnant comestibles.
According to one source, people of Northumberland (north England) ate
horses and dogs.55 Another English chronicle reports the consumption of mice,
dogs, and pigeon dung.56 ‘Pigeon dung’, however, seems to have been a
Biblical cliché, rather than the actual comestible.57 One Dutch chronicler
reported that hungry people devoured cattle carrion, just like dogs, and
meadow grass, just like oxen.58 Consumption of cattle that died from murrain
is also reported in Würzburg.59 Several English and Irish narratives tell in detail
about instances of cannibalism, whereby both men and women ate their own
and other peoples’ babies, prison inmates ate each other, and hungry and
exhausted Ulster soldiers dug up corpses in order to eat them.60 Instances of
eating children and corpses were also reported in Poland, Bohemia,
Germany, and the Baltic lands.61 The authenticity of these reports (and similar
­descriptions from later historical famines) has long been debated among histo-
rians. Some dismiss them as outright hearsay or curiosities; others remain
504 P. SLAVIN

undecided.62 Given the recurrent reports of cannibalism in later famines, some

based on first-hand witnesses, the possibility of human- and corpse-eating dur-
ing the Great Famine—arguably the single harshest subsistence crisis in Europe
in the last 2000 years—should not be dismissed lightly.
The omnipresent malnourishment and famine food consumption compro-
mised the immune systems of the starving population and made them suscep-
tible to various hunger-related diseases. Thus, some German chronicles speak
about a ‘general and universal pestilence’.63 Other sources are more precise:
several English chroniclers narrate that people succumbed to dysentery, caused
by the consumption of corrupt foods.64 An outbreak of a disease called pestis
gutturosa (‘throat pestilence’), interpreted by some as scarlet fever, was also
reported.65 Although scarlet fever indeed accompanied some famines, includ-
ing the Irish Potato Famine (1845–52) and the Finnish Famine of 1866–68,66
this identification is by no means definitive. It has been suggested that some
may have died of ergotism caused by the consumption of fungus-infested rye.67
There is no evidence, however, that there was an outbreak of ergotism, despite
the fact that wet conditions encourage the growth of the fungal parasite. It is
more likely that malnourishment and consumption of famine foods led to diar-
rhoea and dehydration, weakening the population and increasing its morbidity
rates.68 Although the contemporary sources do not reveal mortality patterns
across gender and age, it is plausible that children and old people were most
prone to these diseases, as modern famine studies show (see Chap. 28).69
Recent palaeopathological studies based on skeletal evidence from a Black
Death cemetery in London indicate that the Great Famine targeted frailer indi-
viduals. Likewise, food deprivation in breastfeeding mothers was likely to
reduce their immunity and hinder the physical development of their
children.70
Any estimate of human population decline during the famine remains some-
what speculative. This is largely due to the remarkable paucity of demographic
studies on the early fourteenth century. Nevertheless, data from five English
manors based on local court proceedings suggests that between 1315 and
1318 England’s population declined by 10–15%.71 It is likely that mortality
rates in towns were even higher, given urban dependence on the surrounding
agricultural hinterland. For instance, one London chronicler reported that the
capital lost 20,000 people during the famine years—possibly an exaggeration,
given that London’s population on the eve of the famine was probably no more
than 60,000 people.72 At Ypres and Tournai (both in Belgium), about 10% of
the population died.73

33.7   Malnourishment and Mortality: Animals

Humans were not the only victims of the crisis. The destruction of fodder
resources by the torrential rain and freezing winters had a devastating impact
on livestock, especially cattle and sheep. As we have seen, the crisis years
destroyed much forage, including pasture, hay, and straw, which deprived
 THE 1310S EVENT 505

domesticates of healthy fodder. Indeed, as some English chronicles state, ani-

mals succumbed by eating rotten grass and herbs.74 To make matters even
worse, the inclement weather had very negative implications for animals who
were already exposed to colder temperatures and deprived of their most basic
kinds of fodder, and therefore had to waste more energy to maintain body heat.
These conditions likely decreased their resistance to pathogens within a very
short period of time.75 Malnutrition also delays physical growth in young ani-
mals, chiefly the development of muscles. Several months of deprivation in a
young bullock or hogget (young sheep) will do enough damage to turn them
into infertile and weak animals, prone to various diseases.
Such was the context for three outbreaks of animal mortality, each attacking
different groups of livestock with different levels of intensity. First, from late
1313 or early 1314 until 1317, there was an outbreak of sheep murrain in
England, Wales, and parts of Ireland, targeting primarily young animals.
Second, sources record an excess bovine mortality in 1315–16 in England.
This episode, however, was nothing compared to the devastating outbreak of
bovine pestilence that decimated European stocks between about 1315 and
1321.
The murrain in British sheep broke out either in late autumn 1313 or around
January 1314, long before the beginning of the torrential rain in the summer of
that year. Although the outbreak is reported in many chronicles, the descriptions
are rather laconic and at times vague. Thus, one chronicle specifies that there
was ‘a common rot (communis putredo) and sheep murrain, as well as mortality
of other animals’.76 Some historians have speculated that this ‘rot’ was an infesta-
tion of liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica), a parasitic flatworm infecting sheep livers.77
There is one manorial account from Bourton-on-the-Hill (Gloucestershire)
mentioning sheep mortality because of ‘the rot in bile duct’, which indeed fits
the symptoms of liver fluke infestation.78 Moreover, although ‘rot’ (putredo) was
a generic term, it was also used to describe liver fluke in several late thirteenth-
century English agricultural treatises.79 Liver fluke activity is encouraged by rainy
conditions, whereby the parasites migrate into the sheep’s liver and bile duct via
ingestion of rotten grass and then begin laying eggs. About twelve to fifteen
weeks after ingestion, animals exhibit the first signs of the disease known as fas-
ciolosis, whose common signs include liver malfunction and failure, jaundice,
anaemia, gall bladder damage, weight loss, and diarrhoea.80
It seems, however, that liver fluke infestation was not the only cause of
excessive sheep mortality during the famine years. A 1315–16 account from
Stevenage (Hertfordshire) reports ‘red disease’ (rubeus morbus) devastating
local flocks.81 This term is far from straightforward. It might be identified with
a now obsolete disease called ‘Blood’ in several early modern agricultural trea-
tises. Once sheep contracted this disease, they would suddenly die in agony,
and if not culled in time, their skin would become as red ‘as blood’.82 Although
it cannot be established with certainty, it appears that Stone’s identification of
rubeus morbus with the ‘Blood’ disease is plausible. Some accounts also refer to
veroles, most likely the sheep pox (Variola ovina) mentioned in one late
506 P. SLAVIN

thirteenth-­century agricultural treatise.83 Although the identification of this

disease remains debatable, it is likely that veroles/variola is in fact Variola ovina,
or sheep pox. Sheep pox is mentioned in one version of Walter of Henley’s
agricultural treatise as pockes.84 Sheep pox is a highly contagious viral disease
caused by a poxvirus. The clinical symptoms include lesions around the lips, in
the axilla, and on the tail.85
To complicate matters even further, manorial accounts contain numerous
indirect but unambiguous references to a concurrent outbreak of yet another
disease: scab. Although the accounts do not refer to scab by its proper name,
they indicate that traditional scab-treatment medicaments including lard, but-
ter, oil, verdigris, quicksilver, and copperas were applied on ailing sheep.86 Scab
is an acute infectious form of dermatitis caused by the faeces and bites of sheep
mites (Psoroptes ovis).87 Sheep mites tend to mate and act aggressively during
the cold and damp months of autumn and winter. Indeed, the weather condi-
tions of 1314–16 provided ideal conditions for mite mating and aggressive
behaviour. It should also be borne in mind that during those late autumn and
winter months sheep were most likely concentrated in sheepcotes, in order to
be protected from the inclement weather. This brought the animals into close
contact and encouraged transmission of the mites. This outbreak of scab was
one of several recurrent waves of the disease, which devastated Britain’s ovine
stocks between 1279 and around 1330.88 However, the 1313–14 outbreak was
harsher, with mortality rates standing at 20% that year (albeit not as harsh as
the 1279–81 wave that killed almost half of English stocks). As such, it was yet
another setback with harsh economic implications, particularly in the wool
industry.
Bovine animals were yet another victim of the crisis. Several narrative sources
report that cattle died from eating rotten herbs.89 The accounting year of
1315–16 (running between two Michaelmases, that is, 29 September) stands
out, with mortality rates reaching 9%, compared with only 3% in 1314–15 and
1316–17, a figure comparable to normal years.90 Although most documents do
not specify the nature of the disease, several accounts state that local animals
died ‘because of rot’.91 It is possible, just as in the case of sheep, that the ‘rot’
was an infestation of gastrointestinal parasites. For instance, Barber’s pole
worm (Haemonchus contortus) is associated with rotten herbage and is known
as the single most common type of stomach worm in cattle.92 But it is equally
possible that the ‘rot’ was caused by mycotic or mycotoxic mould infesting rot-
ten herbage. The consumption of mouldy herbage can often lead to liver dis-
ease in cattle, causing periportal fibrosis (severe liver lesions) and biliary
hyperplasia (enlargement of the bile duct), and leading eventually to death.93
This local animal mortality of 1315–16 was nothing compared to a much
greater bovine crisis that devastated all of Europe around the same time, caused
most likely by the rinderpest virus.94 Unlike scab disease, which seems to have
been confined to the British Isles, the cattle pestilence affected a vast stretch of
Eurasia. Similar to the Black Death a generation later, the geographic origins
of the pestilence remain obscure, but the disease seems to have originated in
 THE 1310S EVENT 507

the Eurasian steppe. Outbreaks are reported in Mongolia between 1288 and
1331; in northern China in 1288, 1301, 1306, and 1335; in the Ilkhanate
(comprising Persia, Azerbaijan, and parts of Asia Minor) during the reign of
Gaykhatu Khan (1291–95); and in the Golden Horde (stretching from
Lithuania into Siberia) during the reign of Tohtu Khan (1291–1312). The
panzootic crossed the steppes into Rus’ in 1298 and 1309, but it was not until
about 1316 that it reached Central Europe, possibly through Lithuanian trade
routes, and its presence was attested in Bohemia and eastern German lands. By
1318, the pestilence ravaged northern France, the Low Countries, and parts of
northern Italy. In the same year, cattle mortality was reported in Denmark.
Finally, by Easter 1319 the disease came to Essex, England. It swiftly spread
throughout the British Isles, reaching Scotland shortly after September 1319,
Wales by summer 1320, and Ireland in 1321.95
Although the bovine pestilence is attested in various European and non-­
European chronicles, again the language of the sources tends to be laconic and
vague. Thus, one later Brabant chronicler, Edmond de Dynter (1375–1448),
reported that the epizootics were of such catastrophic proportions that hardly
one cow in ten survived.96 It is only in England and east Wales that an accurate
estimate of mortality rates is possible, thanks to detailed information found in
manorial accounts. They indicate that about 62% of bovids perished. Unlike
the scab outbreak, when both male and female animals died at a similar rate,
this disease was particularly devastating to female animals, killing about three-­
fourths of all cows and heifers. This undoubtedly had to do with the fact that
the immune system of lactating animals was compromised by malnourishment
and the abnormally damp and cold weather. The morality rates of oxen, on the
other hand, stood at about 50%, which may be explained by their better resis-
tance to pathogens, because of stronger physiology and better diet, which
included oats and legumes.
Although the exact nature of the disease has yet to be scientifically deter-
mined, several recent studies relying on descriptions of symptoms have sug-
gested that it was rinderpest. Rinderpest is a viral disease with death rates
approaching 100% in infected animals. The pathogen incubates from three to
nine days and gets transmitted mostly through respiratory and sexual contact.
Its dissemination is remarkably fast. The disease is characterised by haemor-
rhaging, fever, erosion of the lower intestine, debilitating diarrhoea, and nasal
and ocular discharge. Animals succumb between six and twelve days. During
symptoms and after death, infected animals contaminate fodder, pasture, and
sources of water.97

33.8   Long-Term Impacts

Although the agricultural crisis was more or less over by 1318, and the bovine
pestilence in 1321, the crisis had enduring environmental and economic
repercussions. The recovery of bovine stocks proved a long and expensive
process. As English evidence indicates, it was not until the late 1330s that
508 P. SLAVIN

herds reached their pre-crisis levels.98 Oxen were the most important draught
animal in England and many other parts of Northern Europe struck by the
crisis; they had to be replenished first in order for the predominant arable sec-
tor to recover. In the meantime, to fill the vacuum, the draught-horse sector
was temporarily expanded.99 Thanks to these steps, there is no evidence of
depression in the agrarian sector until the Black Death. The agrarian recovery
allowed the human population to grow anew, as demonstrated by English
evidence.100 The dairy sector, however, remained depressed for some twenty
years, because of the comparatively slow recovery of cow stocks. The contrac-
tion within the dairy sector meant the English population was deprived of
their most important source of some vital nutrients, including protein, cal-
cium, and vitamin B12.
Obviously, early fourteenth-century Europeans had no knowledge of nutri-
tional science and hence could not devise alternative strategies to compensate
for nutritional loss by, say, expanding legume acreage. This fact had some far-­
reaching consequences on human health and susceptibility to pathogens. As
skeletal evidence from one Black Death cemetery in London reveals, individu-
als born after 1319 (the year of the outbreak of bovine pestilence in England)
clearly show more numerous signs of frailty and pathology, chiefly short stat-
ure, cribra orbitalia (lesions on orbital roofs), porotic hyperostosis (lesions on
cranial vault bones), and linear enamel hypoplasia (horizontal lines on the
enamel of an affected tooth). These pathologies are usually associated with
insufficient intake of the aforementioned nutrients during physical develop-
ment in childhood and adolescence. It is hardly surprising that the same frail
individuals, born and maturing after 1319, were susceptible to the Black Death,
now proven to have been caused by a biovar of the pathogen Yersinia
pestis.101
A connection among these three biological disasters of the fourteenth cen-
tury—the famine, cattle plague, and Black Death—is likely but by no means
clear and straightforward. This remains a fascinating topic, which at present
poses more questions than answers. It is only through meticulous interdisci-
plinary studies based on strong collaboration among historians, archaeologists,
and scientists that we may one day reach definite conclusions.

33.9   Conclusion
The crisis of the 1310s was, by all means, an unusual natural event with far-­
reaching implications. It was a short-term weather anomaly within a wider cli-
matic shift, which came as unusually wet and cold weather destroying virtually
all sectors of agriculture at once. Biologically speaking, it wreaked much havoc
in weakened and nutrient-deprived human and animal populations, susceptible
to various pathogens and diseases. Economically speaking, it came when the
living standards of northwestern European populations reached their lowest
point in many centuries (if we assume that English evidence reflects conditions
in other lands). The climatic and biological instability was a major setback for
 THE 1310S EVENT 509

the impoverished human populations caught in a Malthusian trap, whose only

exit would be a biological cataclysm that came some thirty years later: the Black
Death.

Notes
1. Brázdil et al., 2005.
2. Dawson et al., 2007.
3. Oppenheimer, 2011, 263–67.
4. Muscheler et al., 2007.
5. Campbell, 2011, 186.
6. Dawson et al., 2007.
7. Mary et al., 2015.
8. Wilson et al., 2013.
9. Dawson et al., 2007, 431.
10. Cage and Austin, 2010.
11. Oram, 2015.
12. Oram and Adderley, 2008, 79.
13. Longleat House Muniments (henceforth, LH) 10666, membranes 9v, 33v
(manors of Pilton and Wrington); LH 10030 (manor of Walton).
14. Westminster Abbey Muniments (henceforth, WAM) 8802 (manor of
Kinsbourne, alias Harpendenbury).
15. The National Archives (Kew) (henceforth, TNA), SC 6/996/14, memr. 15r
and 7r (manors of Haughley and Thorndon, both in Suffolk); Northamptonshire
Record Office (henceforth, NorthantsRO), FM 248 (manor of Boroughbury,
Northamptonshire); TNA, SC 6/1011/4 (manor of Byfleet, Surrey).
16. LH, 10666, membranes 9r and 39r (manors of Baltonborough and Pilton, both
in Somerset).
17. Pribyl, 2011, 296.
18. Hampshire Record Office (henceforth, HantsRO), 11M59/B1/70, membr.
13v (manor of West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire); WAM, 8803 (Kinsbourne).
19. Bodleian Library (henceforth, BodL), Ch Ch DD27 (manor of Maids Moreton,
Buckinghamshire).
20. WAM, 8766.
21. WAM, 25423 (Birbrook, Essex).
22. These figures are slightly different from those calculated by Bruce Campbell,
who favoured the figures of 39% below average in 1315, 63% below average in
1316, and 10% below average in 1317. The discrepancy derives from the differ-
ence in manorial sample, methodology, and my inclusion of ‘minor’ crops (rye,
wheat-rye mixture, winter barley, legumes, legume-oat mixtures, and oat-barley
mixture).
23. Brázdil et al., 2003; Mauelshagen, 2011.
24. Riley, 1876, 93.
25. Didwania and Joshi, 2013.
26. Labuschagne et al., 2009a, 2009b; Beckles and Thitisaksakul, 2014, 58–71.
27. https://news.wsu.edu/2015/07/14/summer-rains-could-mean-sprout-dam-
age-for-wheat-crops/#.Vk3oZnbhCM9 (last accessed 19 November 2015).
28. Suttie, 2000, 156–58.
510 P. SLAVIN

29. Jordan, 1996, 34–35.

30. Lucas, 1930, 373.
31. Dyer, 2006.
32. HantsRO, 11M59/B1/59-72; LH, 11246, 11271, 11215, 11216, 10655,
10656, 10766, 10761, 10632 and 10633.
33. Dyer, 2006, 29.
34. BodL, DD Ch Ch Queens 251.
35. LH 10766, membr. 40v.
36. Hurst, 2004.
37. Jordan, 1996, 52.
38. Catto and Mooney, 1997, 272.
39. I have dealt with the institutional aspect of the crisis in much greater length
elsewhere. See Slavin, 2014a, 9–49, 2014b, 528–50.
40. The estimates of England’s population c. 1300 vary considerably. The popula-
tion controversy is summarised in Broadberry et al., 2015, 3–22. The share of
the population living below the poverty line is estimated in ibid., 317–18, 321.
41. Broadberry et al., 2015, 288–90 suggest an even higher figure of 80%, but agree
that 2000 kcal was an average per diem figure.
42. Heebøll, 2013, 33–54.
43. McNamee, 1997, 72–122; Slavin, 2014b.
44. Lucas, 1930, 349–50.
45. Jordan, 1996, 178–79.
46. The non-famine prices are derived from Munro, 2006; Farmer, 1988, 794–95.
The famine years’ prices have been calculated by me.
47. Laumby, 1889, 411.
48. Lucas, 1930, 352–55, 373–75.
49. Farmer, 1988, 809–10.
50. Apple price series are extremely scarce. The most complete series comes from
the manorial accounts of Sheen (Surrey): TNA, SC 6/1014/1-6.
51. Van Bavel, 2010, 278–79; Abel, 1955.
52. Riley, 1863, 92.
53. Riley, 1863, 92. The translation is mine.
54. Riley, 1876, 247–48.
55. Childs, 2005, 120–21.
56. Luard, 1866, 470.
57. ‘Pigeon dung’ is related to the Biblical famine in Samaria during the siege by
Ben-Hadad, King of Aram, when one-fourth of the ‘pigeon dung’ (Biblical
Hebrew: hireyonim, or divioynim) was sold for five pieces of silver (2 Kings
6:25). The term hireyonim/divioynim, however, seems to have been a long-
standing textual corruption, while the original term is now commonly accepted
to have been either wild onions or carob pods. See Marvin, 1998, 80–81.
58. Curschmann, 1970, 213.
59. Jordan, 1996, 87.
60. Lydon, 2008, 285.
61. Przezdziecki, 1876, 83; Jordan, 1996, 148–50.
62. Jordan, 1996, 149–50; Ó Gráda, 2015, 11–37.
63. Jordan, 1996, 142.
64. Riley, 1866, 94.
65. Rawcliffe, 2013, 361.
 THE 1310S EVENT 511

66. Clarkson and Crawford, 2001, 158; Pitkänen, 2002, 77.

67. Jordan, 1996, 116.
68. Jordan, 1996, 116.
69. Jordan, 1996, 116–18.
70. DeWitte and Slavin, 2013, 37–60.
71. Titow, 1961, 224; Razi, 1980, 31, 40; Poos, 1991, 106–07.
72. Raines, 1839, 96–97; thus, Derek Keene suggested the estimate of
80,000–100,000 people around 1300: Keene, 1989, 101.
73. Jordan, 1996, 145–47.
74. Riley, 1863, 147, 1876, 196.
75. Newfield, 2006, 64.
76. Bond, 1867, 333.
77. Kershaw, 1973, 37; Aberth, 2013, 157.
78. WAM 8262.
79. The most extensive description of liver fluke is found in the Latin version of the late
thirteenth-century treatise Walter of Henley (BodL, MS Digby 147, fols. 6r-7r).
80. Mitchell, 2007, 195–204.
81. TNA, SC 6/871/5.
82. Stone, 2003, 20.
83. HantsRO, DC/J1/12, membr. 9v; Oschinsky, 1971, 380–81.
84. Oschinsky, 1971, 380–81.
85. Kitching, 2007, 302–06.
86. HantsRO, DC/J1/14, membr. 6v; Slavin et al., 2015, 123–25.
87. Bates and Aitken, 2007, 321–25.
88. Slavin et al., 2015, 114–17.
89. Riley, 1863, 147, 1876, 196.
90. These figures derive from Slavin, Manorial Accounts Database (as of November
2015).
91. TNA, SC 6/867/4; University of Chicago Library, Bacon Roll 446.
92. Stephenson, 1987, 87; Stone, 2003, 20.
93. Casteel et al., 1995.
94. Newfield, 2009, 188–89; Slavin, 2012, 1240, 1243.
95. Slavin, 2012, 1240.
96. De Ram, 1854, 497.
97. Obi, 1999, 6.
98. Slavin, 2012, 1249–51.
99. Slavin et al., 2015, 127–28.
100. Broadberry et al., 2015, 12–22.
101. DeWitte and Slavin, 2013, 55–58.

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 CHAPTER 34

The 1780s: Global Climate Anomalies, Floods,

Droughts, and Famines

Vinita Damodaran, Rob Allan, Astrid E. J. Ogilvie,

Gaston R. Demarée, Joëlle Gergis, Takehiko Mikami,
Alan Mikhail, Sharon E. Nicholson, Stefan Norrgård,
and James Hamilton

34.1   Introduction
In 1793, William Roxburgh, surgeon of the English East India Company in
Samuelcottah (Madras presidency, India), reported to the President’s Council on
the failure of the South Asian Monsoon between 1789 and 1792, arguing that
its severity in South Asia had been approached only by the droughts of 1685–87.
His meteorological observations and collection of data on rainfall and cyclones

V. Damodaran (*) • J. Hamilton

University of Sussex, Sussex, UK
R. Allan
Met Office, Exeter, UK
A. E. J. Ogilvie
Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri, Iceland
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado,
Boulder, CO, USA
G. R. Demarée
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
J. Gergis
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

© The Author(s) 2018 517

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_34
518 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

were critical to the new science of climatology that was emerging in the colonies.
Building on this archival evidence, and with corroborating evidence from St
Helena, New South Wales, Mexico, and Montserrat, the environmental historian
Richard Grove argued in Nature that the droughts of 1789–92 were part of an
El Niño event with global ramifications.1 Grove contended that the associated
famine in Madras presidency, which claimed in the region of 600,000 lives, was
part of a global disaster, resulting from extreme climatic conditions associated
with this particular period of intense El Niño expression.2
How global was the event that Grove describes? How can we better analyse
the climate anomalies of this period? This chapter draws on the contribution of
Rob Allan and the regional expertise of Joëlle Gergis (Australia), A.E.J. Ogilvie
and G.R. Demarée (Iceland), Sharon Nicholson and Stefan Norrgård (Africa),
Alan Mikhail (Egypt), Takehiko Mikami (Japan), as well as James Hamilton
and lead author Vinita Damodaran (South Asia). It offers an up-to-date recon-
struction of global-scale climate anomalies during the 1780s before moving on
to discuss the social impacts of these climate anomalies in Iceland, Egypt, India,
Australia, Africa, and Japan.

34.2   Reconstructing Global Climate in the 1780s

The decade of the 1780s saw the first systematic instrumental observations of
weather in several locations. By then, some of the earliest attempts to develop
European instrumental meteorological networks had taken shape, including the
Mannheim Societas Meteorologica Palatina (1781–92) (Germany), the Societé
Royale de Médecine (France) (1776–89), the Baierische Ephemeriden (Germany)
(1781–89), and the Academia Medico-Matritense (Spain) (1780–1825) net-
works (see Chap. 7).3 Unfortunately, with the coming of the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic Wars in the late eighteenth–early nineteenth centuries, these
networks collapsed, and it was colonial meteorological networks that were to
prove more robust, such as those initiated by William Roxburgh.
Early instrumental weather records during this decade can be found in the
vicinity of Calcutta, India (1784–85) and at Baghdad and Basrah in Iraq
(1782–84).4 In India, what became the English East India Company’s (EIC’s)

T. Mikami
Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan
A. Mikhail
Department of History, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
S. E. Nicholson
Earth Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Florida State University,
Tallahassee, FL, USA
S. Norrgård
Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 519

observatory at Madras—officially established in 1792—had evolved from the pri-

vate observatory of William Petrie in the 1780s.5 In Australia, the establishment of
the British colony of New South Wales in Australia in 1788 began the record of
instrumental weather observations in that country (see Fig. 34.1).6 In Mauritius,
Jean Nicolas Céré and Jean-Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy began the first systematic
meteorological observations of the Indian Ocean region during the 1770s–90s. In
the marine sphere, scientific instruments such as thermometers and barometers
were beginning to be used regularly on ships from all nations. Such records survive
from the English East India Company ships trading with India and China from
the 1780s, the First Fleet sailing from England to Australia with the first European
colonists in 1788, and a number of major expeditions and circumnavigations, such
as those of James Cook and Jean-­François La Pérouse and George Vancouver.7
The international ACRE (Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over
the Earth) initiative has undertaken various efforts to recover, image/scan, and
digitise such early instrumental, terrestrial, and marine observations, and these
have been linked into the evolving WMO International Data Rescue (IDARE)
activities portal.8 Both historical documentary and palaeoclimate analyses still
provide essential material and evidence with which to investigate the global to
regional climatic regimes and patterns of the 1780s. The weather of the 1780s
specifically over Europe has been reconstructed by John Kington of the
Climatic Research Unit in the form of historical weather maps.9 Based on this
evidence, we can identify both major climatic episodes and the human conse-
quences as discussed in the following sections.

Fig. 34.1 Instrumental weather observations in the meteorological journal of William

Dawes (14 September 1788 to 6 December 1791) from Sydney Cove, New South
Wales, Australia
520 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

34.3   The Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783

During the year 1783, much of the Northern Hemisphere was affected by a
phenomenon that many contemporaries described as the ‘great dry fog’. The
origin of this fog was a major volcanic eruption in the county of Vestur-­
Skaftafellsýsla, in the southeast of Iceland. In the non-Icelandic literature, this
eruption has often been referred to as the ‘Laki’ eruption. Strictly speaking,
this is a misnomer, since the eruption did not occur on Mount Laki but on
either side of it. In Icelandic, it is often called Lakagígar, the ‘Laki fissure’
eruption. The total length of the Lakagígar crater row from one end to the
other is 27 km, divided by Mount Laki into two nearly equal parts. The erup-
tion is also referred to in Iceland as Skaftáreldar, or ‘Skaftá fires’, from the
nearby river Skaftá.
The first signs of the eruption were some weak tremors felt in May, and then
strong earthquakes in southeast Iceland in early June. The eruption itself began
on 8 June. This year also brought a marine volcanic eruption, on a much
smaller scale, off Reykjanes in the west, as well as volcanic activity in
Vatnajökull.10 The effects of the eruption were felt and seen all over Iceland,
mainly in association with the falls of tephra, and there are numerous contem-
porary descriptions.11 The eruption lasted until February 1784, with a lava flow
covering an area of 580 km2, making it one of the most noteworthy and largest
fissure eruptions in historical times.
The eruption had a catastrophic effect in Iceland, not because the eruption
caused direct loss of life, but because of the indirect effects of volcanic gases
and ashes distributed by wind. Poisonous substances in the volcanic dust
adversely affected vegetation, killing numerous domestic animals, the back-
bone of the Icelandic economy. The grass, the basic sustenance of the grazing
livestock, became fluorine poisoned, and within a year of the eruption 53% of
the cattle, 80% of the sheep, and 77% of the horses died.12 The Lakagígar erup-
tion must be seen as the primary cause of the ensuing famine, which came to
be known in Icelandic as Móðuharðindin, ‘The Famine of the Mist’, from the
volcanic dust haze.13 It is estimated that the total death toll of Móðuharðindin
reached 19–22% of the Icelandic population, or approximately 10,000
people.14
The difficulties in Iceland set in motion by the Laki fissure eruption were
further compounded by an epidemic of smallpox, and also the very severe
weather that had already begun in 1782.15 Furthermore, the sea ice that drifts
on the East Greenland Current to the shores of Iceland was extensive in 1781,
1782, 1783, and 1784, which significantly lowered temperatures on land. In
the past, the presence of sea ice had many negative effects in Iceland, prevent-
ing access to fishing grounds and the arrival of trading vessels.16 In recent times,
there has, for the most part, been little sea ice off Iceland’s coasts.
The consequences of the Lakagígar eruption were not confined to Iceland.17
The fine ash and volcanic dust that rained down on most parts of Iceland were
also reported in many regions of Northern Europe. Examples come from the
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 521

Faeroe Islands, Caithness in Scotland, Copenhagen, Friesland, Bergen

(Norway), and northern Germany. The dry fog also appears to have been wit-
nessed in areas as far apart as Labrador, Newfoundland, the Tunisian coast, Asia
Minor, and possibly China.18 The dry fog of the year 1783 lasted for approxi-
mately three months, starting around mid-June, with most of the final descrip-
tions dating from September 1783.
European historical sources noted many harmful effects of the dry fog on
the environment. Specifically, these negative effects seem to have been limited
mainly to the banks of the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions. However, other
sources reported its beneficial influence on the vegetation and harvest. These
include accounts from regions in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Livonia (com-
prising nearly all of modern-day Latvia and Estonia), and Upper-Hungary
(modern Slovakia).19 Another factor to note was that the 1780s were one of
the coldest decades in the Central England Temperature (CET) series. There
was a notable sequence of three cold years, 1784–86, where the annual mean
for each year was more than 1 °C below the series average.20
Benjamin Franklin has been credited as the first to suggest a relationship
between volcanic eruptions and climate.21 The evidence for this relationship is
now unequivocal, but the discussion on its exact nature continues.22 For
Europe at least, there is evidence that explosive eruptions tend to lead to cold
summers and warm winters. A sulphate aerosol dry fog could also lead to a cold
summer, but this would depend on the exact composition of the aerosol. In the
case of the 1783 event, such debates regarding aerosol composition are rele-
vant with regard to both the cold winter of 1783–84 and the hot summer of
1783. Such questions regarding volcanic eruptions and climate remain highly
relevant in the present context of global change and debates concerning the
relative contributions of natural climate variability and greenhouse gas-induced
warming.23

34.4   Protracted Episodes: El Niño 1782–84 and La

Niña 1785–90
Aside from the effects of the Lakagígar eruption, 1783 was an extraordinary
year for several reasons, including the occurrence of extreme weather condi-
tions, other volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and epidemics in many parts of
Europe and elsewhere.24 With regard to epidemics, the evidence suggests that
the concentrations of noxious gases and the volcanic ash produced by Lakagígar
were responsible for an increased mortality in England, France, Belgium, and
the Netherlands.25
A 2011 study by Rosanne D’Arrigo and colleagues has suggested that the
impacts attributed to the Lakagígar eruption may actually have resulted from
the occurrence of a negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) phase coupled
with a ‘protracted’ El Niño in 1782–84 that occurred during the event.26
According to Allan and D’Arrigo, protracted episodes in the El Niño Southern
522 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

Oscillation (ENSO) can be defined as ‘periods of 24 months or more when the

SOI [Southern Oscillation Index] and the Niño 3 and 4 CEP-EEP SST
[Central Equatorial Pacific-Eastern Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperature]
indices were of persistently negative or positive sign, or of the opposite sign in
a maximum of only two consecutive months during the period’.27 A 2009
study by J. Gergis and A. Fowler refined the standard to those events ‘defined
as persisting for three years or more’.28
Such protracted episodes have not received anything like the degree of
attention or research afforded to more ‘traditional’ El Niño and La Niña events
and their impacts and teleconnections. This is partly due to the insufficient
number of such episodes during the historical record for a reliable statistical
sample: not even twenty episodes of either phase have been resolved since
1850. Nevertheless, extensions of dynamical weather reconstructions (re-­
analyses) back into the nineteenth century, plus the generation of more reliable
historical documentary and palaeoenvironmental data and records before the
instrumental period, are allowing for the resolution of more of these protracted
episodes. Gergis and Fowler’s 2009 study resolved two such episodes during
the 1780s, an El Niño lasting from 1782–84 and a La Niña lasting from
1785–90. As noted above, the major El Niño and La Niña events of the 1780s
are ‘embedded’ within these longer episodes, which effectively cover much of
this decade.29
Michael Chenoweth’s 2003 study suggests that the years 1784–85 experi-
enced a La Niña event, as indicated by Luc Ortlieb in 2000, and that its impact
was felt in several parts of the globe.30 Geographer Georgina Endfield has pro-
vided evidence for droughts and frosts in Mexico in 1784 and 1785, poten-
tially resulting from the ‘disturbed’ weather patterns caused by this event.31 In
the Caribbean, Chenoweth provides evidence for cooler Puerto Rico tempera-
tures from coral proxies in the 1780–85 period, strengthened trade winds
across Jamaica during the wet season in the 1780s, and incursions of cold air
outbreaks from North America into the Caribbean during each of the winters
in the 1781–84 and 1785–86 periods. Examining evidence from the New
South Wales Colony, Gergis and Fowler’s 2009 study indicates that 1788–89
was a very wet year influenced by La Niña conditions. This was, in turn, fol-
lowed by a severe El Niño drought spanning 1791–94.32
Grove’s 2007 study refers to the Great El Niño of 1789–93.33 It is far more
temporally extensive than ‘usual’ El Niño events and coincides with the strong
1791–94 ‘protracted’ El Niño episode. Nevertheless, there is debate in the
literature on this topic. Some of this criticism relates to Grove’s interpretation
of terms in old textual material relating to India; other criticism points to dis-
crepancies with palaeoenvironmental evidence regarding the nature, severity,
and extent of Indian famines during this period. Edward Cook and colleagues
state that ‘Much has been made of this drought’s effect in India, with several
references to severe famine there, but the MADA (Monsoon Asia Drought
Atlas) does not suggest that it was any more severe over India than the other
droughts … Although this could be due to limited tree-ring coverage in India
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 523

itself, reconstructions over the entire Indian subcontinent have significant vali-
dation skill, and its more extreme occurrence in the southernmost part of India
and near Sri Lanka is consistent with historical data from those regions. It is
therefore possible that this drought was not uniformly severe over India and
that other non-climatic factors may have contributed to the severity of the
societal consequences.’34
A 2014 study by David Nash and George Adamson demonstrates that the
monsoon onset over western India was early in the first half and slightly later in
the second half of the 1780s.35 Figure 34.2, by F. Shi and colleagues, shows
evidence for drought during major periods of famine in Indian history, includ-
ing the 1780s.36 The question is whether the palaeoclimatic data currently avail-
able are of sufficient coverage and resolution in space and time to judge how
extensive these droughts actually were across the region. The impact of these
climate anomalies in some of these regions are considered in detail in the fol-
lowing sections (see Fig. 34.2).

34.5   Case Study 1: Famines in India, 1780–1812

This case study focuses on India, and aims primarily to contextualise
Roxburgh’s report, as utilised by Grove. By exploring archival material held
at the British Library India Office, it builds a more nuanced, regional picture
of the societal impact of this particular ENSO event across the subcontinent.
Since both Gergis and Fowler and Allan and D’Arrigo have argued in favour
of even more protracted ENSO episodes stretching from 1785–90 (La Niña)
and from 1791–94 (El Niño), the period addressed is extended to include
these years.
Of particular interest is that storms and typhoons in India became more
noticeable in this period. Most often, tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal
occur from April to June and again from September to November. The major
storm event of the 1780s occurred on 20 May 1787, when a cyclone in the Bay
of Bengal struck the Indian coast near Coringa in Andhra Pradesh resulting in
some 20,000 deaths.37
Two East India Company (EIC) reports are of particular interest in this
regard. Both were compiled in the mid- to late nineteenth century from con-
temporary accounts sent from various regions of the subcontinent to the East
India House in London, and both concerned the prevalence of famine in India
over the preceding century, since the expansion of EIC power, showing that
concern over famine was obviously high at the time. First, in A Century of
Famines, F.C. Danvers presented a chronology of famine in India. He observed,
‘it is an appalling fact that during the past hundred years one part or another of
India has been visited by famine on no less than thirty-four … occasions’.38 His
chronology for 1770–1812 is presented in summary form below, along with a
map of areas affected by famine.
 524
V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

Fig. 34.2 Time series of the reconstructed South Asian Summer Monsoon Index (SASMI) (red line), the decadal (cyan line) and annual
(blue line) inverse of dust concentrations in [an] ice-core record from Dasuopo, Tibet, the inverse of the δ18O speleothem record (green line),
and the tree-ring chronologies from Mae Hong Son (MHS) (black line) and Bidoup Nui Ba National Park (BDNP) (orange line) before
1670 ce (a) and after 1671 ce (b). The grey periods indicate the twenty-six famine events identified in India over the past millennium.
(Reproduced without changes from F. Shi, J. Li, and R.J. Wilson, “A Tree-Ring Reconstruction of the South Asian Summer Monsoon Index
over the Past Millennium,” Scientific Reports 4 (2014): 1–8 under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 525

The great Bengal famine of 1770, an El Niño year, killed 10 million people.
Its causes included the taxation policy of the East India Company.39 It was fol-
lowed by the famines of the 1780s that Danvers recorded in some detail. The
decade was to prove particularly unsettled. There was general scarcity in
1781–83 in the Carnatic and the Settlement of Madras, caused primarily by
Hyder Ali’s incursions. Government action to provide food was considered to
have helped alleviate the situation, and the scarcity was essentially over by early
1783. During 1782–84, the districts of Thurr and Parkur in Sind (then Western
India; now Sindh, Pakistan) suffered the burning of crops and suspension of
cultivation due to hostilities associated with the end of the Kulhora dynasty.
These disasters combined with a two-year drought to produce famine.40
Again in 1783–84 Behar, Purneah, Bheerbhoom, and parts of Rajeshye, the
Northwest Provinces, and the Punjab experienced famine. Although Danvers
noted that information was limited, since much of the affected territory was
not under British rule, ‘there are reasons to believe that the upper parts of
Hindustan had been visited with extraordinary drought during the previous
years. In September and October 1783 there was an abnormal cessation of rain
and extreme drought, and in the latter month a terrible famine was reported in
all the countries beyond Lahore to Karumnasa (the western boundary of
Behar) … the famine had already been severely felt in all districts toward Delhi.
To the northward of Calcutta the crops upon the ground had been scorched,
and nearly destroyed.’ By early 1784, the famine was over.41 Interestingly,
Danvers observed that ‘as usual, the long drought was succeeded by great
floods’. The great Chalisa famine (literally, ‘of the fortieth’) of 1783–84 in
South Asia is recorded as having killed nearly 11 million people. It is said to
have followed the unusual El Niño, which caused drought events and affected
many parts of northern India from Kashmir to Punjab in the north to Rajasthan
in the west and Uttar Pradesh in the East. Famine in the previous year 1782–83
had extended over South India, including Madras under the English East India
Company and Mysore under Haider Ali and Tipu.
The next Indian famine occurred in 1790–91, affecting the regions of
Western India, Omerkot, Kach, Ahmedahad, Rewa Kanta, Broach, Surat,
Kulladghi, Dharwar, Sawunt Warree, Kaira Belgaum, Rutnagheri, Pahlunpoor,
Mahee, Kanta, and Baroda. Here Danvers emphasised the regionality of the
famine (‘in some of these districts famine was only partial and local’) and the
variety of causes, such as in Kach, where ‘famine was caused by innumerable
black ants which swarmed in almost all parts of the country and destroyed veg-
etation’. Again, the lack of full information is noted: ‘very little is known con-
cerning the famine in many districts named (above), beyond the fact that in
1790 tradition records the occurrence of a very severe famine. An almost total
failure of rains was the immediate cause, apparently, of the calamity, and suffi-
cient information exists to prove that it was one of the most remarkable on
record. So great was the distress that many people fled to other districts in
search of food, whilst others destroyed themselves, and some killed their chil-
dren and lived on their flesh.’42
526 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

Danvers also reported famine in South India during 1790–92. ‘[I]n

these years there was a very serious dearth in the northern districts of the
Madras presidency, and the pressure was apparently felt for about two years
… from November 1790 to November 1792. Many deaths from starvation
occurred. At an early period the Government suspended the import and
transit duties on all kinds of grain and provisions, and imported grain from
Bengal. In the latter part of 1791 the export of rice from Tanjore was pro-
hibited except to distressed districts. Rice was distributed gratuitously by
government and relief was afforded by employing the poor on public
works.’43 Up to half the population perished in some districts of the Madras
presidency, such as in the Northern Circars. In other areas, such as Bijapur,
although no records were kept, both the famine and the year 1791 came to
be known in folklore as the Doji bara (also Doĝi Bar), or the ‘skull famine’,
on account, it was said, of the ‘bones of the victims which lay unburied
whitening the roads and the fields’.44 The famine also affected areas outside
British rule, including Hyderabad, Southern Maratha Kingdom, Deccan,
Gujar, and Marwar—then all ruled by Indian rulers.45 As in the Chalisa
famine of a decade earlier, many areas were depopulated by mortality or
migration. According to Grove, a total of 11 million people may have also
died during the years 1789–92 as a result of starvation or accompanying
epidemics.46
Famines are also recorded in 1802–04 in Guzerat, Kach, Pahlunpoor, Rewa
Kanta, Surat, Candeish, Ahmednagar, Poona, Sattara, Sholapur, Kolapur,
Belgaum, Dharwar, Colaba, Ratnagherry, and the Nizam’s Dominions; in
1803–04 in Moradabad, Bareilly, Etawah, Furruckabad, Cawnpore, Allahabad;
in 1804–07 in Tanjore, North and South Arcot, Nellore, Chingleput, the
Ceded Districts, and Trichinopoly; and in 1812–14 in Madura. However, for
this period, the tone of the various details of the famines suggests that those of
1790–91 and 1790–92 were the worst on record, both in extent and severity
of societal impact.
Danvers’ report is pertinent not merely as a source on meteorology and
famine chronology in India. He has much of interest to say that allows us to
see in proper proportion the significance of rainfall variation within a larger
causal framework, and how such variation is linked to famine (see Chap. 27).
Danvers stated that ‘famines in India have arisen from several different causes
… the most general cause has been the failure of rains. Distress has also, how-
ever, been caused by hostile invasions; by swarms of rats or locusts’ (or ants
in the case of the 1790–91 famine in Kach, described above); ‘by storms and
floods; and not infrequently by the immigration of starving people from dis-
tant distressed parts, into districts otherwise well provided with food sup-
plies; and excessive exports of grain into famine stricken districts, or by
combination of two or more of the above named circumstances’.47 However,
Danvers’ key but perhaps counter-intuitive observation (predicting Amartya
Sen) is that most deaths in times of famine were not caused by actual short-
age of food: ‘It is an important fact’, he states, ‘that famines in India are more
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 527

generally famines of work than of actual absence of food throughout any

large extent of the country.’48 Danvers’ point then is that the causal link
between lack of rains and famine is more complex than might be assumed.
The problem is not that local harvests are poor and therefore food is in short
supply when rains are insufficient. It is more that lack of rain disrupts agricul-
tural employment patterns and leaves poor workers without sufficient money
to purchase food.
Danvers continued on this topic to describe how, ‘from a study of the his-
tory of past famines it appears that these visitations are almost as liable to be
caused by unseasonable rains, or by their unequal distribution, as by deficient
amount of rainfall during the year’. He concludes by stating that ‘there are
altogether so many circumstances connected with rainfall and its influence on
the crops that it is difficult to arrive at any definite conclusion as to the actual
proportionate deficiency of rain that would constitute a famine drought’.49
A glance at Danvers’ map of areas affected by famine (here reduced from its
original coverage of a century to the period 1770–1812 only) shows the asym-
metry of famine distribution. Even this half-century of frequent famines dis-
plays vast areas that remained completely immune. Danvers’ map then, much
like his report, points to a markedly complex relationship between deficient
rains and significant social impact (see Fig. 34.3).
The second source, by George Campbell, gives details of the famine
around Madras in 1782, which, it suggests, was primarily driven by warfare
in the area: ‘when the enemy was at their walls, and by his ravage, in every
part of the adjacent country, had destroyed the cattle and reduced the
inhabitants to the most pressing difficulty to obtain the common necessaries
of life’. A note from Bengal in the 1783–84 famine is particularly interesting
for the light it shines on the experience and cultural construction of drought,
famine, and scarcity in the region and the period. A letter describes how the
‘shocking experience’ of the 1770 famine ‘still fresh in the memories of
most people’ combined with the shipment of vast quantities of grain to
Madras in the preceding seasons again left Bengal vulnerable to artificial
shortages.51
Perhaps the most valuable section of this collection concerns the details of
the famine and general upheaval caused by a series of storms in 1787. Several
sources reported on this event: An article in The Nautical Magazine recorded
that ‘Captain Huddart describes one [storm] which destroyed ten thousand
persons in the neighbourhood of Coringa, in May, 1787, and penetrated
twenty miles over the country’.52 William Roxburgh noted a major loss of his
papers, including those on various plant species in his collection, as a result of
this event.53 ‘I had made and noted down many observations on its uses, when
in large practice in the General Hospital at Madras in 1776, 77 and 78, but lost
them, with all my other papers, by the storm and inundation at and near
Coringa in May 1787.’
The Madras typhoon of May 1787 was part of a series of very severe
storms occurring throughout the year in Bengal. Reports of floods from the
528 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

Fig. 34.3 Map of famine areas in India from 1770–1812, based on F.C. Danvers, A
Century of Famines50

General Letter from India of 15 December 1787 describe a ‘violent inunda-

tion’ of which the author states that ‘no memory can recollect any preceding
instance of similar inundations … the distress occasioned by the inundation
was aggravated by a storm which happened on the 2nd ultimo, [i.e.,
November] and which, wherever it prevailed, destroyed much of the exist-
ing crops’.54 An important point here with regard to the meteorological
record is that the second storm (along with others described below), which
occurred in November, exacerbated the already difficult situation caused by
the typhoon in May. This second disaster made the problems associated with
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 529

the first much more difficult to recover from. The Governor General Lord
Cornwallis was suspicious of false claims, warning that ‘it will be the duty of
the Board of Revenue to make the most scrupulous investigations, and to
reject every ill-founded claim for deductions’. Again, an embargo on export
was put in place, now for six months.55 More disparities are seen in the after-
math of the flood and storms. Grain prices were very high in Moorshedabad
and Dacca in particular, ‘where sufferings of the poor inhabitants were the
greater’, but much more normal in Benares and Behar ‘where the crops had
been abundant’; thus exports from these regions to the affected areas were
encouraged. In addition to the Madras event in 1787–88, other reports
recorded early and abnormally heavy rains in Bengal and Behar. Through
‘the latter part of March to the latter half of July, they had continued with
such violence as almost to render cultivation impossible’. A government-
imposed ban on grain exports was credited with resolving the situation by
June of 1788.56
By 1 June 1788, the General Letter could state ‘that the distresses which
have been suffered by the scarcity of grain, in different parts of the country and
particularly in Dacca, have been of late much relieved’. The proceedings of the
Board of Revenue reveal the internal conflict over the continuation of collec-
tions through times of scarcity. As shown above, Cornwallis was resigned to the
fact that remission would be necessary but aimed to scrupulously investigate
any suspected false claims. W. Hindman, an acting collector, wrote on 20 July
1787 that since the 11th, ‘rains have continued with a violence hitherto
unknown, and, it grieves me to inform you, that by the advice I have received
from the Mofussil [rural areas], I am apprehensive of a total depopulation of all
the pergunnahs [subdistricts], if the weather does not soon moderate … about
two thirds of the ryots [peasants] have retired for safety with their families to
the hills and others are following daily, whole villages have been swept away’.
He continued, ‘it is impossible for language to convey the distressful situation
of this province; where ever you go you see nothing but a sheet of water, with
here or there the tops of houses and trees. Whole crops have been levelled and
villages, cattle, grain, and implements of husbandry swept away. Many of the
inhabitants have been drowned and whole pergunnahs deserted … the small
islands before the city of Dacca are entirely overflowed, and only a few of the
tops of the houses are to be seen, the oldest inhabitants remember nothing like
it…. The overflowing banks of the Berhamputer [Brahmaputra], a circum-
stance never known before, has certainly occasioned this dreadful inunda-
tion.’57 The collector of Chittagong reported that ‘the deluge of rain which has
recently fallen in these parts exceeds, I am given to understand, the memory of
the oldest inhabitants’.58
Campbell’s collection shows how very severe weather difficulties—again
and again made worse by repeated storms, and very likely combined with
administrative determination to continue tax collection to the greatest pos-
sible extent—left great want and dislocation amongst the poor. The collector
530 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

of Nuddea wrote in September 1787 that ‘the rivers which run through this
district have risen to so alarming a height that I should consider myself defi-
cient in my duty did I omit to communicate the intelligence to you; the
Jellingy in particular, which passes by this place has swelled to such a degree
that there are few parts where its banks are not overflowed on both sides and
to judge from my own observation and the opinion of people here, it must
be at least two feet higher than it was in the rains of 1785, and then it was
higher than the oldest inhabitants had ever remembered it’. At the end of
that month ‘vast torrents’ were recorded in Midnapore, by which ‘those poor
creatures that survived the calamity have lost everything in the world’.59
Similar reports came from Burdwan, Sarun in the west to Sylhet and
Rungapore in the east.60 Numerous collectors wrote the Board of Revenue
warning that the population could not support regular tax collections. In
some cases, the Board permitted collectors to exercise discretion, but in other
cases, remittance was refused.
Danvers’ and Campbell’s collections of famine reports appear to show a
significant increase in climate-related societal difficulties during the 1780s–
90s. Although the 1770 famine was extremely severe, no other famines are
described for the remainder of the 1770s, whereas a total of six notable fam-
ines are described between 1780 and 1791 (including the Doji Bara and
Chalisa famines), none in the remainder of the 1790s, two in the 1800s, and
two in the 1810s. All of the 1780s famines were in part born of climatic
irregularities, although as described above, through notably complex causal
links. The most frequent climatic contribution was lack of rain, but disrup-
tions to the expected timing of rain, excessive rain, and a notable season of
extreme storms, floods, and intense winds in 1787 also contributed to famine
when they occurred. Campbell’s collection of reports on the storms of 1787
add much detail to previous knowledge of the May typhoon and suggest that
areas of Bengal were struck repeatedly by dramatic storms and floods of an
extent not known in living memory. Such reports appear to support Allan’s
and Gergis’ suggested identification of a more extended La Niña episode
beginning in 1785.
Although statistical data are absent, Danvers’ qualitative assessment of the
1790–92 famines suggests they were the most severe of the period. However,
it would be impossible from the information presented here to assess their
impact in relation to the 1770 famine, which Campbell in 1868—with the
benefit of hindsight—interestingly referred to as ‘the Great Famine of 1770’.
Several types of evidence not found elsewhere indicate that at least in some
regions the 1790–92 famine was remarkable in its impact, thus supporting
Grove’s identification of intense ENSO activity at this time.61 These include
reports of direct governmental famine relief through the distribution of rice,
the institution of employment programmes through public works, subjective
judgements of its extreme severity, and descriptions of the failure of rains and
of the resorting to suicide and eating of children.
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 531

34.6   Case Study 2: The Influence of Climate on the

First European Settlement of Australia, 1788–93
Aside from some pioneering works of nineteenth-century scholars, Australian
historical records remained until recently essentially unexploited for use in con-
temporary climate research.62 From 2009–12, an initiative known as the South
Eastern Australian Recent Climate History (SEARCH) project (www.climate-
history.com.au) used historical documents together with meteorological and
palaeoclimate data to reconstruct climate variability back to first European
settlement in 1788 (see Chap. 21).63 One of the aims of the research was to
identify previously undescribed wet and dry phases in the pre-1900 period and
examine any possible relationship with large-scale circulation modes like the
ENSO phenomenon that influence the region.64
Extreme phases of the ENSO cycle frequently result in extreme weather
conditions around a large part of the globe.65 In the western Pacific, El Niño
events increase the likelihood of severe drought, while La Niña conditions
favour above-average rainfall and flooding.66 Typically, the reverse is true in the
eastern Pacific, where El Niño episodes bring heavy rainfall.67
Recent advances in the reconstruction of past ENSO conditions now incor-
porate data from the western Pacific, rather than traditional El Niño chronolo-
gies that only consider historical records from South America.68 They now also
reconstruct historical La Niña events for the first time. In contrast with Grove,
Gergis and Fowler conclude that a very strong La Niña event (not El Niño)
was centred on 1788 and continued to 1790. A characteristic ‘phase flip’ seems
to have occurred in 1791, beginning a strong El Niño event that lasted until
1794.69
Evidence for the 1788–90 La Niña and the 1791–94 El Niño event sequence
is found in the recently consolidated climate record for southeastern Australia
(SEA).70 While it is clear that ENSO influences rainfall variability in the broader
SEA region, the signal recorded in coastal New South Wales is weak but still
discernible for high-magnitude events.71
When Governor Arthur Philip arrived with the First Fleet in January 1788,
Sydney was in the middle of a cold and wet summer. The colony’s chief bureau-
crat, David Collins, made meticulous records of weather conditions, the first of
which reads: ‘The weather during the latter end of January and the month of
February was very cold, with rain, at times very heavy, and attended with much
thunder and lightning, by which some sheep, lambs and pigs were destroyed.’72
More ‘inclement, tempestuous weather’ persisted throughout the winter of
1788, making life in the new colony difficult. Collins wrote: ‘During the begin-
ning of August much heavy rain fell, and not only prevented the carrying on of
labour, but rendered the work of much time fruitless by its effects; the brick-
kiln fell in more than once, and bricks to a large amount were destroyed; the
roads about the settlement were rendered impassable; and some of the huts
532 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

were so far injured as to require nearly as much time to repair them as to build
them anew. It was not until the 14th of the month, when the weather cleared
up, that the people were again able to work.’
By the second year of settlement, the foreign landscape and erratic weather
were wreaking havoc on the establishment of agriculture in Sydney. In February
1789, the young colony was still experiencing wet conditions, making life
increasingly desperate. Collins reported: ‘the weather was extremely unfavour-
able; heavy rains, with gales of wind, prevailing nearly the whole time. The rain
came down in torrents, filling up every trench and cavity which had been dug
about the settlement, and causing much damage to the miserable mud tene-
ments which were occupied by the convicts.’73
Unsettled conditions appear to have persisted into autumn 1790. As Sydney
endured more flooding, soon they learned of the devastating loss of the cargo
ship HMS Sirius on Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790.74 When the HMS
Supply brought news of the wreck of the Sirius, the mood of the colony sank
deeper into despair. As Collins recalled: ‘The weather had been very wet during
this month; torrents of rain again laid every place under water; and many little
habitations, which has withstood the inundations of the last month, now suf-
fered considerably.’75
The loss of the Sirius brought Sydney Cove to the brink of famine, and
drastic ration reductions were enforced. Collins wrote, ‘it was unanimously
determined, that martial law should be proclaimed; that all private stock (poul-
try excepted) should be considered as property of the state … the general
melancholy which prevailed in the settlement when the above unwelcome
intelligence was made public, need not be described; and when the Supply
came to an anchor in the cove everyone looked up to her as to their only
remaining hope … it was determined to reduce still lower what was already too
low … very little labour could be expected from men who had nothing to
eat’.76 Cold and hungry, many feared that the weakened colony was in danger
of collapse.
By September 1790, the weather started to improve. Soon, however, the
colony faced a particularly dry summer. On 27 December 1790, Watkin Tench
described the first European account of a summer heatwave in Sydney, likening
the northwest wind to the ‘blast of a heated oven’. Tench also described the
impact of the dry conditions on the food supply: ‘vegetables are scarce …
owing to want of rain. I do not think that all the showers of the last four
months put together, would make twenty-four hours rain. Our farms, what
with this and a poor soil, are in wretched condition. My winter crop of pota-
toes, which I planted in days of despair (March and April last), turned out very
badly when I dug them about two months back. Wheat returned so poorly last
harvest.’77
Early in 1791, Governor Philip wrote: ‘the dry weather still continued, and
many runs of water which were considerable at this season the last year [1790],
were now dried up … at Sydney, the run of water was now very small’.78 David
Collins commented on the heat stress on the local wildlife: ‘Fresh water was
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 533

indeed everywhere very scarce, most of the streams or runs about the cove
being dried up. At Rose Hill [Parammatta], the heat on the tenth and eleventh
of the month, on which days at Sydney the thermometer stood in the shade at
105°F [40.6 °C], was so excessive (being much increased by the fires in the
adjoining woods), that immense numbers of the large fox bat were seen hang-
ing at the boughs of trees, and dropping into the water … during the excessive
heat many dropped dead while on the wing … In several parts of the harbour
the ground was covered with different sorts of small birds, some dead, and oth-
ers gasping for water.’79 Governor Arthur Philip elaborated on the staggering
scale of the scene: ‘from the numbers that fell into the brook at Rose Hill
[Parramatta], the water was tainted for several days, and it was supposed that
more than twenty thousand of them [bats] were seen within the space of one
mile’.80
In contemporary Sydney, autumn and winter rains are important for recharg-
ing reservoirs and rejuvenating parched land. The failure of these rains can have
a devastating effect on agriculture, as it did in the late eighteenth century. In
April 1791, Arthur Philip remarked that ‘the dry weather continued … the
quantity of rain which fell in the month of April [1791], was not sufficient to
bring the dry ground into proper order for sowing the grain … this continu-
ance of dry weather, not only hurt their crops of corn very much, but the
gardens likewise suffered greatly; many being sown a second and a third time
as the seed never vegetated, from want to moisture in the soil’.81 As a result of
the drought, Governor Philip tightened rations as the food supply of the
­struggling colony began to dwindle: ‘Little more than twelve months back,
hogs and poultry were in great abundance, and were increasing very rapidly …
but as this time [April 1791] there was seldom any to sell.’ Watkin Tench
lamented, ‘I scarcely pass a week in summer without seeing it rise to 100
degrees [Fahrenheit—i.e., 37.8 °C]; sometimes to 105 [40.6 °C].’82
David Collins described the dry conditions that persisted into June 1791:
‘the ground was so dry, hard and literally burnt up, that it was almost impos-
sible to break it with a hoe; and until this time there has been no hope or prob-
ability of the grain vegetating’.83 On returning back from Norfolk Island John
Hunter, ex-Captain of the doomed Sirius, described the scene at Sydney Cove:
‘all the streams from which we were formerly supplied … were entirely dried
up, so great had been the drought; a circumstance, which from the very intense
heat of summer, I think it probable we shall be frequently subject to’.84
By November 1791, the worsening drought led to the first documented
account of water restrictions imposed on Sydney. The small freshwater stream
that ran into Sydney Cove proved an irregular source of water. To try and con-
trol the amount of water flowing out of the colony, ‘holding tanks’ were cut
into the sandstone banks to provide storage for the water. Collins wrote: ‘By
the dry weather which prevailed the water had been so much affected, besides
being lessened by the watering of some transports, that a prohibition was laid
by the Governor on the watering of the remainder of Sydney … to remedy this
evil, the Governor had employed the stone-mason’s gang to cut tanks out of
534 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

the rock, which would be reservoirs for the water large enough to supply the
settlement for some time.’85 These sandstone basins led to the freshwater creek
flowing into Sydney Cove becoming known as the ‘tank stream’, and are likely
to be the earliest example of water regulation in Australia’s colonial history.
From August 1794 onwards, there are reports that conditions in the settle-
ment gradually improved as the grip of drought loosened: ‘Notwithstanding
the weather was unfavourable during the whole of this month, the wheat every
where looked well, particularly at the settlement near the Hawkesbury,’ Collins
remarked.86 By January 1795, he commented on how agriculture was now
beginning to thrive as heavy rains began to soak the floodplains of the
Hawkesbury River. The first major drought experienced by Australia’s
European settlers had finally come to an end, but it would later come to be
recognised as representing the quintessential ENSO cycle of drought and
flooding rains that still defines life in twenty-first-century Australia.

34.7   Case Study 3: Regional Events and Impacts

during the 1780s in Japan

In Japan, the 1780s were one of the most disastrous periods in historical times.
The great ‘Tenmei’ Famine led to the deaths of around 100,000 people due to
extremely poor summer rice harvests across northern and eastern Japan, par-
ticularly in 1783–84 and 1786. The primary cause of the famine and harvest
failures was the exceptionally cool weather during the summers of 1783 and
1786. Under present conditions, generally hot summers are experienced in
Japan under the influence of strong subtropical highs, which bring dry and
sunny weather conditions. Cool summers occur under the influence of stag-
nant polar fronts and passing extra-tropical cyclones, which bring cloudy and
rainy conditions.
Although instrumental meteorological data are not available for this period,
several attempts have been made to estimate summer temperatures in the
1780s based on daily weather diaries in Japan.87 These include the Ishikawa
diaries, which are continuous family diaries kept in the western suburbs of
Tokyo from 1721 to 1940.88 Using these diaries, researchers have categorised
weather patterns in Japan into several types, based on the number of days with
rain in the months of July and August. The ‘no rain across Japan’ weather pat-
tern had its lowest frequency (eight days) in 1783 and the second lowest
(nine days) in 1786, in contrast with the highest (thirty-three days) in 1781
and 1789 and the second highest (thirty-two days) in 1785. This suggests that
the weather and climate in the 1780s were unstable, with large year-to-year
variability of weather patterns, and that 1783 and 1786 were extremely rainy
and cool.
Since the number of rainy days is highly correlated with the mean tempera-
ture in a summer month, especially in July (the correlation coefficient is −0.70
based on the Japan Meteorological Agency data for 1876–1940), it is possible
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 535

to reconstruct July temperatures in Tokyo for the period 1721–1940 based on

the weather records in the Ishikawa diaries. The reconstructed temperature
series show several cooler and warmer periods. From 1721 to 1790, tempera-
tures are estimated to have been about 1–1.5 °C lower than at present, and July
temperatures show large year-to-year variability with the lower values below 22
°C in 1728, 1736, 1738, 1755, 1758, 1783, 1784, and 1786. Temperatures in
the 1780s were often very low with large interannual variations. In the summer
of 1783, exceedingly cool and wet conditions brought an extremely poor rice
harvest, and this unusual weather led to a severe famine in Japan. The nine-
teenth century brought warmer periods during the 1810s and early 1850s. By
contrast, the 1830s, late 1860s, and late 1890s were relatively cool, and great
famines occurred in the 1830s as they had in the 1780s (see Fig. 34.4).89
The weather and climate during the 1780s can be summarised as follows:

Summer 1781: Hot summer conditions across Japan with extremely dry condi-
tions in southwestern Japan.
Summer 1782: Temperatures were basically as usual across Japan.

Fig. 34.4 Time series of reconstructed (blue lines) and observed (black/grey lines)
July temperatures in Tokyo for 1721–2000. Thin lines indicate year-to-year variations
and thick lines indicate eleven-year running means. The blue rectangular part indicates
the period of the 1780s. Modern Tokyo has a very strong urban heat island effect and
this is likely to have contributed to warming evident in the twentieth century. Figure
modified and updated from Mikami (1996)
536 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

Summer 1783: Extremely cool and wet conditions across Japan with excep-
tional rainfall in northeastern Japan.
Summer 1784: Slightly warm in northern Japan and wet/cool weather in
southern Japan.
Summer 1785: Hot summer conditions across Japan with dry weather patterns
in western Japan.
Summer 1786: Extremely cool summer conditions across Japan, centred in the
western area, with much rainfall.
Summer 1787: Rainfall amounts were as usual across Japan, with high
temperatures.
Summer 1788: Usual temperatures across Japan; slightly wet in western Japan
and less rainfall in northern Japan.
Summer 1789: Almost normal weather conditions across Japan with hot sum-
mer climate in northern Japan.
Summer 1790: Hot and dry weather conditions across Japan.

The government took several relief measures, such as promoting emergency

rice stocks in local governments and reducing the price of rice. Nevertheless,
mortality rose dramatically during the severe famines of the 1780s. Starving
people in rural areas sought food in towns and cities, where destructive urban
riots occurred.

34.8   Case Study 4: Africa (Including Egypt)

The explosion of the Laki volcanic fissure in Iceland between the summer of
1783 and the winter of 1784 had a direct impact on rural Egypt.90 The Laki
fissure eruption produced a heavy sulfuric acid aerosol burden in the Arctic,
which led to ‘substantial heating of the Arctic atmosphere and subsequent
reduction of the equator–pole thermal gradient’.91 The result was a weaker
westerly jet stream of warm air, which contributed to a strong dynamical effect
of lessening the African and Indian Ocean monsoon circulations.
The Indian Ocean monsoons feed the Nile. Moving over the Ethiopian
highlands in early summer, these rains swell the upper reaches of the Nile
system, eventually flowing into Egypt in June. The river rises in the south at
Aswan in June and in Cairo by July, peaking in the capital in late August or
early September. The Lakagígar eruption took place in June—just in time to
interrupt the Indian Ocean summer monsoons. Climatological studies indi-
cate that the Lakagígar eruption led to reduced Nile floods in 1783 and
1784. Estimates are that the Nile’s flow decreased by as much as 18% in these
years.92
The summer of 1783 brought the lowest flood and that of 1784 the third
lowest of the entire period from 1737 to 1800.93 The Nile was the literal life-
line of Egypt, its ultimate source of food, revenue, and power.94 Thus, a reduc-
tion of nearly a fifth of its waters obviously had devastating consequences for
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 537

the social, economic, and political structures built by the wealth the Nile
produced.
The sources from this period make clear that the eruption’s effects on Egypt
precipitated a massive crisis in the countryside. Documenting the early autumn
of 1783, the Egyptian chronicler ‘Abd al-Raḥman al-Jabartı̄ wrote of the Nile’s
dearth that year and the food shortages that followed. ‘The Nile did not rise
sufficiently, and it fell rapidly … The ground remained dry in the south as well
as the north. Grain became scarce … The price of wheat was on the loose …
and the poor suffered greatly from hunger.’95 Almost a year later, another lack
of summer floods exacted a similar toll on Egyptians, leading to great ‘kaht ü
galâ’ (scarcity and dearth).96 The chronicler al-Jabartı̄ wrote that the fall of
1784 was ‘like the preceding one with distress, rising prices, an inadequate rise
of the Nile, and continual internal strife’.97
Two consecutive years of poor floods ravaged the countryside, Egypt’s
economy, and its rural social structure. Land became so progressively unpro-
ductive that the taxes garnered from rural Egypt in 1785 were the second low-
est total in over sixty years. ‘The land turned to waste’, ‘peasants abandoned
their villages because of a lack of irrigation’, and ‘many of the poor starved to
death’.98 Moreover, ‘store-houses on the river stayed empty of grain for a whole
year and the granaries also remained closed. People’s daily bread and subsis-
tence were cut off, and they perished regardless of whether they compromised
or cheated.’99 Travelling in Egypt in these years, the French philosopher and
orientalist C.F. Volney corroborated al-Jabartı̄’s description: ‘the inundation of
1783 was not sufficient, great part of the lands therefore could not be sown for
want of being watered, and another part was in the same predicament for want
of feed. In 1784, the Nile again did not rise to the favourable height, and the
dearth immediately became excessive.’100 By the end of 1784, ‘many men and
animals had perished from hunger’.101 As evidence of just how hungry people
had become, Volney reported seeing two men ‘sitting on the dead carcase of a
camel, and disputing its putrid fragments with the dogs’.102
In Egypt (as in Iceland), drought and hunger in 1783 and 1784 made peo-
ple more susceptible to plague and other diseases.103 Volney guessed that in
these years ‘famine carried off, at Cairo, nearly as many as the plague’.104 The
plague began in the winter of 1783–84, with hundreds of dead bodies taken
out of Cairo each day. It increased its deadly intensity in the summer and fall of
1784, probably because the previous years’ food shortages had weakened rural
people’s immunities.105 The combined famine, drought, and disease continued
into 1785, and decimated rural populations through both death and flight.
Citing ‘received opinion’, Volney estimated that Egypt lost one-sixth of its
total population between 1783 and 1785.106
The environmental impacts of the Lakagígar eruption immediately contrib-
uted to the economic, political, and social transformation of rural Egypt. In the
stress and confusion of drought, famine, depopulation, and disease, local pow-
erbrokers throughout the countryside saw an opportunity for theft and a
chance to tighten or extend their authority over territories and communities.
538 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

Banditry, plundering, and violence thus gripped Egypt in the middle of the
1780s.107 ‘During this period,’ al-Jabartı̄ wrote, ‘lawlessness increased.’108
Local elites and their henchmen looted cargo from ships on the Nile and from
transport caravans on roads; exacted protection money from local communi-
ties; stole grain, animals, and cash; and destroyed crops.109 This violence, theft,
and turmoil further encouraged rural depopulation as countless people fled
these dreadful circumstances. ‘Extortions and acts of tyranny committed by the
amirs [elites] followed one another, and their followers spread through the
country to levy money from the villages and towns and invented illegal contri-
butions … until they ruined the peasants, who became unable to bear the
burden and abandoned their villages.’110 So, the consequences of the ecological
stress were a major component of the political and economic history of Egypt
in the 1780s and 1790s.
Elsewhere on the continent of Africa, some meteorological information is
available for nearly all of the 1780s. Historical sources—mainly from European
observers—provide useful descriptions of meteorological conditions and
human impacts, if not always the same level of context and detail found in the
other parts of the world discussed in this chapter. For Morocco, Algeria, and
Tunisia, enough information is available in the sources consulted that the
absence of reference to famine or drought is a likely indicator of good rainfall.
A fair amount of information is available from the central and eastern Sahel and
Guinea Coast, but it is somewhat ambiguous. Relatively little information is
available for eastern and southern Africa (see Chap. 20).
The 1780s appear to have been a relatively prosperous decade in parts of
North Africa. Charles Bois stated that this decade was part of a long period of
prosperity in Tunisia, with harvests being so good that wheat was being
exported from the region.111 The occurrence of plague in 1784 and 1785
could also imply good rainfall, since precipitation is correlated with plague
occurrence in modern Africa.112 In Morocco, however, famine and drought
occurred in 1780, 1781, and 1782.113 Algeria experienced bad harvests in
1784 and 1785, and a famine occurred near Oran, in western Algeria in 1786.
The most complete record from West Africa in the 1780s comes from the
Cape Verde Islands, a region of summer rainfall similar to the Sahel. Good
rainfall occurred in the years 1780–84, but drought and famine prevailed in
much of the region from 1785–92.114 Drought was particularly intense from
1785 to 1787. In Senegambia, the 1780s were primarily dry, and Charles
Becker reports famine and/or food shortages in Senegal in 1782, 1784, 1786,
1787, and 1789.115 Low rainfall and drought occurred in Gambia and Guinea-­
Bissau in 1786, followed by famine in southern Gambia. In Sierra Leone, John
Matthews reported that the rainy season in 1785 was more severe and longer
than usual.116
While droughts and anomalously wet years tend to affect the entire east–
west extent of the Sahel, that may not have been the case in the 1780s.
Chronologies for Chad, Agadez (central Niger), Nigeria, and the Niger Bend
region indicate only a single reference to relatively dry conditions during that
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 539

decade. Plague was common in the region between the Niger Bend and the
Voltas (Burkina Faso and Ghana) from 1786 to 1796, suggesting relatively wet
conditions.117 This was supposedly a ‘time of plenty’ in the Sudan, although a
drought occurred in Darfur in around 1786 and people were forced to eat tree
branches. Lake Chad, which is influenced by both Sahelian and equatorial rain-
fall, rose to very high levels. As a consequence, it was possible to travel by boat
from the lake to the Tibesti region. Some reports suggest extremely wet condi-
tions in the northern Sahel and Sahara. In 1780, a great flood occurred in
Agadez. Rainfall continued from early morning to early afternoon and
destroyed the town. A strong stream flowed in 1789 in Murzuq but was later
covered by advancing sands.118
For the more equatorial regions of the Guinea Coast and coastal Angola,
information on the 1780s is abundant. Much of it is found in correspondence
related to the slave trade and supplemented by travellers’ journals.119 A late
onset of the rains and references to a scarcity of corn, including a famine in
Dahomey, suggest that 1780 was relatively dry on the Guinea Coast. Dryness
continued to cause trouble early in 1781. The rains also started late but were
prolonged, which greatly affected Europeans. In 1782, the rains were report-
edly the worst experienced in many years.120 Heavy rainfall and rough seas were
mentioned in March 1784, suggesting an early start to the rainy season.121
References to much sickness and anticipation of better weather suggest intense
rains in 1785; however, references to dried-up water tanks in early 1786 imply
that the rains were inadequate. Wetter conditions commenced in 1787 and
prevailed throughout most of the 1790s. Heavy rains caused the British fort at
Sekondi, on Ghana’s central coast, to fall down in 1787 and many houses to
collapse again in 1788 and 1789. These heavy rains also affected the Danish
fort at Christiansborg (Accra).122
The climate of coastal Angola is in some ways comparable to that of the
Guinea Coast. Rainfall peaks in the boreal spring and the boreal summer is dry.
Both regions are strongly influenced by temperatures in the nearby Atlantic.
However, while rainfall peaks in June along the Guinea Coast, it peaks in March
or April in coastal Angola. A chronology compiled in 1982 by Miller indicates
abnormally dry conditions in eight years of the 1780s, with drought occurring
in four of those years (1786–89). The drought conditions continued into the
early 1790s. Ample rainfall is mentioned for Luanda only in 1785.123
There is little historical information for the 1780s in eastern equatorial
Africa. However, lake-level reconstructions suggest that, as in Angola, condi-
tions were relatively dry. Lakes Malawi, Chilwa, Tanganyika, and Rukwa were
relatively low, and Nile minimum levels suggest that Victoria was similarly
low.124 During this decade, a famine occurred in the lakes region of East Africa
that was so severe that large-scale migrations occurred.125 At the same time, the
levels of Lake Naivasha were falling, further suggesting dry conditions.126
Tree rings from the winter rainfall region of South Africa suggest that the
1780s was probably the wettest decade since the late sixteenth century.127 Tree
rings also indicate that wetter conditions occurred in Natal. An absence of
540 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

drought references in the 1780s, despite references to drought in the 1770s

and 1790s, suggest that rainfall was also adequate in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and
Mozambique. Southern Namibia appears to have been relatively drought free
in the 1780s.128 The level of Lake Ngami (Botswana) was also high in the
1780s, consistent with other historical information. However, there are several
references to protracted drought in the western Cape Province (South Africa)
in 1783–85. The drought broke in 1786, allowing for a good harvest in 1787
and the following few years. Drought occurred in the central Cape Province in
1789 and 1790 and in the eastern Cape Province in 1783 and 1784.129
From this miscellaneous information, two patterns seem to emerge. In the
eastern half of Africa, it appears that rainfall in the 1780s was relatively good in
the winter rains region north of the Sahara along the Mediterranean coast and
in the northern and southern subtropical latitudes, including the eastern Sahel.
However, the eastern equatorial regions experienced a preponderance of
drought. This pattern is a common one.130 In the western half of Africa, the
opposite appears to have occurred: relatively wet conditions in the equatorial
latitudes of the Guinea Coast, but drought in Angola, the western Sahel, and
extra-tropical regions further north. While that is also a common pattern, the
east–west contrast overall is not. This suggests unusual forcing of conditions in
the 1780s.

34.9   Conclusions
Climate events of the 1780s and early 1790s produced very unsettled conditions
around the world. These events included very strong La Niña and El Niño events
and a major volcanic eruption in Iceland—although D’Arrigo and colleagues
have suggested that conditions may have actually resulted from the occurrence of
a negative NAO phase coupled with a protracted El Niño in 1782–84. In con-
trast to Grove, Gergis and Fowler have concluded that a very strong La Niña
event (not El Niño) was centred on 1788 and spanned to 1790. A characteristic
‘phase flip’ seems to have occurred in 1791, bringing a strong El Niño event that
lasted until 1794.131 It is important to note that extreme phases of the ENSO
cycle frequently result in extreme weather conditions around a large part of the
globe.132 In the western Pacific, El Niño events often cause drought, while La
Niña events bring heavy rain and major flooding to the region.133 The reverse is
true in the eastern Pacific with above average rainfall falling during El Niños, and
dry conditions prevailing during La Niña episodes.134 These patterns can be
observed in the case studies that we have examined.
The case studies also reveal societal vulnerability to the cycle of floods and
droughts, in terms of the loss of livelihoods, disease, and death for the popu-
lations involved. While some of the famines, for example in India, were exac-
erbated by factors such as colonial taxation policies and East India Company
intransigence, most of the 1780s famines were at least in part—although as
described above, through notably complex causal links—born of climatic
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 541

irregularities. In India, the climatic element of the famines was lack of rain
from 1789 onwards, although disruption to the expected timing of rains,
some excessive rains, and a season of very extreme storms, floods, and intense
winds in 1787 also contributed. While statistical data are absent, qualitative
assessment of the 1790–92 famines suggests they were the most severe of the
period, in line with the climate anomalies recorded by climatologists. In
Australia, La Niña conditions and flooding in 1788 were followed by a pro-
longed period of drought from 1790–91, causing very unsettled conditions
for the emerging colony. In Japan, the great ‘Tenmei’ Famine, which caused
some 100,000 deaths, followed extremely poor rice harvests brought by cold
summer weather in northern to eastern Japan during the 1780s, particularly
1783–84 and 1786. In Egypt, the impact of the Laki fissure eruption was
immense, and drought and hunger in 1784–85 left people vulnerable to
plague and other diseases. Elsewhere in Africa, it appears the 1780s brought
lower rainfall and even droughts to the western Sahel but above normal rain-
fall to the eastern Sahel. The east–west contrast showed unusual forcing of
conditions in the 1780s. Drought also prevailed throughout much of equato-
rial Africa. An exception was the equatorial latitudes of the Guinea Coast,
where during the 1780s rainfall conditions were highly erratic and both
droughts and abnormally wet years occurred. These case studies highlight
both the unsettled conditions of the period and the enduring impact of
ENSO on living conditions in many parts of the world.
It is clear that a better understanding of the ENSO cycle and its links with
the Asian monsoon is critical to understanding the history of ‘floods, famines,
and empires’ in different parts of the world.135 Both instrumental and descrip-
tive historical records gathered from the natural history collections of European
empires are vital to ongoing interdisciplinary projects on the historical study of
climate and society.

Notes
1. Roxburgh, W. MS Report to the President’s Council 6 Feb, East India Company
Boards Collections, ref.no. F/4/99 British Library India Office Collections,
London cited in Grove, 1998.
2. Grove, 1998, 318.
3. Alcoforado et al., 2012.
4. Trail, 1799; Cotte et al., 1788. However, in some regions of the world that
regularly experience active tectonic events, with earthquakes and volcanic erup-
tions, initial efforts to set up and/or maintain colonial observatories and their
records around this time were dashed by the continual loss of instruments to
breakages. The long distances and costs required to obtain new instruments
eventually thwarted many of these endeavours. This was a particular problem in
the East Indies (Zuidervaart and van Gent, 2004, 2013). Johan Maurits Mohr’s
expensive and well-equipped personal observatory that he had built in 1765,
near Batavia on Java, was damaged by an earthquake in 1780 and then fell into
ruin and was demolished in 1812. At its peak, it had been visited by the likes of
Bougainville and Cook on their expeditions.
542 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

5. Ananthasubramaniam, 1991.
6. Gergis et al., 2009.
7. Mauritius Meteorological Service, 1974; Brohan et al., 2012; Gergis et al., 2010.
8. International Data Rescue Portal. http://ooxo.nl/opdrachten/I-DARE/con-
tent/dare-success-stories. Accessed 26 April 2016.
9. Kington, 2009.
10. Thordarson and Self, 1993.
11. Gunnlaugsson et al., 1984; Ogilvie, 1986; Demarée and Ogilvie, 2001.
12. Thórarinsson, 1969, 1979.
13. Bjarnar, 1965.
14. Gunnlaugsson et al., 1984.
15. Ogilvie, 1986.
16. Ogilvie, 2010.
17. Stothers, 1996; Demarée and Ogilvie, 2001.
18. Demarée and Ogilvie, 1998, 2001.
19. Demarée and Ogilvie, 2001.
20. “British Weather from 1700 to 1849.” Accessed 26 April 2016. http://www.
pascalbonenfant.com/18c/weather.html.
21. Franklin, 1785.
22. Gettelman et al., 2015; Santer et al., 2015.
23. Robock, 2000; Santer et al., 2013; Ridley et al., 2014.
24. Kington, 1980.
25. Grattan et al., 2005.
26. D’Arrigo et al., 2011. A potential 20CR reconstruction of the atmospheric cir-
culation over North Atlantic–Europe region during and after the Laki fissure
eruption, as was done recently for the later Tambora and Krakatoa eruptions, is
planned: Tambora (https://vimeo.com/120228702 has volcanic aerosol esti-
mates from Tom Crowley; https://vimeo.com/120787915 has volcanic aero-
sol estimates from Gao, Robock, and colleagues (much larger amounts but
timing is late); https://vimeo.com/120792719 has no volcanic aerosols and
will serve as a “control” of what can be obtained from the sparse pressure obser-
vations alone) and Krakatoa (https://vimeo.com/117533217).
27. Allan and D’Arrigo, 1999.
28. Gergis and Fowler, 2009. More recently, Allan et al., 2018 have refined the defi-
nition further, defining “a ‘protracted’ episode as occurring when the SOI and
Niño 4 SST anomalies are of either sign for 2 years or more, with any sign
change in that period being in a maximum of only two consecutive months,
when using instrumental records, and 3 years or more when analysing palaeocli-
matic ENSO reconstructions.”
29. Gergis and Fowler, 2009.
30. Chenoweth and Thistlewood, 2003; Ortlieb, 2000.
31. Endfield, 2008.
32. Gergis and Fowler, 2009.
33. Grove, 2007.
34. Cook et al., 2010.
35. Nash and Adamson, 2014.
36. Shi et al., 2014.
37. Patnaik and Sivagnanam, 2007.
38. Danvers, 1877, 1.
39. Damodaran, 2015.
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 543

40. Danvers, 1877, 21.

41. Danvers, 1877, 21.
42. Danvers, 1877, 22.
43. Danvers, 1877, 22–23.
44. Elliot, 1863.
45. Hunter et al., 1907.
46. Grove, 2007.
47. Danvers, 1877, 1.
48. Danvers, 1877, 2.
49. Danvers, 1877, 2.
50. Danvers, 1877, 12.
51. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 114–15.
52. The Nautical Magazine, 1832, 293.
53. Roxburgh, 1975, 34.
54. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 142.
55. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 141.
56. Danvers, 1877, 21.
57. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 152.
58. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 147–53.
59. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 175–77.
60. Campbell and Hunter, 1868, 185.
61. Grove, 1998.
62. Jevons, 1859; Russell, 1877.
63. Gergis et al., 2009, 2010; Ashcroft et al., 2012, 2014a, 2014b; Fenby and
Gergis, 2013; Gergis and Ashcroft, 2013; Gergis, 2018.
64. Risbey et al., 2009.
65. Diaz and Markgraf, 2000.
66. Risbey et al., 2009.
67. Allan et al., 1996.
68. Gergis and Fowler, 2009; Quinn, 2000; Quinn and Neal, 1995; Ortlieb, 2000.
69. Gergis and Fowler, 2009.
70. Gergis et al., 2010; Fenby and Gergis, 2013; Gergis and Ashcroft, 2013.
71. Gergis and Ashcroft. 2013.
72. Collins, 1798.
73. Collins, 1798.
74. Hunter, 1793.
75. Collins, 1798.
76. Collins, 1798.
77. Tench, 1793.
78. Collins, 1798.
79. Collins, 1798.
80. Hunter, 1793.
81. Hunter, 1793.
82. Tench, 1793.
83. Collins, 1798.
84. Hunter, 1793.
85. Collins, 1798.
86. Collins, 1798.
87. Mikami, 1983, 1987.
88. Mikami, 1996, 2008; Zaiki et al., 2012.
544 V. DAMODARAN ET AL.

89. Mikami, 1996, 2008; Zaiki et al., 2012.

90. Mikhail, 2015.
91. Thordarson and Self, 2003.
92. Oman et al., 2005, 2006.
93. Lyons, 1905.
94. Mikhail, 2011.
95. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 123.
96. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Hatt-ı Hümayun 28/1354 (7 Zilkade 1198/22
September 1784).
97. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 138.
98. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 138.
99. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 139–40.
100. Volney, I, 1798, 122
101. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 155.
102. Volney, I, 1798, 123.
103. Mikhail, 2008.
104. Volney, I, 1798, 122.
105. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Hatt-ı Hümayun 29/1361 (13 Şa‘ban 1198/1 July
1784); Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Hatt-ı Hümayun 28/1354 (7 Zilkade
1198/22 September 1784).
106. Volney, I, 1798, 122.
107. For an earlier comparative example see: White, 2011.
108. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 133.
109. al-Jabartı̄, II, 1994, 123, 133–34.
110. al-Jabartı̄, 1994, 138–39.
111. Bois, 1944.
112. Debien et al., 2010.
113. Mercer, 1974.
114. Almeida, 1997; Patterson, 1988; Brooks, 2006.
115. Becker, 1985.
116. Matthews, 1788.
117. Ogot, 1992.
118. Nicholson, 1980.
119. Nicholson, 1980; Norrgård, 2013, 2015.
120. Miles, 1782.
121. Watts, 1784; Morgue, 1784.
122. Norris et al., 1787.
123. Shanahan et al., 2009; Miller, 1982.
124. Nicholson, 1998a, 1998b, 2000.
125. Ogot, 1992.
126. Verschuren et al., 2000.
127. Tyson, 1986.
128. Nicholson, 1981.
129. Theal, 1888.
130. Nicholson, 2014.
131. Gergis and Fowler, 2009.
132. Diaz and Markgraf, 2000.
133. Allan et al. 1996; Risbey et al. 2009.
134. Allan et al., 1996.
135. Fagan, 2009.
 THE 1780S: GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALIES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, AND FAMINES 545

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 CHAPTER 35

A Year Without a Summer, 1816

Christian Pfister and Sam White

The April 1815 eruption of the Tambora volcano on the Indonesian island of
Sumbawa turned 1816 into the most recent and most memorable “year with-
out a summer.” The Tambora eruption was among the largest in recent his-
tory. It brought dramatic climatic and human consequences, which were closely
observed around the world. The bicentennial anniversary of the eruption and
the “year without a summer” became the occasion for many new studies of this
already well-researched event. Thus, Tambora and its aftermath provide a valu-
able case study in volcanic weather and its historical impacts.1
Tambora was the largest volcanic eruption since that of Samalas on
Indonesia’s Lombok Island in 1257, which produced another “year without
summer” in 1258.2 The explosion of Tambora began with a “Plinian erup-
tion”, shooting pumice, gases, and dust high out of its top; this was followed
by a larger pyroclastic flow as the mountain collapsed in a river of lava, releasing
more hot gases. Ships hundreds of miles away heard the explosions as though
they were giant cannon shots. Sumbawa and neighbouring islands were buried
under tens of centimetres of ash, and more than 70,000 people died either
directly from effects of the eruption or from the ensuing famine and epidem-
ics.3 Overall, Tambora ejected some 100 km3 of debris and ashes more than
40 km into the stratosphere, reducing the height of the mountain from 4300
to 2850 meters. The sulphur molecules in the stratosphere were gradually
transformed into an aerosol of tiny droplets of sulphuric acid, which scattered
back incoming solar radiation, warming the upper atmosphere but cooling the
Earth’s surface and altering global weather patterns.4

C. Pfister (*)
Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland
S. White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 551

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_35
552 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

The eruption occurred during a period of lower solar activity from 1790 to
1830 known as the Dalton Minimum, which meant that global temperatures
may have been lowered already.5 The volcanic cooling of the 1810s is especially
evident in tree rings at high latitudes—particularly Canada—demonstrating
the cold, dark summers and short growing seasons. Recent estimates based on
tree ring density series suggest Northern Hemisphere temperatures in 1816 fell
an estimated 0.5–1.3 °C below the twentieth-century average.6
More important from a human perspective, the eruption altered weather
patterns around the world. As with other large tropical eruptions of recent
centuries, the cooling created by Tambora weakened the Asian and African
summer monsoons—the critical source of rainfall for crops that fed half the
world’s population. At the same time, the cooling may have weakened the
subtropical Hadley Cell (see Chap. 2), displacing the Azores anticyclone south-
ward. The effect of this shift was to enhance the flow of cool, wet maritime air
into the southern parts of Central and Western Europe, contributing to
extraordinary cold and rains throughout the summer.7
Moreover, Tambora had peculiar effects on jet streams high in the atmo-
sphere over the North Atlantic. In some places, the jet stream dipped below its
usual track, bringing Arctic air into the mid-latitudes. In between, the ridges
formed so-called omega blocks, bringing high pressure that blocked cyclones.8
Deep cold troughs developed over eastern North America and Western Europe,
extending much farther south than normal, while ridges of warmer air pushed
northwards over the region of east Greenland and Iceland, Eastern Europe,
and the Hudson Bay region.9
This “volcanic weather” had far-reaching global effects on agriculture,
economies, populations, and even culture. In a seminal 1977 study, economic
and climate historian John Post called the aftermath of Tambora “the last great
subsistence crisis in the Western world.”10 Agricultural modernisation had yet
to reach most of Europe; markets and transportation were still constrained by
the barriers of geography and limits of pre-industrial energy. Although at the
dawn of the “modern” era (see Chap. 23), Europe still proved highly vulner-
able to climate-driven disaster, and official institutions fell short in responding
to the challenge. Furthermore, Europe had only just emerged from the long
wars of the French Revolution and North America from the “War of 1812”
(actually 1812–15).
The Alpine countries suffered from months-long sunless cold and rain.
Observers in Switzerland recorded just a few isolated days of fine weather
between May and September 1816, and eight successive weeks of rain from
June to July. It snowed down to 800 metres elevation in every summer month.
In July, fresh snow accumulated so deep at altitudes of 1300 metres that fire-
wood was transported on sledges. Above 2000 metres, snow continued to fall
all summer long, which even led to avalanches.11 Alpine glaciers advanced rap-
idly. For example, observers described the Glacier des Bois in the northern
Mont Blanc Massif advancing 30 centimetres every day.12 By 1820, its tongue
was only 55 metres from the nearest house in the hamlet of Les Bois.13 The
 A YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER, 1816 553

grain and potato crops in Switzerland (and elsewhere) failed, and the hay and
vines never ripened. Grain prices soared, creating scenes of misery described by
contemporary Swiss and foreigners.14
However, as Swiss researcher Daniel Krämer has demonstrated, vulnerabil-
ity varied considerably by region and population. The small and closely studied
Swiss case thus illustrates the roles of local geography, economics, and politics
in climatic impacts. Hunger results from complex environmental and social
interactions and can be difficult to measure (see Chap. 27). In this case, Krämer
calculated the relative size of annual demographic cohorts, as an effect of births
and deaths in a particular year, to serve as an indicator of nutritional stress.
Annual cohort size can be derived from the Swiss federal census of 1860 at the
district level, thus revealing geographic disparities. Based on this data, the
worst affected populations in 1816 lived in vine-growing regions north of the
Alps, whereas the valleys within and to the south of the Alps were shielded by
the mountains from the northwesterly winds and killing frosts. However, in
1817, the hardest-hit populations came from proto-industrial regions and
from landless classes who depended on selling their goods and labour to buy
food.15 The spinners and weavers in the densely populated northeastern dis-
tricts bore the brunt of the crisis in 1817 (as reflected in the map for 1818—
see Fig. 35.1).
Although the Alpine regions were especially hard hit by the extraordinary
cold and rains, the “year without a summer” affected all of Central, Western,
and, to some extent, Northern Europe. Low atmospheric pressure settled over
the British Isles. The Englishman James Losh noticed that the weather in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, northeastern England, has been “uniformly cold and
very frequently wet—the corn, though the crops seem very heavy, is so very far
from being ripe that there seems too much reason for fearing that much of it
will not ripen at all this year … Potatoes were both a scanty crop and of poor
quality.”17 In this part of England and all of Scotland, warm-season tempera-
tures were not sufficient to bring crops to full maturity. Farther south, in
Ireland, crops suffered from lack of sunshine and excessive wetness that sub-
merged low-lying areas.18 Ducks were reported swimming across the fields
sown with oats and potatoes. Weeds choked the cereal crops before they could
ripen, or else they turned mouldy. Bread made from the affected flour was
inedible. Draft horses grew sick from the season’s oats. Potatoes—fast becom-
ing the mainstay of Irish peasants—rotted in the saturated earth.19 Ireland also
suffered from its subordinate place within the British Empire. The disenfran-
chised Catholic majority largely lived as poor tenants of Protestant landowners,
and the parliament in London paid little concern to suffering in Ireland.
Without adequate relief, harvest failure turned into famine, and peasants flee-
ing hunger generated a severe epidemic of typhus.20 Overshadowed by the
more devastating events of the 1740s and 1840s in Ireland, the 1810s have
been called a “forgotten famine.”21
The Carpathian Basin (roughly Hungary and surrounding areas) also faced
exceptional cold and persistent flooding. Thousands of houses were submerged
 554
C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

Fig. 35.1 Switzerland as a mosaic of climate- and weather-related impacts following the 1816 “year without a summer.” The maps of figures
(a) and (b) illustrate the relative frequency of baptisms in the different districts of the country during 1817 and 1818, respectively. Low values
(in red) indicate a famine-related deficit of conceptions nine months before. The changing regional patterns illustrate differing patterns of
vulnerability according to geography, local government responses, and economic conditions16
A YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER, 1816 555

Fig. 35.1 (continued)

556 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

and collapsed under weeks of rain.22 Even Spain and Portugal saw temperatures
2–3 °C below normal, cold enough to delay the ripening of grain and to ruin
fruit crops.23 In sum, the cold, wet summer weather affected harvests through-
out Western and Central Europe. Grain prices spiked at twice or even three
times their normal levels.
In eastern North America, the climatic effects were even more dramatic.
Mean temperatures for July 1816 in New England are the lowest in US meteo-
rological history.24 Frosts were recorded in New England and Quebec through-
out the month of May, and snows persisted into June. The killing frosts and
perpetual cold destroyed the grain harvests, especially in the northern states of
Maine and Vermont. Canada blocked its usual grain exports to avert hunger at
home. Yet August was exceptionally dry: wells failed, and there was no grass for
cattle. Cold waves at the end of the month penetrated as far south as North
Carolina, where crop failures were widespread.25 Former US president Thomas
Jefferson wrote from Virginia, “we have had the most extraordinary year of
drought and cold ever known in the history of America. The summer, too, has
been as cold as a moderate winter.”26
In contrast to the Arctic air penetrating far south on the US east coast, a
wedge of warm air in the western Atlantic advanced extremely far north up to
the coast of Greenland. William Scoresby, a frustrated whaler, wrote in his
journal: “The fishery of the present season [1817] has been the most … unsuc-
cessful of any occasion witnessed of many years … The ostensible reason of the
scarcity of whales is the singular state of the ice which lies at a distance from the
land greater than was ever known by any fisherman now prosecuting the busi-
ness.”27 Arctic sea ice briefly retreated before the anomalous warmth, sparking
a new phase in the search for the mythical open polar sea.28
The “year without a summer” in Europe and the USA has also provided an
interesting early case study in climate-driven migration (see Chap. 31). For
many in Europe facing rising prices and hunger, emigration to the USA seemed
a way to escape from the misery. Yet, in that era before steamships, relatively
few migrants—perhaps under 60,000 altogether—managed to cross the Atlantic
that summer. Most came from Ireland, from where fares to Canada and the
USA were least expensive. For most people in the other hotspots of the crisis,
particularly southern Germany and Switzerland, the trip to reach harbours and
buy passage was too expensive. An economic downturn in the USA after 1817
rendered migration harder still: “Even the relatively moderate number of emi-
grants was enough to end one popular scheme of getting to the USA on a low
budget. Previously, emigrants travelling to the port of Philadelphia could sail
without paying, provided they worked for a contracted amount of time for a
local employer; their employer directly reimbursed the ship captain for the pas-
senger’s fare. However, when the Philadelphia regional job market was flooded
by jobseekers in 1817 and 1818, captains could not find employers for their
passengers, and thus lost interest.”29 On the other hand, migration within
North America accelerated, as hundreds of thousands of settlers moved west,
especially from New England into the new Midwestern states of Ohio and
Indiana.30
 A YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER, 1816 557

Recent research on the “year without a summer” has begun to uncover its
global impacts. Unusually heavy snowfalls in winter, and extremely heavy
spring and summer rains, affected much of China, causing severe flooding,
with 1816 by far the wettest year of the decade.31 Snow fell in summer even in
southeastern China and Taiwan, and destroyed much of the rice crop.32 In June
1816, it snowed for three days and nights in southern Tibet, so that there was
no autumn harvest.33 In Yunnan (southwestern China), where mild climates
and available land had recently drawn in millions of Chinese settlers, anoma-
lous cold ruined the rice crop. Official efforts to stabilise crop prices and to
distribute food and charity fell short, and the province suffered a disastrous
famine.34 By contrast, the summer was rather hot and dry in Japan.35
Some of the worst effects occurred in India, then under the control of the
British East India Company. Most precipitation in South Asia comes from the
summer monsoon, when the contrast between intense heat over the land and the
cooler seas draws in moist air and rains from over the Indian Ocean (see Chap.
2). Volcanic eruptions, by reducing incoming solar radiation, tend to disrupt the
monsoon cycle; and the effect was particularly devastating in 1816–17.36 The
monsoon rains failed to arrive until the end of August; and then in September,
when the monsoon usually declines, the severe drought suddenly gave way to
torrential rains. Harvests were ruined. Cholera, a water-­borne virus then endemic
to Bengal, broke out with unusual strength, causing thousands of victims. Recent
research has since confirmed contemporary speculations that the “new” cholera
was related to the unusual weather. In the following decades, cholera would
break out in global pandemics, carried around the world by faster travel and ris-
ing trade, and flourishing in the unsanitary conditions of early industrial cities.37
The “year without a summer” has been equally famous for its influence on
science and culture. The coldness of the summers 1812–16 and the resulting
rapid glacier advance motivated the newly founded Swiss Society of Natural
Sciences to launch in 1818 the first known research project on past climate
change—a project that would prove instrumental in promoting the theory of
the ice ages.38 Vacationing in the vicinity of Geneva, Mary Shelley passed the
gloomy summer by writing Frankenstein, the archetype of the literary genre of
horror stories. The book opens with a hopeless quest to find an open polar sea,
and its early chapters make indirect reference to the dark weather of 1816.39
Under the same gloomy skies, surrounded by the suffering of the Swiss popula-
tion, the English aristocrat and poet Lord Byron wrote the following lines in
his famous poem “Darkness”:

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light.
558 C. PFISTER AND S. WHITE

Literary references such as these serve as a reminder that climate has been
more than a mere background to human history, and more than an occasional
factor in harvests or transportation. Climate, weather, and their variations have
reached deep into human culture and psychology—a topic of academic research
that has only just begun.40

Notes
1. E.g., Harington, 1992; Oppenheimer, 2003; Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013;
Wood, 2014; Behringer, 2015; Luterbacher and Pfister, 2015.
2. Lavigne et al., 2013. For a chronology of major eruptions over the past 2000
years, see Sigl et al., 2015.
3. Sigurdsson and Carey, 1992.
4. Wood, 2014.
5. Wanner et al., 2008.
6. Chenoweth, 2001; Gennaretti et al., 2014; Anet et al., 2014; Cole-Dai et al.,
2009; Stoffel et al., 2015.
7. Wegmann et al., 2014.
8. Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013, 110.
9. Wilson, 1992, 545.
10. Post, 1977.
11. Pfister, 1992.
12. Shelley, 1987, 116.
13. Grove, 1988, 144.
14. See especially accounts in Wood, 2014.
15. Krämer, 2015.
16. Krämer, 2013.
17. Wheeler, 2016, 110–11.
18. Kington, 1992.
19. Wood, 2014, 176.
20. Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013, 204–08; Wood, 2014, 171–98.
21. Wood, 2014.
22. Andrea Kiss, personal communication. On the historical climatology of the
Carpathian Basin, see Kiss et al., 2011.
23. Trigo et al., 2009.
24. Post, 1977; see also Wood, 2014, Chap. 9.
25. Post, 1977, 13.
26. Jefferson, 1899, 64, quoted in Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013, 160.
27. Scoresby, 2003, 45–46, quoted in Wood, 2014, 125.
28. See Wood, 2014.
29. Luterbacher and Pfister, 2015, 246–47; Grabbe, Stuttgart, 2001.
30. Mussey, 1949; Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013.
31. Wilson, 1992, 548.
32. Klingaman and Klingaman, 2013.
33. Zhang et al., 1992, 428–36.
34. Cao et al., 2012; Wood, 2014; Gao et al., 2017.
35. Mikami and Tsukamura, 1992, 462–65.
36. Schneider et al., 2009.
 A YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER, 1816 559

37. Wood, 2014, 85–90.

38. Bodenmann et al., 2011.
39. Wood, 2014, 52–55, et passim.
40. Early examples include: Boia, 2005; Vasak, 2007; Behringer et al., 2005. On
climate changes and literature, see Trexler and Johns-Putra, 2011.

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 PART V

The History of Climate Ideas and

Climate Science
 CHAPTER 36

Climate as a Scientific Paradigm—Early History

of Climatology to 1800

Franz Mauelshagen

36.1   Introduction
Over the last decade or so, the history of climatology has developed rapidly,
driven more than anything else by the need for a history of the science of global
warming and the greenhouse effect. Naturally, much of the recent research
focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while the early days of cli-
matology remain somewhat obscure. A review of the existing literature on this
theme reveals that studies in the history of climate ideas and climate science
before 1800 have focused on meteorology, explaining the history of climatol-
ogy as a by-product of technological progress in meteorological measurement
and data collection (i.e., instruments, their standardization, and homogeniza-
tion—see Chaps. 7 and 9).1
As a consequence, the history of climatology got absorbed into the over-
arching disciplinary framework of meteorology and its history.2 This approach
has taken for granted that “climate” has always been a meteorological category.
But it was not. Climates (Greek: κλίματα) were an invention of classical geog-
raphy for use in cartography. They had little, if anything, to do with meteorol-
ogy or the atmosphere. Only later was climate defined as the average weather
in a certain place or, more abstractly, the “statistics of weather.” Jim Fleming
and Vladimir Janković aptly stated that this definition “is an anomaly” in the

This chapter is based on original research on the early history of climatology, which I
began in spring 2012. A fellowship at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and
Society (Munich) in 2014 gave me the opportunity to intensify my research and
present first results at various occasions. Parts of this chapter are based on a German
publication, see Mauelshagen, 2016.

F. Mauelshagen (*)
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 565

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_36
566 F. MAUELSHAGEN

history of climate ideas, because it “is possible only in connection to an instru-

mental, quantitative, and weather-biased understanding of the atmosphere.”3
This understanding emerged from a new approach to weather observation,
from the seventeenth century onward, as well as from a redefinition of climate.
However, it only became practical once the knowledge infrastructures of
national weather services could provide extensive datasets to feed climate sta-
tistics, which did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century (see Chap. 25).
Therefore, the focus of this chapter is on “climate” as a shifting paradigm.
We shall see in the first two sections of this chapter that the traditional geo-
graphic definition of “climate” remained remarkably stable, with very little
modification in either geographic or cosmographic handbooks, or on world
maps. The other two sections will sketch the paradigmatic shift that followed
in the second half of the eighteenth century and turned “climate” into a physi-
cal category that represented the sum of all factors determining the average
temperature of a place. This novelty gave rise to the invention of climatology
as a new scientific discipline.

36.2   The Geographic Tradition of Climates

The ancient Greek term κλίμα means inclination or slope, referring not only to
the sun’s rays but also to the entire cosmos as observed from a certain spot on
the globe. The concept is completely missing from the work of Aristotle and
Hippocrates, who nevertheless have often been referred to as inventors of
ancient climatology.4 Greek geographers coined the term no earlier than the
late third century bce; however, the moment of invention cannot be specified,
because so little of early Greek geographic literature has survived. Our main
source of information is Strabo’s remarks on some of his precursors. Some
attribute the earliest use of κλίμα as a technical term to Eratosthenes, who also
seems to have been the first person to write a book entitled “Geography”; oth-
ers attribute the invention of the concept to Hipparchus, who may have taken
the word κλίμα from Eudoxos’ astronomical treatises.5
What seems clear enough is that κλίμα was a term borrowed from astron-
omy and mathematics and embedded in a rather elaborate form of geocentric
cosmology. This cosmology recognized the Earth as a globe, attributed a
spherical shape to the cosmos, and involved a certain degree of understanding
of the Earth’s ecliptic.6 Based on this cosmology, geographers used climates to
define the latitudinal location of places on the globe and on maps. Most com-
mon became a system of seven κλίματα that encompassed the ecumene, the
inhabited part of the world.7
Altogether, “climate” was not a meteorological category in antique geogra-
phy. Speaking of the “climate” of a place was equivalent to giving its latitudinal
coordinates on the globe rather than explaining heat or cold, rainfall or humidity
in a certain place. The five meteorological “zones,” probably invented by
Parmenides and referred to in Aristotle’s Meteorology, were something different.
These zones—the “torrid zone,” “temperate zones,” and “frigid zones”—were
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 567

Fig. 36.1 Left: Traditional cartographic division of climates showing half-hour differ-
ences of the longest day during summer solstice to the polar circle and monthly climates
from the polar circle. Note that the width of each climatic belt enclosed with two paral-
lels decreases from the equator to the poles. Right: Classical division of the globe into
five meteorological zones, separated by the Tropic of Cancer (23.5°N) and the Tropic
of Capricorn (23.5°S) and the polar circles

defined by their relative heat, as their names indicate. However, meteorological

zones and climatic belts did not form a symbiosis, despite the way they were
often overlaid on world maps until well into the eighteenth century (see
Fig. 36.1). Distinguishing climates in antique geography had nothing to do with
meteorological zones. They were distinct technical terms as well as distinct ways
of drawing parallels on world maps. That distinction is confused when Aristotle’s
meteorological zones are addressed anachronistically as “climatic zones.”8
Ptolemy became the main source for medieval and Renaissance cosmogra-
phers and their practice of drawing climatic parallels on their new and con-
stantly changing maps of the world. He was also the main source for a dual
system that combined mathematical calculations of climatic parallels based on
the longest daylight (during summer solstice) with geographical designations
of seven parallels defining the supposedly inhabited part of the world, each
given names of memorable places—including famous cities (the epísemoi
póleis)—located roughly in the middle of each respective climatic belt. The
mathematical climates were based on regular fractions (normally differences of
half an hour, sometimes a quarter of an hour) of the twelve hours of sunshine
difference that occurred from the equator to the poles on both hemispheres
(see Table 36.1). Although Ptolemy’s Almagest contained the oldest descrip-
tion of an astrolabe, which allowed for much greater precision in determining
the latitude of a place, the catalogue of cities he added to his Geography is proof
that the κλίματα had not yet lost their practical usefulness for him.9
Both Ptolemaic styles of representing climatic parallels on world maps sur-
vived. The system of seven climates was also adopted in Arabian and Persian
568 F. MAUELSHAGEN

Table 36.1 Ptolemy’s full system of climes (thirty-three parallels between the equator
and the polar circle, six more parallels from the polar circle to the pole, Northern
Hemisphere only) and the reduced system of seven climates (indicated in the rubric
“clima” by Roman numerals)
Parallel Clima Latitude Daylight Location

1. 0° 12 hours (Equator)
2. 4°4′ N 12:15 Taprobana (Sri Lanka)
3. 8°25′ N 12:30 Avilates (Saylac, Somalia)
4. 12°00′ N 12:45 Bay of Adulis (Eritrea)
5. I 16°27′ N 13:00 Meroe island
6. 20°14′ N 13:15 Napaton (Nubia)
7. II 23°51′ N 13:30 Syene (Aswan)
8. 27°12′ N 13:45 Thebes
9. III 30°22′ N 14:00 Lower Egypt
10. 33°18′ N 14:15 Phoenicia
11. IV 36°00′ N 14:30 Rhodes
12. 38°35′ N 14:45 Smyrna
13. V 40°56′ N 15:00 Hellespont
14. 43°04′ N 15:15 Massalia (Marseilles)
15. VI 45°01′ N 15:30 The Middle of the Euxine Sea
16. 46°51′ N 15:45 Istros (Danube)
17. VII 48°32′ N 16:00 The Mouths of Borysthenes (Dnepr)
18. 50°04′ N 16:15 Maeotian Lake (Sea of Azov)
19. 51°06′ N 16:30 The southern shore of Britannia
20. 52°50′ N 16:45 Mouths of the Rhine
21. 54°1′ 17:00 Mouths of the Tanais river (Don)
22. 55° N 17:15 Brigantion in Britannia
23. 56° N 17:30 The middle of Great Britain
24. 57° N 17:45 Katouraktonion in Britannia
25. 58° N 18:00 The southern part of Britannia Minor
26. 59° N 18:30 The middle part of Britannia Minor
27. 61° N 19:00 The northern part of Britannia Minor
28. 62° N 19:30 Ebudes island
29. 63° N 20 hours Thule
30. 64°30′ N 21 hours Unknown Scythians
31. 65°30′ N 22 hours
32. 66° N 23 hours
33. 66°8′40″ N 24 hours Polar Circle
69°30′ N 2 months
78°20′ N 4 months
39. 90° N 6 months (North Pole)

Last column: Locations through which parallels pass as given by Ptolemy. After Neugebauer, 1975, 43–45

astronomy and astrology. In that context, the seven climates were connected
with the seven planets of the solar system. Thus, they became part of ­astrological
systems of prediction. Definitions of “climate” deviated little from Ptolemy in
early modern cosmographic and geographic writing, from Sebastian Münster
(1488–1552) well into the eighteenth century. Authors like Bartholomäus
Keckermann (c. 1572–1608), Paul Merula (1558–1607), David Christiani
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 569

(1610–1688), Philip Clüver (1580–1622), and Bernhard Varenius

(1622–1650/1) used slightly different classifications of climates.10 But adding
minor nuances did not change the essence of the old geographic definition and
the two systems of mathematical climates and the seven climates.
Christiani’s account of the “climate doctrine” (climatum doctrina), as he
called it, provides a good example. He first explained the difference between
zones and climates; then the number of climates and their distinctions; and
next how one knows “under which climate” a given place is located (or in his
words, the modus cognoscendi), followed by a discussion of why it is useful to
know the climate (usus climatum). Christiani concluded with a query section,
in which he raised the interesting question of the diversity of peoples who lived
under the same climatic belt, or “clime.”11 His suggested textbook answer was
that it could only be explained by a combination of causes such as custom, the
quality of the air, and the soil. It was obvious to him that “climate” alone—in
other words, latitudinal location on the globe—could not account for human
diversity.
Bernhard Varenius’ Geographia Universalis (first published 1650), a work
celebrated particularly for its unprecedented achievements in the field of phys-
ics and translated by Isaac Newton into English, provides further evidence of
shifting conceptions of “climate.”12 Again, like his precursors and all his con-
temporary colleagues, Varenius followed the classical mathematical definition
of “climate”:

A Climate is the Space included by two Parallels, between the Pole and the
Equator, into which when the Sun comes, there is the Difference of half an Hour,
as to the Length of the Day; in which we may observe the beginning of Climate
in the Parallel nearest the Equator, and the middle when the Day becomes a
Quarter longer, and the end in the Parallel from the Equator, which is the begin-
ning of the next Climate.13

In the applied part of his work, which he called Special Geography, climate fea-
tured among the “Celestial properties of places” that needed to be considered
in all chorographies (descriptions of provinces, regions, cities) or topographies
(descriptions of places). In Varenius’ taxonomy for both the physical and the
applied parts of his geography, climate was obviously distinct from meteorol-
ogy. That summarizes the state of the art until well into the eighteenth century.
It is important to note that in the seventeenth century, meteorology was already
splitting from astrology, which used to determine weather predictions. While
only a snapshot in the history of geography, Varenius’ Geographia Universalis
shows why that separation was so important. Freed from the influence of astrol-
ogy, meteorology had come down to earth, literally and figuratively. Thus,
Varenius dealt with it in a chapter entitled “Of the Atmosphere,” in the Absolute
Part of his geography, meaning that part which (in Newton’s translation)
“respects the Body of the Earth itself,” while any celestial influences belonged
to the relative part of geography.14
570 F. MAUELSHAGEN

36.3   Mapping Climates

The easiest way to illustrate continuity and change in the concept of climate is
through cartography or, more precisely, through a selection of world maps
from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. The earliest examples were pub-
lished in some of the first printed editions of Ptolemy’s Geography. Johannes
Schnitzler’s map of 1482 and the even more famous cordiform map by de
Agostini, published in 1511, both represented the seven climates of the
ecumene.15 Although the latter was clearly post-Columbian in that it showed
fragments of the Caribbean islands and the Americas, knowledge of the New
World did not yet affect the idea of the inhabited world in a way that would
require an extension of the seven traditional climates. In de Agostini’s map,
they were given their traditional names. Projected onto the Southern
Hemisphere (here de Agostini was content with the number of four), the
names were kept and only slightly modified by adding the prefix “anti-” so that
Meroë became Anti-Meroë, and so on.
Moving forward into the seventeenth century, the Atlas Maior by Willem
Janszoon Blaeu and Joan Blaeu counts among the most influential geographic
and cartographic works of the early modern era—not least because it came out
in the Latin, French, Dutch, and German languages, also in abbreviated edi-
tions, and was reprinted several times.16 The world map, Nova Totius Terrarum
Orbis Geographica Ac Hydrographica Tabula, was reproduced time and again
and remained always the same (see Fig. 36.2).17 Its inscriptions were Latin,
while explanations were given in the language of each respective edition. For
both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, nine climates were represented
but no labels were given to them. Leaving that part of the terminology open
allowed for variety, perhaps with regard to different national geographic styles.
The German edition, for example, explained the astronomical twenty-four
half-hour climates (or mathematical climates) and introduced new names for
two new climates in addition to the traditional seven, so that a total of nine
now defined the ecumene.18 That trend was already discernible in the sixteenth
century. Expanding European knowledge about the inhabited world, particu-
larly in the Northern Hemisphere, pushed the invention of additional climates,
first from seven to eight and then to nine, as shown, for example, on the St.
Gall Globe.19 The Latin and French editions of the Atlas Maior proposed a
completely different and new idea, which was to replace the half-hour differ-
ences that defined climatic parallels by constant latitudinal distances of 10° and
then to give the resulting “climates” new names.20 However, that proposal
collapsed the distinction between climates and latitudes, which is probably the
reason why it was not generally accepted.
In the eighteenth century, world maps favored the astronomically and math-
ematically most precise representation of half-hour climates, while the idea of
subdividing the ecumene into a certain number of climates lost ground.
Empirical knowledge about indigenous peoples around the world, which had
accumulated since the beginnings of the colonial endeavor, had changed the
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY…

Fig. 36.2 Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica Ac Hydrographica Tabula, 1635. From: Blaeu, Theatre du Monde, t.1 (and various other
editions, see notes). Climates are shown in the green area in between the right border of the map and the allegorical personifications of the
571

seasons. (Credit: National Library of Norway)

 572
F. MAUELSHAGEN

Fig. 36.3 Buy de Mornas, Climats d’Heures et de Mois, Paris 1762, 38.5 × 54.0 cm, from Louis Charles Desnos, Atlas Méthodique et
Elémentaire de Géographie et d’Histoire, Paris 1762
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 573

understanding of the human habitat and made the old idea of the ecumene
obsolete. In the field of geography, the quarrel between the ancients and the
moderns had clearly been decided in favor of the moderns. That is why most
textbooks only mentioned the classical subdivision of the ecumene merely as an
outmoded tradition. Visual representations showed monthly climates starting
from the polar circles, as can be seen in the works of Desnos and de Mornas
(see Fig. 36.3) or Jean-Baptiste Louis Clouet.21
Altogether, there was little change in the understanding of climates, from
the first editions of Ptolemy’s Geography until well into the second half of the
eighteenth century. Mathematical calculations of half-hour climates improved;
the old tradition of the poleis episemoi was first adapted to the expansion of
geographic knowledge, which followed the expansion of European colonial-
ism, and then it was dismissed. However, none of these modifications changed
the fact that “climate” remained a specialized concept within cosmography and
cartography. Moreover, the entire corpus of geographic writing in early mod-
ern Europe (from cosmographic tracts to atlases and textbooks) provides no
evidence for a paradigmatic shift that would equal “climate” with the average
weather in a certain place. Well into the eighteenth century, most classically
trained geographers still did not use “climate” as a meteorological category.

36.4   Paradigm Shift

A paradigmatic shift occurred toward the turn of the century. Alexander von
Humboldt’s isothermal maps, which laid the theoretical foundations for what
he called “comparative climatology,” illustrate it best.22 Humboldt’s isotherms
undermined the idea of homogenous average temperatures along latitudinal
parallels, which had persisted into the eighteenth century, and inspired think-
ing about heat distribution in more complex terms of physical causality with
regard to ocean–land interaction, maritime circulation systems and their inter-
action with the atmosphere, the influence of altitude and high mountains, and
so forth.
This new understanding of causality replaced what once used to be the
dominant theory to explain heat composition in a certain place: astrometeorol-
ogy. The latter was still alive when Jean Bodin developed his ethnography
based on a combination of Aristotle’s meteorology of zones (torrid, temper-
ate, frigid) with humoral-pathological medicine. In this combination, astrome-
teorology, which had a long tradition from Aristotle and Ptolemy to Arabic
astrology and the Renaissance, explained heat distribution on the Earth, to
which bodies of living beings responded. “Climate” was only marginally
involved in this system of thought, through astrological practice that used the
traditional subdivision of the ecumene into seven climates to create a connec-
tion with the seven planets based on numerological symbolism. However, that
connection quickly lost plausibility once the traditional seven climates needed
to be extended as a result of the expansion of geographic and ethnographic
knowledge.
574 F. MAUELSHAGEN

Explaining heat distribution on the Earth and within its meteorological

zones in traditional terms of astrometeorology worked best in the former geo-
centric system: one that underrated the influence of the sun, hugely exagger-
ated the influence of planets in our planetary system, and to a great extent
relied on symbolism (mainly for predictions) rather than physics. From a mod-
ern point of view, astrometeorological theories of heat distribution were defi-
cient in so many ways—for example, lack of understanding of our (heliocentric)
solar system, solar physics, and atmospheric chemistry—that this alone suffices
to indicate how deeply the emergence of modern climatology was involved
with scientific innovation across a variety of disciplines: geography, astronomy,
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and so on—not only in meteorology.23 Clearly,
explaining the emergence of climatology requires an account of changes in
many fields of early modern science.
In antiquity, the idea of inclination was generally assigned to astronomy and
referred as much to the changing visibility of fixed stars, which occurs as one
moves from the equator to the poles, as it referred to the changing inclination
of solar rays due to the apparent path of the sun around the Earth (i.e., the
ecliptic) in a geocentric world view. Furthermore, the dominant theory on the
solar impact on the Earth’s heat budget (as we call it nowadays) assumed that
heat and cold correlated with the distance of the sun from the Earth.
In astronomy, the Copernican revolution forced these perceptions to
change. However, the idea that the sun could be the main source of the global
heat budget, and that the duration of sunshine and the inclination of solar rays
at a given place and time during the annual cycle were key factors, took a while
to emerge from the new heliocentric cosmology. Edmund Halley refined the
theory of the relationship between sunlight and heat in a now famous article of
1693 by calculating the distribution of incoming solar radiation at the equinox,
and at the summer and winter solstices (see Table 36.2).24 Halley only referred

Table 36.2 Halley’s calculations of the distribution of incoming solar radiation as a

function of latitude at the equinox (left, under the signes of  = Aries, and  Libra),
and summer (middle,  = Cancer) and winter solstices (right,  = Capricorn)
Latitude Sun in Sun in Sun in

0 20,000 18,341 18,341

10 19,696 20,290 15,834
20 18,794 21,737 13,166
30 17,321 22,651 10,124
40 15,321 23,048 6944
50 12,855 22,991 3798
60 10,000 22,773 1075
70 6840 23,543 000
80 3473 24,673 000
90 0000 25,055 000

Source: Halley, 1693, p. 884

 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 575

to latitude, not to climatic parallels. Of course, latitudes were more appropriate

to use for his calculations because the distance between them was constant,
while climatic parallels were not. Nevertheless, one might have expected him
to elaborate on the implications of his conclusions for geographical climates,
and he might well have done so—despite being an astronomer, not a geogra-
pher; yet, at the time of his writing, the scope of ideas about climate was simply
not developed enough to integrate solar physics.
Against this background, it can only be called misleading to address antique,
medieval, or Renaissance ethnographies based on a combination of astrome-
teorology and humoral pathology as “climate theories,” as is (too) often
done.25 This suggests that “climate” was the underlying idea of causality. But
that is anachronistic. The rise of “climate” as a combined system of celestial
(astronomic) and terrestrial (geographic) causes only followed the decline of
classical astrometeorology and replaced it as a theory of heat distribution and
humidity on the Earth. It is precisely for this reason that the history of clima-
tology must not be confused with the long tradition of Aristotle’s m­ eteorological
zones. The chronology of its emergence as a scientific discipline is best indi-
cated by the paradigmatic shift that occurred in the concept of climate.
However, it is by no means trivial to determine when exactly the climate
concept underwent that paradigmatic shift, while the contours of a new under-
standing of climate arose in the second half of the eighteenth century. Hence,
the focus will be on this period. Some authors have claimed that its origins are
evident in the climatic conceptions of the Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755),
who became one of the most popular authors of the Enlightenment—widely
noticed for his theory of climatic influence on national character.26 For exam-
ple, half a century ago Robert Shackleton argued that Montesquieu had indeed
been the first author of distinction to have used the word “climate” in the sense
of the “weather.”27
However, Montesquieu’s texts do not clearly evince a meteorological under-
standing of climate. It is difficult to find any explanation of the climate con-
cept in his works, let alone a coherent definition. His suggestion, that climates
could be distinguished according to degrees of human sensibility just as they
could be distinguished by degrees of latitude, is an exception in this regard.28
But it is precisely here that Montesquieu assumed a traditional geographical
climate concept. However, he also goes on to link meteorological factors with
the climate as a matter of course.
The same mixture occurs in Espiard de la Borde’s Essais sur le génie et le
caractere des nations, first published in 1743.29 In reaction to the first edition
of De l’esprit des lois and its tremendous success, he published a second, slightly
modified version of his previous oeuvre, now under the more promising title of
Esprit des nations (1752). Here he explained with regard to climate:

The climate is the most universal, most intimate physical Cause. Omitting, on
this Head, the Authorities of great Men, as Theophrastus, Cicero, Hippocrates,
and Galen, I shall begin with the common definition of a Climate, which is a
576 F. MAUELSHAGEN

Space on the Globe between two supposed Lines parallel to the Equator, and at
such a Distance from each other, that there is half an Hour Difference in their
longest Day. I divide the Earth into twenty-four Climates.30

There is some irony in the fact that none of the authorities listed by Espiard
could be held accountable for the definition of climate, which he probably
quoted without much thinking from one of the available geographic textbooks
of his time. We see that he had little understanding of what he was quoting, as
he seamlessly continued referring to an equally traditional classification of peo-
ples (peuples) into three meteorological zones, similar to that found, for exam-
ple, in Jean Bodin’s Six livres de la république or Methodus ad Facilem
Historiarum Cognitionem.31 Like Bodin—who did not subject the climate
concept to this classification—and like Montesquieu, Espiard divided these
zones evenly into belts of 30° each, although it had long been commonplace
in the geographical and cartographical tradition to distinguish between them
with the help of the tropics (at ~24°) and the polar circles (at ~66°). And in the
case of Montesquieu, it remained unclear just how the meteorological zones
were connected to classifications of climate. Are we to understand them as
overlapping? Is climate theory subsumed into the zones? Was there a causal
relationship between the two? These questions were left unanswered by both
Montesquieu and Espiard.
As the chronological survey of geographic traditions in the two previous
sections was meant to demonstrate, even if only with a few selected examples,
geographical and cartographical works before and around 1750 do not sug-
gest a symbiosis of meteorological zones and climates based on physical
causes. Their sudden blending was more likely a product of ignorance rather
than intention based on knowledge. Neither Montesquieu nor Espiard was
familiar with the tradition of the climate concept in classical geography and
cartography. And why should they have valued that tradition? “Climate” had
already been a niche concept, before it sank even deeper into its niche in the
eighteenth century, losing all the practical relevance it used to have for the
drawing of maps. But maybe precisely for that reason, the term was ready to
experience a paradigmatic shift. Perhaps the lack of coherence in both
Montesquieu’s and Espiard’s understanding of climate is an indication that
terminology was already on the move. However, it would be premature to
speak of a consummate neologism, or even a complete meteorological theory
of climate, at that point.
Thus, both Montesquieu and Espiard linked two meanings that had little to
do with each other and had been distinguished previously, for example in the
Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française. The first six editions, published between
1694 and 1835, emphasized the geographic term (terme de géographie), that is,
the traditional cartographic definition of climate.32 Yet as early as 1718, the
Dictionnaire de l’Académie also referred to the term’s ordinary meaning (sens
ordinaire) as “region, country, mainly with regard to the temperature of the
air.”33 Following along the same lines, volume three of Diderot’s and
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 577

d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, published only a year after Espiard’s Esprit des

nations, in 1753, also had two articles on climate. The first one, written by Jean
le Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783) himself, stayed with the geographic text-
books and revealed nothing new under the sun.34 But the medical article that
followed, written by the doctor, pharmacist, and chemist Gabriel-François
Venel (1723–1775), stepped in a different direction:

Climate (in the medical sense) Physicians do consider the climates only with
regard to their temperature or the degree of heat peculiar to them: “climate”, in
this sense, is even exactly synonymous to “temperature”; as a result, that word is
taken in a sense much less broad than that of “region”, “country”, or “area”; in
that way doctors express the sum of all common or general physical causes, which
can act on the health of the inhabitants of each country; know the nature of the
air, that of the water, the soil, and the food.35

This was new, for it gave “temperature” as an intermediate term to combine

“climate” with “physical causes.” In Venel’s view, these causes only spelled out
what was already implied by the older, supposedly broader definition of “cli-
mate.” While his reference to the air, water, soil, and food of a region resembles
conventional Hippocratic wisdom, Hippocrates in fact never made “climate”
the epitome of those environmental causes that affected human health. Bodin
had also been missing an intermediary category to make that connection. His
theory of national characters was based on humoral pathology, which related
“temperament” to traditional “zones” and gave the “temperate zone” an
advantage over the extremes of the “torrid” and the “frigid” zones. After all,
the Latin adjective temperatus describes the “right” composition of heat and
cold, both in the body and character of a human being and at a certain place
on the globe, which were supposed to correlate with each other. Thus, “tem-
perate” was basically a normative category. To go from “temperament” and the
“temperate zone” to “temperature” as a measurable physical category was not
a matter of continuity or the mere continuation of a certain line of thought.
Rather, it marks a caesura in intellectual history.
Venel’s Encyclopédie article presaged this paradigmatic shift during the eigh-
teenth century: the relatively empty, purely descriptive geographical category
was to be replaced by a complex causal concept explaining heat composition.
Climate became the sum total of all physical causes that influence the tempera-
ture of a place on the surface of the Earth. This concept caught on quickly
without the geographical tradition disappearing right away. Due to this devel-
opment, the new paradigm also left the niche that was probably its birthplace,
medical theory. A quarter of a century after Venel, the geographer and biolo-
gist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann (1743–1815) made this very
clear. In the introduction to his Geographical History of Humans and the
General Distribution of Quadrupeds, he discussed the idea of attributing to
climate a key role in the geographical distribution of plants. Here, he felt com-
pelled to provide the reader with a terminological clarification:
578 F. MAUELSHAGEN

It is only that by the name of climate we must not understand the geographical,
but the physical climate; because the latter would be the relationship between the
location of a country [on the globe], the atmosphere, and the soil. It is not only
determined by geographical latitude, but quite often also by the warmth and
coldness of a country coming from additional causes as well as, finally, by the level
of humidity. This physical climate, which often does not coincide with the geo-
graphical climate, is what in the following book will be referred to.36

The medical sense of “climate” of the Encyclopédie had now been renamed
“physical climate,” and just like the medical climate before it, it would be dis-
tinct from the old geographical concept. That distinction proved to be very
fruitful and went through several terminological modifications over the course
of a few decades, leading to Humboldt’s distinction between solar and real
climate, which was the theoretical foundation for his isothermal maps.
Altogether, “climate” came to signify the sum of all factors influencing heat
distribution (or temperature) and humidity in a certain place on the surface of
the Earth. Compared to its meaning in classical geography, this shift involved a
significant increase in complexity. It also entailed a transition from a descriptive
to a causal concept, and from a static to a dynamic one. Moreover, as soon as
“climate” had been converted into a dynamic physical category, it opened the
possibility that climates could change over time. Indeed, as we shall see next,
the chronology of the idea of climate change parallels this revolutionary shift in
the meaning of “climate” during the second half of the eighteenth century.

36.5   Climate Change and History

During the same period in which climate shifted from a traditional geographic
(or cartographic) category to a physical one, the idea of anthropogenic climate
change was born out of older colonial discourses on weather modification. As
early as the seventeenth century, some settlers had engaged in meteorological
observations and believed they had evidence of temperature and precipitation
changes, at least in some places, attributing them to their own efforts as cultiva-
tors of “savage land.”37 In other words, settlers and colonial officials started
believing that climatic conditions could be modified by human action. But only
in the second half of the eighteenth century did writers explicitly discuss “cli-
mate” change.38
The earliest occurrence of the expression “change of climate” that we know
of is in a treatise published by Hugh Williamson in the Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society: “An Attempt to account for the CHANGE of
CLIMATE, which has been observed in the Middle Colonies in North-­
America,” read before the society on August 17, 1770.39 The expression
“change of climate” itself was a symptom that the old doctrine of climate had
been overturned. In the eyes of geographers, from the times of Strabo until
well into the eighteenth century, a “change of climate” would mean a change
of place, usually by migration.40 But the idea of a dynamic change in time of a
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 579

climate, mathematically defined as the geographic space in between two latitu-

dinal parallels distanced by the half-hour difference of the longest day, would
have made no sense. Prior to Williamson, European colonizers around the
world had sought to modify weather conditions, particularly in tropical colo-
nies, through deforestation and desiccation, and the effects of such measures,
whether real or imagined, had been discussed for more than a century. What
had changed when Williamson held his lecture was that the old doctrine of
climate had lost its practical relevance and the new concept of “climate”
emerged ready to represent new content and ideas.
Once the idea of climatic change had been born, historians projected it into
the past. The debate about climate change in historical time paralleled the ini-
tial debate about changing climates in the colonies almost from the beginning,
and in fact reconnected with it at various points. To give just one example, in a
letter to Samuel Mather, dated July 7, 1776, Benjamin Franklin discussed the
theory of an early Viking discovery of North America “long before the Time of
Columbus.” Based on an account he had been given by Pehr Kalm (1716–1779),
one of Carl Linnaeus’ disciples who had visited North America twenty-five
years before, Franklin speculated:

if one may judge by the Description of the Winter [given in Kalm’s account based
on Swedish documents] the Country they [the Vikings] visited should be south-
ward of New England, supposing no Change since that time of the Climate. But
if it be true as Krantz and I think other Historians tell us, that old Greenland once
inhabited and populous, is now render’d uninhabitable by Ice, it should seem
that the almost perpetual northern Winter has gained ground to the Southward,
and if so, perhaps more northern Countries might anciently have had Vines than
can bear them in these Days.41

Cranz had written his History of Greenland when he was a missionary of the
Moravian Brethren in Greenland. It is evidence of early ideas about changing
climates in the northernmost Northern Hemisphere.42
Edward Gibbon was among the first historians to consider climate change as
a historical force. In his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
published in a series of volumes between 1776 and 1788, he attributed to cli-
mate change a significant role in pushing “Barbarian migrations” toward the
Roman borders.43 In his discussion of the ancient Germanic lands, Gibbon
found earlier statements by David Hume (1711–1776), the Abbé du Bos
(1670–1742), and Simon Pelloutier’s History of the Celtes which confirmed
“that Europe was much colder formerly than it is at present.” His review of the
evidence had some remarkable observations on the value of written record:

The general complaints of intense frost and eternal winter, are perhaps little to be
regarded, since we have no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the
thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born in the happier
regions of Greece or Asia.44
580 F. MAUELSHAGEN

Gibbon found that reports on the freezing of rivers and the distribution of flora
and fauna were “of a less equivocal nature,” thus recognizing, quite remark-
ably, the difference between direct qualitative observations and indirect pheno-
logical descriptions that is still meaningful for climate historians (see Chap.
3).45 However, his comparison of the ancient climate of “Germany” (as he
called it) with the climate of eighteenth-century Canada provoked some dis-
agreement. While Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) was, for the most
part, an ardent follower of Gibbon’s ideas about the role of climate in antiquity,
others, such as François Aragot (1786–1853) and Fredrik Schouw (1789–1852),
both important characters in the emerging field of modern climatology,
remained skeptical and found the phenological evidence of the written record
rather ambiguous. Generally, the idea of climate change as a historical force lost
ground again in the nineteenth century.
But before that happened, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788)
envisaged anthropogenic climate modification as a force of such potential that
it might even change the course of Earth history:

Let us suppose the world in peace, and take a nearer prospect of the influence of
man’s power over that of Nature. Nothing appears to be more difficult, not to say
impossible, than to oppose the successive cooling of the earth, and to warm the
temperature of a climate; yet this feat man can and has performed. Paris and
Quebeck are nearly under the same degree of latitude; Paris, therefore, would be
as cold as Quebeck, if France and the adjacent countries were as thinly inhabited,
and as much covered with wood and water as the territories in the neighbour-
hood of Canada. The draining, clearing, and peopling a country, will give it a
warmth which will continue for some thousand years; and this fact will prevent
the only reasonable objection which can be made against my opinion, that the
earth is gradually cooling.46

This passage explains what Buffon meant when he characterized the seventh
and most recent epoch of natural history as the epoch “When the Power of
Man assisted the Operations of Nature.” Of course, his idea was founded on
the false assumption that the warmer temperatures of Paris relative to Quebec
were a civilizational achievement, while in reality, the generally milder Parisian
winters are effected by the Gulf Stream and France’s maritime climate.
Buffon’s vision of anthropogenic global warming is nevertheless remarkable,
for it deserves credit as one of the precursors of the idea of an Anthropocene—a
new geological era in which humanity “has become a global geophysical
force, equal to some of the ‘great forces of nature’ in terms of Earth System
functioning.”47 Within merely three decades after publication of
Montesquieu’s De l‘esprit des lois, debate over the influence of climate on
humans was joined by a debate over climate change and the influence of
human activities on the climate, not only on a local but also on a global and
geological scale.
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 581

36.6   Conclusions
The emergence of climatology as a modern scientific discipline required major
transformations of knowledge in various fields of scientific inquiry (see Chap.
38). However, the history of the climate paradigm is key to it, because it makes
discernible what is overlooked in purely “Baconian” narratives that emphasize
the empirical collection of meteorological information. Climate was not a
meteorological category from the start. Rather, for most of the time since its
invention in antique geography, it remained a niche concept. Only later, in the
nineteenth century, was “climate” understood as the average weather. But that
development was preceded by a new idea of climate resulting from a paradig-
matic shift, which turned it into a physical theory. It is therefore that a
“Platonic” narrative emphasizing new ideas in the areas of physics and mathe-
matics must complement the dominant Baconian narrative. The emergence of
modern climatology combines both types of scientific innovation, that is, in the
areas of physics and mathematics as well as in that of data collection. But the
paradigmatic shift from a traditional understanding of climate to a physical
category occurred first and, therefore, deserves priority in the chronology of
the making of a modern discipline. Focusing on that shift makes clear that cli-
matology emerged as a new theory of heat distribution and humidity (in a
certain place) on the globe, replacing astrometeorology.
Though there are earlier signs of a new understanding of climate, the con-
tours of “climate” as a physical category emerged in the second half of the
eighteenth century and laid the foundations for modern climatology as a scien-
tific discipline. Amazingly enough, until recently, this paradigmatic shift went
almost unnoticed in narratives of the early history of climatology. It seems as if
memory of the old geographic term and its meaning was erased, which made
the caesura invisible. Instead, nineteenth-century narratives of the history of
climatology invented a long tradition tracing the origins of climatology back to
antiquity, which meant dissolving it into the history of meteorology.

Notes
1. For example, Feldman, 1983, Section III: Climatology. Feldman was neverthe-
less right in pointing to the danger of anachronism in applying the term “clima-
tology” within the meteorological context prior to 1800, as “it and its cognates
are not to be found in the eighteenth century but made their appearance in the
first years of the nineteenth.” See Feldman, 1990, 145.
2. This framework has been set by a number of important studies. I am only giving
a short list of some of the most relevant books and edited books here: Frisinger,
1977; Feldman, 1983; Fleming, 1990, 1996. Several relatively recent mono-
graphs have focused on eighteenth-century Britain: Golinski, 2007; Janković,
2001.
3. Fleming and Janković, 2011, 2.
582 F. MAUELSHAGEN

4. Neither the Greek texts of Hippocrates, Aër (Greek text and translation in
Hippocrates, 1923–31, vol. 1), nor Aristotle’s Meteorology nor his Politics
(i.e., VII, 7; 1327b) refer to climate, while modern translations do most of the
time. Tracing the origins of climatology back to Hippocrates and Aristotle is a
tradition invented in the nineteenth century that continues today. For
instance, Herder, 2002 (first published 1784–91), vol. 1, 241, considered
Hippocrates to be “the main author on climate” (“Für mich der Hauptschriftsteller
über das Klima”). Hellmann, 1922 provided a history and bibliography of “cli-
matological textbooks” so focused on the Hippocratic tradition that it ignored
the geographic tradition entirely.
5. The work of these, as well as many other, founding fathers of Greek geography
has only survived in fragments. Honigmann, 1929 argued in favor of Eratosthenes,
while Dicks, 1955 made a strong point for Hipparchus. He extended his argu-
ment by a reading of Strabo II. (Cf. Dicks, 1956.) For a critical discussion of
Honigmann see also Gisinger, 1933, who provides valuable references reflecting
the early use of the word κλίμα. Roller, 2010 adds little to the debate.
6. See Abel, 1974, 994. Only Aristarchus of Samos proposed a heliocentric con-
ception of the cosmos.
7. See Honigmann, 1929 and the critique by Dicks, 1955.
8. Sanderson, 1999 is a typical example for this confusion, but there are many
more. Just look at the Wikipedia article on “Climate,” https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Clime (last accessed July 15, 2016).
9. Ptolemaios, 2006, vol. 2, 774–907.
10. Merula, 1636, 353–60 (Caput XXIII: De Climatibus); Keckermann, 1611;
Clüver, 1667, 18–24 (Caput VI: De Parallelis & Climatibus). For Christiani and
Varenius see the following footnotes. I am not referring to first editions of these
works, since those were not accessible to me.
11. Christiani, 1645, 338–58 (Caput XXV: De Climatibus in Terrae). The term
climatum doctrina (341) is as close as it gets to “climatology” in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries.
12. See Warntz, 1989. Newton’s translation laid the foundations for Varenius’
broad reception in England and North America. See also Warntz, 1981. For the
stemma of the early editions of Varenius’ Geographia Generalis see Schuchard,
2007, xviii. On the (constantly extended) English editions of 1733, 1736,
1743, and 1765 see the chapters written by Schuchard (227–37) and Mayhew
(239–57) in the same book. Humboldt credited Varenius for his “excellent
work” and for having given “a physical description of the earth” “in the true
sense of the words.” See Humboldt, 1901, 48–49 (original German edition:
Humboldt, 1845).
13. Varenius, 1734, vol. II, 559.
14. Varenius, 1734, 2–3. Soon after the first Latin edition had come out, the
Geographia Universalis was translated into English, Dutch, French, and Russian.
15. See Shirley, 1987, No. 10 and No. 32. On de Agostini’s map see also Kish,
1965, 13–15.
16. See the introduction in Blaeu, 2005.
17. Shirley, 1987, 264.
18. Blaeu and Blaeu, 1645, vol. 1 (no page numbers).
19. Schmid, 2010.
20. See Blaeu and Blaeu, 1641, vol. 1.
21. Buy de Mornas, 1761 and Clouet, 1787.
 CLIMATE AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM—EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATOLOGY… 583

22. See Humboldt, 1817, 1831, and Bernhardt, 2003.

23. Some of the important changes in geographical and meteorological knowledge
were related to subjects such as the habitability of the tropics and the surpris-
ingly harsh weather in North American colonies. See also White, 2015, for more
references.
24. Halley, 1693.
25. See, for example, Metzler, 2009, 381; also Tooley, 1953; Gates, 1967; Wands,
1986; Altmann, 2005 and many others. All these authors either failed to recog-
nize the difference between the climate(s) and Aristotelian meteorological
zones, or they did not note the specific meaning attributed to “climates” in
some versions of astrology. The latter is precisely the reason why, for example,
Shakespeare (in Julius Caesar) “associates the idea of climate with the ebbing
and flowing of personal fates and fortunes, rather than with natural and inani-
mate meteorological forces,” as Hulme, 2016 noticed correctly but without
explaining the astrological context. Ignoring historical context explains why
Hulme’s account of climate “as an ordering concept” in Shakespeare’s England
is largely based on a projection of the modern understanding of climate back
into the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
26. Shackleton, 1955, 1961, 302–10. Some researchers belonging to the circle of
editors of the Oeuvres Complètes have spared no effort to tear apart Shackleton’s
genesis of climate theory in Montesquieu’s intellectual biography; see
Montesquieu, 1998, vol. 4, 902–16, and Casabianca, 2013.
27. However, according to Shackleton, Espiard had already used the word “in its
modern meteorological sense” and had therefore beaten Montesquieu to it.
Shackleton speaks of a “neological coincidence.” Shackleton, 1961, 309.
28. “Comme on distingue les climats par les degrés de latitude, on pourrait, pour
ainsi dire, les distinguer par les degrés de sensibilité.” Montesquieu, 1998, vol.
4, 357. The identical sentence appears in the unpublished manuscript Essai sur
les causes qui peuvent affecter les esprits et les caractères, edited in Montesquieu,
1998, vol. 9. The commentators correctly remark that this is the old geographi-
cal understanding of “climate.”
29. Espiard de la Borde, 1743.
30. Quoted from the English translation: Espiard, 1753, 4; for the French original
see d’Espiard, 1752, vol. 1, 5: “Le climat est la cause physique, la plus univer-
selle, la plus intime. Sans s’arrêter à recueillir les autorités des grands hommes,
comme Theophraste, Ciceron, Hippocrate & Galen, sur cet article, on entrera
d’abord en matière, en définissant le Climat, un espace de terre renfermé entre
deux cercles parallèles à l’Equateur, et tellement éloignés l’un de l’autre, qu’il y ait
une différence de demi-heure dans la durée de leur grand jour d’Eté. La Terre est
divisée en vingt-quatre Climats.” There was no definition at all in the Essais of
1743. The fact that Espiard changed this in the 1752 edition may have been a
reaction to criticism.
31. There is an excellent new edition of the Latin text of the Methodus with an
Italian translation and exquisite comments by Sara Miglietti, see Bodin, 2013.
32. The Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française can be accessed comfortably and
searched electronically through the webpage of the ARTFL project under
“Dictionnaire d’autrefois” (here search for “climat”), http://artflsrv02.­
uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=climat (last accessed
September 29, 2015).
584 F. MAUELSHAGEN

33. “Région, Pays, principalement eu égard à la temperature de l’air.” Régnier,

1718, vol. 1, 275; see also Montesquieu, 1998, vol. 4, 909.
34. Diderot and d’Alembert, 1751–1765, vol. 3, 532.
35. Diderot and d’Alembert, 1751–1765, vol. 3, 534: “Climat, (Med.) Les
Medecins ne considerent les climats que par la température ou le degré de chal-
eur qui leur est propre : climat, dans ce sens, est même exactement synonyme à
température ; ce mot est pris par conséquent dans un sens beaucoup moins vaste
que celui de région, pays, ou contrée, par lequel les Medecins expriment la somme
de toutes les causes physiques générales ou communes, qui peuvent agir sur la
santé des habitans de chaque pays ; savoir la nature de l’air, celle de l’eau, du sol,
des alimens, &c.”
36. Zimmermann, 1778, vol. 1, 11–12 (translation by the author).
37. Vogel, 2011.
38. Gerbi, 1973; Glacken, 1967; Fleming, 1998; Fressoz and Locher, 2015.
39. Williamson, 1769; among others, Thomas Jefferson believed he was a witness of
anthropogenic climate change in Virginia, see Jefferson, 1832, 85, 175.
40. That is precisely what the expression “change of climate” (or in French: “change-
ment du climat”) meant in the rare cases where it was used prior to Williamson.
Just check the entry climat in the 1694 first edition of the Dictionnaire de
l’Académie Française: “changer de climat. passer dans un autre climat.” http://
artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/contextualize.pl?p.2.dicofullpublic.
1804014 (last accessed July 22, 2016).
41. Letter of Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Mather, London, July 7, 1773. The text
of this letter can be accessed and read on the Founders Online webpage, http://
founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0156 (last accessed
July 22, 2016).
42. Cranz, 1765.
43. For example, Büntgen et al., 2011.
44. Gibbon, 1813, 346.
45. Gibbon, 1813, 346.
46. Buffon, 1778, 240. Here quoted from the English translation: Buffon, 1812,
336.
47. Steffen et al., 2011, 741. The “Anthropocene” was first proposed by Crutzen
and Stoermer, 2000. For more references see Sect. 5 in Chap. 6. Buffon has
been discussed as a precursor, e.g., in Mauelshagen, 2017 and Heringman,
2016. Hamilton and Grinevald, 2015 rejected any anticipation prior to the
invention of Earth system science.

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 CHAPTER 37

Climate and Empire in the Nineteenth Century

Ruth A. Morgan

During the long nineteenth century, European and North American imperial-
ism throughout Asia, Africa, Australasia, and Oceania connected peoples and
places on an unprecedented scale (see Chap. 31), contributing to the globalis-
ing processes that historian Christopher Bayly describes as ‘the birth of the
modern world’.1 Encounters with unfamiliar environments and cultures shaped
and informed the production of knowledge in both metropolitan and colonial
contexts. Climate loomed large in these colonial exchanges as imperialists con-
fronted arid, tropical, and variable climatic conditions. To make sense of their
colonial experiences and observations, Europeans and North Americans applied
their own philosophies of climate.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Western climate dis-
courses had begun to bifurcate, such that by the nineteenth century, climate
was largely understood both as an agent or force, and as an index or set of
statistics.2 The roots of the former discourse lay in a historical climate deter-
minism, while the latter had emerged more recently as the product of empirical
weather observation and the development of meteorology and climatology
(see Chap. 36).3 In the colonial context at least, climatology did not come at
the expense of the agential interpretation, which flourished in the face of new
geographies of risk and opportunity. Both approaches thrived where the pau-
city of instrumental data beckoned measurement, observation, and interpreta-
tion. Moreover, the study of colonial climate itself became an instrument of
imperial rule and resistance.4
This chapter examines key areas of research by historians of climate and cli-
matology in the nineteenth-century context of empire and colonialism. This
research ranges from the reconstruction of past climates, the study of medical

R. A. Morgan (*)
School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia

© The Author(s) 2018 589

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_37
590 R. A. MORGAN

climatology, and the social and political consequences of climate events, to

understandings of climate change and climate modification, the practice of
colonial climatology, and the emergence of a ‘global’ climate. Although these
areas have tended to be studied separately, common themes emerge when they
are brought together, including climate and environmental determinism; sci-
entific cultures and practices; geographies of knowledge and risk; the applica-
tion of science for economic development; and spatial and temporal ideas of
scale.

37.1   Recording the Colonial Climate

The expansion of European and North American empires during the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries helped to facilitate the rise of Western science,
which in turn reinforced the imperial enterprise. Among the sciences aligned
with empire—such as botany, geography, and geology—was the emerging sci-
ence of meteorology. Jan Golinski and Vladimir Janković have shown how an
increasingly quantitative approach to weather observation surpassed local folk
traditions in Britain by the early nineteenth century.5 In the colonies, mean-
while, both practices thrived, which encouraged the recording of colonial cli-
mates in both qualitative and empirical terms.6 The former required observers
to describe the quotidian and the extraordinary, while the latter noted variables
such as temperature, pressure, rainfall, wind speed, and wind direction. Such a
quantitative approach to weather recording fostered imperial understandings
of climate in statistical terms, as an index by which to assist the achievement of
imperial objectives.
European and North American empires established observatories to foster the
systematic collection of meteorological statistics in their colonial territories. The
English East India Company, for example, established observatories in Madras,
Calcutta, St Helena, Bombay, and Singapore during the early to mid-­nineteenth
century (see Chaps. 7 and 34).7 Later, such observatories became hubs for the
collection of climate data recorded around the colonies (often by volunteers and
native peoples) and from other colonial outposts. Stocked with European instru-
ments and staffed by military (if not scientific) observers, these observatories
were to be sites of colonial science and imperial authority. Katharine Anderson
has shown, however, that the lack of a uniform pattern of observation, the
absence of the standardisation of instruments, and the poor training of observers
severely undermined the usefulness of colonial climate data.8
Nevertheless, these networks of climate knowledge became increasingly
important to scientific communities in both the colonies and the metropole. In
the colonies, the collection of meteorological data over time and space allowed
for colonial meteorologists to attempt to interpret local climate patterns.
Facilitated by the advent of the telegraph, their interpretations were critical to
the development of weather forecasting, a predictive science vital to the agri-
cultural and maritime endeavours of empire.9 Richard Grove has shown how
the exchange of meteorological data between India and the Australian colonies
 CLIMATE AND EMPIRE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 591

in the 1880s allowed South Australian meteorologist Charles Todd to identify

the coincidence of drought conditions in both regions.10 Meteorologist Jacob
Bjerknes would later describe these patterns as a consequence of an atmospheric-­
oceanic phenomenon, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
The imperial collection of meteorological data provided the statistics neces-
sary to contribute to the emerging field of climatology. Alexander von
Humboldt’s definition of climate was ‘crucial’ to the field’s development, as
Matthias Heymann observes.11 In Kosmos (1845), Humboldt suggested that
‘climate … indicates every change in the atmosphere which sensibly affects our
organs’, from temperature and humidity to ‘electrical tension’ and ‘gaseous
exhalations’.12 Humboldt’s approach to climate as both the atmospheric phe-
nomena specific to a particular location and the atmospheric phenomena across
different locations was especially suited to the wide networks of meteorological
observation that European and North American empires were developing in
the nineteenth century.13 Humboldt himself recognised this scientific poten-
tial, and in 1836 he urged the British Royal Society to establish geomagnetic
observatories in British colonies to aid the study of terrestrial magnetism.14 His
work informed the ‘classical climatology’ that later emerged in the continental
empires of Central Europe (see Chap. 38). Austrian Julius Hann, head of the
Central Office for Meteorology and Geomagnetism in Vienna, led the develop-
ment of climatology as a quantitative and systematic science during the late
nineteenth century. The aspiration for a climatology that would depict ‘the
interaction of all atmospheric phenomena over a patch of the earth’s surface’
encouraged Hann to average long-term time series of meteorological data for
a particular location—the basis for the Köppen system of global climate classi-
fication.15 Although the International Meteorological Organisation was estab-
lished in 1873 as a means to advance such global climate research (see Chaps.
7 and 25), the politics of empire continued to shape climatological and meteo-
rological research well into the twentieth century.16

37.2   Pathologising the Colonial Climate

In addition to meteorological records, the human body was deemed to be an
important instrument by which to measure colonial climates. Colonial dis-
course on the merits of exploration, colonisation, and emigration was rooted in
Hippocratic thought, which emphasised the dependence of human health on
local geographical conditions. By the nineteenth century, the question of how
European and North American bodies would fare in foreign climes, particu-
larly the tropics, was becoming a source of considerable consternation. In con-
trast to the veneration of the tropics that Humboldt and Darwin espoused, the
region between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn was increasingly concep-
tualised as a threat to the health of colonising peoples.17 Historians have shown
how these fears were deployed to justify European and North American impe-
rial ambitions; to support arguments for slavery (see Chap. 31); and to account
for the challenges that imperial powers encountered in colonial contexts.
592 R. A. MORGAN

The climate of prospective territories provided a rationale for European and

North American imperial ambitions. If climate determined racial character and
capacity, as contemporaries believed, then the civilised peoples of temperate
nations were fit to subjugate those of the uncivilised tropics. This view aligned
temperate climates with civilisation and the heat of the tropics with lack of
industry, laziness, and despotism. Such moral discourse, most commonly asso-
ciated with eighteenth-century thinkers such as Abbé Jean-Baptiste Du Bos
and Montesquieu, had significant implications for questions of emigration and
the mobility of imperial agents (see Chap. 31).18
During the eighteenth century, Western scientific thought reassured imperi-
alists that whites could adapt or acclimatise to colonial climates. Dress, hous-
ing, behaviour, and creolisation were each important elements to the successful
management of European health in the colonies.19 By the early nineteenth
century, however, the notion of acclimatisation was coming under scrutiny.
Western medical geography increasingly attributed high rates of disease and
morbidity among Europeans in the tropics to the heat and humidity of these
climes, especially when these risks were exacerbated by the excesses of the colo-
nists.20 Under this schema, tropical climes posed the greatest threats to
European constitutions and therefore to European rule.21
Experience only heightened these fears. For Spain, the climate of its
Caribbean territories was thought to be a safeguard against military incursion.
A proposed British military intervention in Caracas in 1808, for instance, was
met with concern from one colonel, who argued, ‘My fears on that subject are
the climate, the climate, the climate.’22 In Sierra Leone, an average of about
half of the British troops garrisoned there between 1819 and 1838 died annu-
ally.23 Meanwhile, in India, although the British had triumphed in the First
Burma War (1824–6), climate and disease exacted a heavy toll on both sides of
the campaign.24 These experiences confirmed the shift in perceptions of tropi-
cal climes and their implications for the defence of European empires. The
emerging field of medical topography identified environment—and particularly
climate—as the most important determinant of both physical and moral health,
and its practitioners sought to identify the healthiest areas for Europeans
abroad.25
In the colonies, this approach emphasised segregation over acclimatisation.
Adherents recommended that Europeans preserve their health by retreating to
spaces more akin to their homelands. Consequently, hill stations, spas, and
sanitary enclaves were set up as refuges in which Europeans could restore or
preserve their health, away from the ills of the wider tropical landscape.26 As
Eric Jennings has shown, the French empire established climatic resorts or cli-
matiques in Guadeloupe, Réunion Island, Madagascar, and Tunisia for the
moral and physical benefit of Europeans.27 In South Asia, too, hill stations
provided sanctuaries for Britons to recuperate from the tropical heat of the
plains. As European enclaves, these areas became key sites of political and mili-
tary power that helped maintain imperial rule during the second half of the
nineteenth century.28
 CLIMATE AND EMPIRE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 593

The concern that European bodies would not thrive in warmer, tropical
climes had grave implications for imperial projects founded on natural resource
extraction. This climate determinism helped to justify arguments for the
enslavement of non-Europeans in the era prior to abolition (see Chap. 31).29 If
Europeans were weakened by the climate, they would lack the energy to under-
take the labours of agricultural production. It was vital then, slaveholders
argued, that peoples born in and so accustomed to those climes, should under-
take these labours.30 A physician in British Guiana was quoted in 1835 as
reporting, ‘I entertain a more favourable opinion of the constitution of the
Coolies, in reference to their adaptation to this climate, than of any class of
immigrants whom I have seen in this colony.’31 Supporting this racist notion of
a climatic aptitude for enslavement was the view that slavery was the ‘natural’
form of the despotic government of tropical places.32
The rise of germ theory encouraged the decline of this form of climate
determinism. Nevertheless, the tropics continued to be a source of concern for
the expanding European and North American empires. The discovery of germs
and vaccines buoyed imperial ambitions for the tropics but exacerbated anxiet-
ies over diseases already associated with those particular places. The emergence
of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth century alleviated such climate anxi-
eties, but it continued to emphasise the role of environmental and social factors
in disease transmission.33 As Warwick Anderson has shown, the new science of
tropical medicine became a civilising tool for population management and con-
trol in the American Philippines that helped to perpetuate the idea of the tropi-
cal ‘other’ into the twentieth century.34

37.3   Changing Colonial Climates

Contemporaries also deployed quantitative and qualitative accounts of colonial
climates to determine the extent to which the colonial enterprise affected local
climates. In some cases, colonial climate change was a welcome prospect, while
in others it was a source of anxiety. From the tropics to the temperate outposts
of empire, the chief method believed to effect colonial climate change was the
planting and removal of trees for medical and agricultural purposes. Therefore,
imperial visions of environmental conservation and restoration had a climatic
aspect.
The association of deforestation with climatic change, principally diminish-
ing rainfall, became increasingly influential in France and England during the
eighteenth century (see Chap. 36). These desiccation theories grew apace with
imperial expansion, which brought Europeans into contact with unfamiliar
peoples and places. Colonial climate change had grave implications for empire’s
civilising mission. The imperial anxieties arising from desiccationist discourse
encouraged what Richard Grove has called ‘seeds of modern conservationism’,
whereby colonial expansion led Europeans to re-evaluate the ecological and
human impact of their activities.35 In Venezuela, for example, Alexander von
Humboldt attributed the shrinkage of Lake Valencia to the clearing of
594 R. A. MORGAN

v­ egetation and diversion of water for plantation irrigation. His critique reflected
his disdain for Spanish colonialism and its impacts on local peoples and envi-
ronments.36 By the mid-nineteenth century, such colonial conservationism had
led to the development of forest protection and scientific forestry.
According to the logic of desiccationist theory, afforestation was a means to
improve colonial climates. The East India Company, for instance, undertook a
programme of tree planting in St Helena during the late eighteenth century to
counter what it perceived to be a changing climate.37 Starting in the 1850s,
German-born botanist Baron Ferdinand von Mueller promoted the planting of
particular tree species, such as the Tasmanian blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus),
to overcome the miasma of swamps. These trees, it was believed, had desicca-
tionist qualities that would clean the air in British India and the Australian
colonies, as James Beattie has shown.38 The belief in the capacity of afforesta-
tion to improve a local climate was especially evident in the French colonies of
the Maghreb. There, as Diana Davis has argued, a narrative of environmental
decline demanded French colonial authorities restore the region to its ‘natural’
condition of fertility. Following the conquest of Algeria in 1830, this narrative
depicted a region suffering from deforestation, overgrazing, and desertification
at the hands of indigenous peoples; the narrative served to rationalise French
rule in the region, underpinning colonial laws and policies of dispossession.39
This declensionist rhetoric was also deployed in French Algeria to conserve for-
ests as a vital means to prevent the encroachment of the Sahara into the more
salubrious areas where European settlers lived.40 Although fears of the climatic
consequences of deforestation persisted well into the twentieth century, the
associated issues of soil erosion and sand drift came to compete with these anxi-
eties by the interwar era.41

37.4   The Archive of Colonial Climates

The documentary archive of empire has proven a valuable source of climate
information for historians and others seeking to reconstruct and recover past
climates over wide spatial and temporal scales. Researchers can trace the climate
monitoring of European and North American empires and their agents through
a range of documentary sources, such as government records and gazettes, the
accounts and diaries of missionaries and early settlers, newspaper articles, ships’
logs, military records, physicians’ journals, and weather records from colonial
observatories and observers. This quantitative and qualitative information has
been vital to international and regional endeavours to extend the global climate
record; to reconstruct past climates for former colonies; and to understand
human–climate interactions in colonial contexts.
Since the late 1980s, climate researchers have sought out this imperial data as
part of the wider effort to collect global weather observations to study global
change. These works include the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set
(COADS, now ICOADS), which is focused on amassing the instrumental data
generated after the 1853 Brussels Maritime Conference that standardised
 CLIMATE AND EMPIRE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 595

s­hipboard meteorological and oceanographic observations (see Chap. 25).42

More recently, researchers have sought to extend the climate record further. For
example, ships’ logbook records from the Spanish, British, Dutch, and French
empires, as well as the English East India Company, have provided valuable data
for the period 1750–1850 for the Climatological Database for the World’s
Oceans (CLIWOC), the Recovery of Logbooks and International Marine
(RECLAIM) data project, and the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions
over the Earth (ACRE) project.43 The logbooks reveal information such as wind
speed, force, and direction as well as other general weather descriptions for the
ship’s location. By virtue of ships’ voyages, these datasets largely cover the Atlantic
and Indian oceans, and focus mostly on the Northern Hemisphere (see Chap. 6).
Regionally focused initiatives have developed to overcome the relative pau-
city of meteorological data in Southeast Asia, South America, and southern
Africa (see Chaps. 18–20). As David Nash and George Adamson note, few
countries in these regions have continuous records extending back much fur-
ther than the late nineteenth century.44 For example, ACRE has since led to
regionally focused initiatives in Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, and
Antarctica.45 The records of the English East India Company observatories
established in Madras (1792) and Singapore (1841), as well as observations
undertaken at the Buitenzorg Botanic Garden and Batavia, have shed light on
the colonial climates of British India and the Dutch East Indies as well as the
Southern Oscillation.46
In addition to instrumental observations, other documentary sources of cli-
matic data have offered climate historians insight into the colonial past.
Although the use of such documentary sources has been commonplace in anal-
yses of European and North American climates, historians and geographers are
increasingly turning these techniques to the study of climates in southern
Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Mexico.47 English-,
French-, and Sesotho-language missionary accounts have revealed precipita-
tion and temperature variability in Lesotho, the Kalahari, Natal, and Zululand,
while private diaries have allowed a climate reconstruction of early nineteenth-­
century Bombay.48 Similarly, ships’ logs as well as missionary and plantation
papers provided the basis for the reconstruction of rainfall variability and hur-
ricane activity in the southern Caribbean.49 Such work has also shed light on
the nature of extreme weather events. For example, Jesuit records from the
Spanish Philippines provide insight into typhoons in the archipelago; French,
English, and Norwegian missionary accounts reveal the tracks of the tropical
cyclones that made landfall on Madagascar; and the colonial archives disclose
the nature and extent of drought and flood events in Mexico since the six-
teenth century.50
In some cases, these projects have been interdisciplinary, drawing together
expertise from historians familiar with analysing the archival sources and scien-
tists familiar with extracting, processing, and calibrating the relevant informa-
tion. For example, the South-Eastern Australian Recent Climate History
(SEARCH) project brought together historical climatologists, environmental
596 R. A. MORGAN

historians, meteorologists, and citizen scientists to uncover the climate history

of colonial New South Wales (1788–1860). By analysing documentary sources
such as newspapers and the accounts of early colonists, they extended the
instrumental climate record for southeastern Australia to at least 1788, which
they used to examine climate variability and change in the region since the late
eighteenth century (see Chap. 21).51
The reconstruction of colonial climates has also allowed for the develop-
ment of long-term records of global phenomena, such as ENSO. In the wake
of the devastating 1982/3 El Niño event, researchers drew on Spanish-,
English-, German-, French-, and Dutch-language sources to compile a 400-­
year chronology of El Niño occurrences, which they assessed in terms of their
strength or intensity.52 Such reconstructive work has continued into the twenty-­
first century as a means to contextualise the nature and extent of climate
change.53
Despite this growing focus on the climate histories of former European and
North American colonies, some areas remain neglected. David Nash and
George Adamson point to further opportunities in the Spanish Caribbean and
Central America, as well as in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands.
The equatorial and arid areas of Africa are also under-studied, which limits
continent-wide rainfall reconstructions. In addition to overcoming these gaps,
the methods of climate reconstruction using documentary sources require fur-
ther clarification. Such work might focus on improving the reliability of data
quantification and limit the differences in the interpretation of sources.

37.5   Climates of Disaster

Climate reconstructions have allowed historians to better understand how cat-
astrophic weather events affected colonial territories in South Asia, Africa, the
Americas, and Australia. Whether drought, flood, famine, or hurricane, the
study of climate disasters can reveal the ways in which colonial societies under-
stood and responded to extreme weather events. Networks of information
exchange, as we have seen, enabled colonial observers to show that such seem-
ingly local catastrophes were part of larger climate patterns, which indicated
the presence of global phenomena such as ENSO.
Climate conditions, rather than flawed imperial policies, were blamed for
social unrest and economic conditions. Georgina Endfield and Sam Randalls
argue that despite imperial efforts to domesticate colonial climes through the
management of peoples and places, such recourse to climate as the cause of
colonial instability suggests the persistence of climate as an agent of empire.54
They cite the example of a British official, who observed of the Gujurati at the
height of the catastrophic Indian famines of the late nineteenth century, ‘[He]
is a soft man … accustomed to earn his good food easily. In the hot weather,
he seldom worked at all and at no time did he form the habit of continuous
labour.’55 This example, drawn from Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocausts,
suggests that Indian people suffered from climate-induced apathy that was the
cause of the scale of the disaster.56
 CLIMATE AND EMPIRE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 597

The age of empire provides fertile ground for the study of extreme weather
events and their role in the political and social upheavals of the long nineteenth
century. Sherry Johnson, for instance, has shown the way El Niño, La Niña,
and hurricane activity combined to help transform Atlantic economies, con-
tributing to the outbreaks of the American War of Independence, the French
Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution (see Chap. 24).57 Richard Grove has
likewise examined the role that the ENSO events of 1789–93 played in the
French Revolution, as well as droughts and famine in India, Africa, and
Australia (see Chap. 34).58 In Cuba, Louis Pérez argues, the destruction
wrought by a series of hurricanes in the 1840s helped to break down Spanish
colonial rule.59 Acknowledging the impact of climate on these regions is not to
imply determinism. Showing the ‘dynamic interplay’ of climate, human, and
other non-human factors instead moves the focus of climate studies away from
a deterministic tradition to reveal the complexity of climate–human interac-
tions in the past.60
Applying concepts from social science research, such as vulnerability, adapta-
tion, and resilience, has offered historians new ways to analyse colonial experi-
ences of climate variability. The lens of vulnerability encourages the study of
extreme weather events in terms of social, rather than natural, processes.
Differences in vulnerability, which expose some people to more climate risk
than others, are the product of complex processes that historians can unravel in
order to discern the interactions of human activities and the environment over
time.61 Georgina Endfield deploys this approach in her study of droughts and
floods in colonial Mexico at the turn of the nineteenth century. There she
shows how communities attempted to reduce their vulnerability to the impacts
of climate variability through strategies of land and water management.62
Contemporary concerns about anthropogenic climate change have imbued
this research with a new sense of urgency to better understand the social and
political consequences of short- and long-term changes in climate.

37.6   Conclusion
Despite the decolonisation of the Cold War era, the rise of climate change dis-
course has helped to ensure that agential understandings of climate have con-
tinued into the twenty-first century. Mike Hulme has argued that we face a new
form of climate determinism—what he has termed ‘climate reductionism’—in
which human agency is confined by possible future climates.63 Within this
schema of neo-climate determinism, relics of empire persist. The tropics remain
pathologised as a space of disaster and disease. This construction of tropical
climates serves to portray many former colonies as destined for catastrophe.64
Anthropogenic climate change has fuelled this image, converging with devel-
opment critiques to conjure a so-called ‘tropic of chaos’: ‘a belt of economi-
cally and politically battered post-colonial states … [which compose] that
violent and impoverished swath of terrain around the mid-latitudes of the
planet’.65 Such a description suggests that the legacy of European and North
598 R. A. MORGAN

American empires continues to manifest itself in the ways in which anthropo-

genic climate change is experienced around the globe. Former colonies of the
Global South will be among those regions worst affected by the increased fre-
quency and magnitude of extreme weather events on a warmer planet, even
though these countries and their peoples have contributed little to global
warming, as Dipesh Chakrabarty has pointed out.66

Notes
1. Bayly, 2004.
2. Fleming and Janković, 2011.
3. Heymann, 2010.
4. Endfield and Randalls, 2015.
5. Golinski, 2007; Janković, 2001.
6. Feldman, 1990.
7. Adamson, 2015, 102; Williamson, 2015.
8. Anderson, 2005, 257.
9. Anderson, 2005, 83–130.
10. Grove, 1997, 1998; Davis, 2001.
11. Heymann, 2010, 587.
12. Humboldt, 1845, 96.
13. Heymann, 2010, 587.
14. Humboldt, 1836.
15. Cited in Coen, 2010, 846, 2011; Heymann, 2010, 588.
16. Mahony, 2016, 29–39.
17. Arnold, 1996, 148.
18. Fleming, 1998, 11–20.
19. Jennings, 2006.
20. Livingstone, 2002, 160.
21. Arnold, 1996, 142. Fears of tropical climes were not universal. See Livingstone,
2002, 161.
22. Colonel Gordon, cited in McNeill, 2010, 277.
23. Curtin, 1998, 4.
24. Harrison, 1999, 116.
25. Harrison, 2000, 57.
26. Chakrabarti, 2014, 68; Livingstone, 2002, 160.
27. Jennings, 2006, 3.
28. Kennedy, 1996.
29. Arnold, 1996, 160; Jennings, 2006, 19.
30. Jennings, 2006, 19–20.
31. Dr Smith, cited in Hancock, 1840, 86.
32. Arnold, 1996, 160.
33. Chakrabarti, 2014, 144–47.
34. For example, Anderson, 2006.
35. Grove, 1995, 3.
36. See Cushman, 2011.
37. See Grove, 1993.
38. Beattie, 2012. See also Bennett, 2011.
 CLIMATE AND EMPIRE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 599

39. Davis, 2001.

40. Ford, 2004, 2008.
41. Beattie, 2003; Showers, 2005.
42. Maury, 1854, 54–96; Woodruff et al., 1987. See also García-Herrera et al.,
2005.
43. Können and Koek, 2005; Wilkinson et al., 2011; Allan et al., 2011; Wheeler
et al., 2006.
44. Nash and Adamson, 2014, 131.
45. See Williamson et al., 2015.
46. Allan et al., 2002; Können et al., 1998.
47. Nash and Adamson, 2014.
48. For southern Africa, see Endfield and Nash, 2002; Kelso and Vogel, 2007; Nash
and Endfield, 2002; Nash and Grab, 2010; and Nash et al., 2016. For western
India, see Adamson and Nash, 2014; Adamson, 2015.
49. Chenoweth and Divine, 2008; Berland et al., 2013.
50. Warren, 2015; Nash et al., 2015; Endfield, 2008.
51. For example, see Fenby and Gergis, 2013; Gergis and Ashcroft, 2013; Gergis
et al., 2012.
52. Quinn et al., 1987.
53. Gergis and Fowler, 2009.
54. Endfield and Randalls, 2015, 38.
55. Cited in Endfield and Randalls, 2015.
56. Davis, 2007, 172.
57. Johnson, 2011.
58. Grove, 2005.
59. Pérez, 2001. See also Smith, 2012.
60. Carey, 2012, 237.
61. Hilhorst and Bankoff, 2004.
62. Endfield, 2008.
63. Hulme, 2011.
64. For the colonial construction of vulnerability, see Bankoff, 2003.
65. Parenti, 2011, 9, 11.
66. Chakrabarty, 2009, 2012, 2014.

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 CHAPTER 38

From Climatology to Climate Science

in the Twentieth Century

Matthias Heymann and Dania Achermann

38.1   Introduction
Research on climate changed fundamentally during the twentieth century.
Scientific advances included the investigation of higher layers of the atmo-
sphere, an improved physical understanding of atmospheric processes, the rise
of atmospheric and climate modeling, and an observational revolution. These
and other advances were facilitated by a host of new research technologies such
as aircrafts, balloons and radiosondes, radar, rockets, satellites, and computers.
They were also influenced by changing political and cultural contexts during
the world wars and the Cold War and, from the 1970’s onwards, by environ-
mentalism and rising environmental interest. Not only did a new science of
climate emerge, but the understanding of and interest in climate also changed
radically. The meaning of the term climate changed from a more or less stable
characteristic condition of local places to a complex global phenomenon sub-
ject to changes in time.
Global perspectives on climate have existed since ancient times. During the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, climatology was character-
ized by a focus on human scales and human affairs. The Humboldtian concep-
tion of a mutual relationship between climate and human beings (see Chap.
37) retained primacy until the mid-twentieth century. Climate change on large
spatial and temporal scales first attained prominence during the mid-nineteenth
century as scientists discovered past ice ages and debated their causes. A funda-
mental shift of priorities from a “geographical” to “physical” understanding,
from local concern to global science, was underway by the late nineteenth
century and became hegemonic in the postwar era. This globalization became

M. Heymann • D. Achermann (*)

Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

© The Author(s) 2018 605

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_38
606 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

particularly pronounced in the development of climate models, which for tech-

nical reasons had to disregard small geographical scales (see Chap. 13).

38.2   “Classical Climatology” and its Expansion

Climatology during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not a
homogeneous discipline. It involved data and methods from various fields
including meteorology, geography, history, and physics.1 Nevertheless, it
retained the core concepts and interests of Alexander von Humboldt, the basis
for what came to be known as “classical climatology.”2 According to Humboldt’s
definition, climate represented “in the most general sense all changes in the
atmosphere which noticeably affect the human organs,” such as temperature,
humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, and wind direction.3 This definition
of climate was linked to specific locations, to the surface of the Earth, and to
human experiences. It represented a holistic concept of climate that involved all
atmospheric phenomena affecting the human senses, and included the investiga-
tion of human impacts on climate, such as deforestation and urbanization (urban
climatology), as well as climatic impacts on human health (medical climatology)
and on agriculture and forestry (bioclimatology and agro-meteorology).4
Climatology at the end of the nineteenth century represented a fairly estab-
lished discipline, with a range of shared interests and methodologies. Khrgian
contends that “‘classical climatology’ put an end to the diversity, arbitrariness,
and dilettantism of meteorological observation.”5 Nevertheless, within its disci-
plinary frame and focus on local empirical diligence, climatology accommodated
a range of diverse interests. Humboldt, celebrated for his orientation on human
experience and affairs, received particular acclaim for his investigation of climate
on large spatial scales. Based on a series of measurements, he applied the method
of mean values and invented the concept of isotherms. From 730 observations of
daily minimum and maximum temperatures all over the Northern Hemisphere
he calculated annual temperature averages and constructed his famous map of
isotherms of the Northern Hemisphere, which showed that lines of average tem-
peratures were not parallel to the equator (see Chap. 36).6 With the averaging of
series of temperature data, Humboldt constructed an ingenious and objective
measure for climatic features that allowed global mapping and comparison, one
of the accomplishments that earned him the title of “pioneer of globalization.”7
Climatologists such as the Austrian Julius von Hann, head of the Central
Office for Meteorology and Geomagnetism in Vienna, and the Russian-­
German Wladimir Köppen, head of the German Marine Observatory in
Hamburg, adopted Humboldt’s conception of climate and made it the basis of
a rigorous empirical science. Their practice of climatology consisted of an effort
to systematically collect and evaluate series of meteorological data and to ana-
lyze their broader relationships in order to identify the specificities of local and
regional climates. Hann’s Handbook of Climatology, first published in 1883 and
expanded in later editions, defined the major features of “classical climatology”
and its research program, and it became a standard reference for what came to
be called the “averaging climatology.”8
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 607

Hann was very clear about the difference between meteorology and clima-
tology. Meteorology explained atmospheric phenomena in terms of physical
laws and discovered the causal relations among sequences of atmospheric phe-
nomena. “Meteorology essentially is theorizing; she decomposes the complex
of atmospheric processes to link partial phenomena to physical laws.”
Climatology, in contrast, was empirical, descriptive, and not reductionist: “her
task thereby is to provide a preferably lively image of the interaction of atmo-
spheric phenomena at one location.” Furthermore, in climatology, “those
meteorological phenomena have priority that bear the greatest influence on
organic life on earth.”9 Köppen concurred. In climatology, unlike other disci-
plines, “theories … step back, the ordered collection of facts is the prevailing
goal.”10 Climatology needed comprehensive data collection to discern patterns
and rules and to bring systematic order to the wealth of local information.

38.3   The “Conquest of the Third Dimension”

Another characteristic of “classical climatology” was that it was two-­dimensional,
focused only on climate at the Earth’s surface. This focus was determined by
technical difficulties in collecting data in the upper atmosphere, and consolidated
by climatology’s association with geography. As Köppen described it, climatology
was “a surface-oriented discipline.” While he demanded more data from higher
layers of the atmosphere, particularly for improving the physical understanding of
climatic processes, he admitted that climatologists might regard such efforts as
not part of climatology.11 “We have, herewith, reached a boundary where the
geographical element stands back in favour of the physical [and] ‘climatology’
passes into ‘meteorology in a narrower sense’.”12 In the much expanded, fifth
edition of Handbuch der Klimatologie (Handbook of Climatology), published
between 1930 and 1936, Köppen and his younger colleague Rudolf Geiger
defined the scope of the work as the up-to-date collection of “meteorological
knowledge … that is tied to geographical aspects”—in other words, a geography
of meteorological and climate knowledge.13 A paradigmatic achievement in this
vein was Köppen’s influential climate classification and construction of global
maps of the distribution of climates, which are still widely used.14 Using this clas-
sification, Köppen ordered climatic features such as arid, tropical, temperate, and
cold along with a range of further descriptors, and he investigated and mapped
their geographical distribution (see Chap. 36). This classification reflected the
methodology of regional geography of that time, which treated geographical
regions and settling societies as independent from each other and focused on the
human–environment relation.15 The oceans and upper atmosphere were neither
inhabited nor covered by instrumental data, and were therefore less relevant.16
Attempts to investigate and understand the upper atmosphere had been dis-
cussed since the 1700s. In the nineteenth century, Köppen and Hann both
helped to consolidate a two-dimensional ‘classical climatology’ and, at the same
time, emphasized the need to expand meteorological observation in higher lay-
ers of the atmosphere. Observational evidence from higher altitudes was diffi-
cult to gather and in very short supply. Ideas about larger-scale processes of
608 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

atmospheric circulation mainly came from theoretical considerations.17 During

the late 1800s, a growing number of mountain weather stations and observa-
tions made with the help of balloons and kites gave rise to a new climatological
subdiscipline later named “aerology” (after Köppen’s suggestion).18 With the
rise of aviation, especially during and after World War I, data from the upper
atmosphere attracted growing interest. Regular operation of kites, balloons,
and aircrafts to assemble data was expensive, however. Measurements in various
parts of the world remained unsystematic and were rarely published.19 Starting
in the 1930s, with the availability of measurement sensors equipped with a
radio communication device—so-called radiosondes—data coverage quickly
improved. These devices sent meteorological data from balloons directly to
ground stations. Early radiosondes reached altitudes of up to four kilometers.
By the end of World War II, a rapidly growing number of devices sent an
increasing amount of data from up to fifteen kilometers above sea level.20
Starting in 1935, German meteorologist Richard Scherhag constructed
high-altitude weather maps based on upper atmosphere data. Such maps were
an entirely novel tool, which aided the preparation of German daily weather
forecasts.21 Scherhag also discovered strong winds at altitudes of about five
kilometers. Soon named “jet streams” by German meteorologist Heinrich
Seilkopf, they became a focus of investigation in German meteorology and
climatology. Due to geographic, language, and political barriers, the discovery
of jet streams reached the USA only much later.22 During World War II, fore-
casters at the German “Reich Weather Service” possessed upper-air charts for
the 500, 225, 96, and 40 hectopascal levels (equivalent to ~5.5–22 km alti-
tudes): data that proved decisive for Air Force operations during the war.23
The unprecedented amount of high-altitude data collected with modern
instruments opened new pathways for climatology. A perspective encompass-
ing the whole atmosphere and the physical relations of extended weather
systems helped explain important climatic phenomena such as the monsoon.
After World War II, Hermann Flohn, one of the leading German climatolo-
gists in the twentieth century, and Swedish meteorologist Sverre Petterssen
had sufficient data to develop a consistent theory of planetary circulation.24
Meteorologists of the Norwegian Bergen School around Vilhelm Bjerknes,
to which Petterssen belonged, had already promoted this dynamic perspec-
tive of the atmosphere. Swedish meteorologist Tor Bergeron, another mem-
ber of the Bergen School, called it “dynamic climatology.”25 Only the lack of
high-­atmosphere data had hindered climatologists from elaborating and
applying it before. In Flohn’s words the “conquest of the third dimension”
had begun.26
The “conquest of the third dimension” and the investigation of the atmo-
spheric circulation represent a key moment in the history of climatology. It not
only proved immensely fruitful for the understanding of many climatic phenom-
ena. It also indicated a significant change of the very concept of climate, from a
geographical idea linked to specific locations to a dynamic concept related to the
whole atmosphere. The new data helped climatologists to develop causal under-
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 609

standings of climatological phenomena, something increasingly demanded of

geographical disciplines as the descriptive approach came under attack.27
Accomplishments such as Köppen’s climate classification met criticism because
they were purely descriptive. A new generation of geographers such as Walter
Christaller questioned the static traditions of regional geography and demanded
recognition of larger-scale interactions and of temporal and causal relations.28
Flohn recognized a deeper consequence of this shift: it cut loose climatology
from human perceptions and scales, which had constituted part of the disci-
pline and its identity. He justified this shift with particularly strong words,
arguing that climatologists had to oppose “this one-sided human-oriented,
anthropocentric narrowing of a general valid concept … There are many things
in our envelope of air, which only have minor or no relation to humans, but
which for a consideration of the causes of weather … we badly need.”29
However, this shift to the large scale by no means entailed an elimination of
the small scale and human affairs. First, climatology kept its dedication to empir-
ical data collection and local detail, upon which large-scale knowledge would be
built. Second, large-scale knowledge served to inform local weather and climate
conditions, and it supplemented human-centered disciplines such as bioclima-
tology, agro-meteorology, and medical climatology. Third, many meteorolo-
gists and climatologists continued to impart a personal and emotional relation
to weather and climate. Scherhag, for example, emphasized his keen interest in
personal weather observation and local weather phenomena to his students and
sought to link personal observation with theoretical knowledge of large-scale
weather systems.30 If climatology had expanded to phenomena beyond human
perception, it had not disregarded interest in the local and human scale.

38.4   Investigation of Climatic Changes

Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, the question of ice ages and their causes
sparked numerous theories and fierce debates. Interest in climate change on
geological timescales occupied naturalists, geologists, astronomers, and physi-
cists.31 The question of ice ages had little immediate impact on climatology,
however, which was preoccupied with climates on much smaller scales.32
Geographer and climatologist Eduard Brückner pursued comprehensive inves-
tigations of climatic changes around the world on much smaller temporal scales
since 1700. He used the full range of growing climate data collections to ana-
lyze climatic variations, and he postulated a global thirty-five-year climatic
cycle.33 The investigation of long-term and secular changes in climate had a
long history, but a full understanding of these changes had eluded climatolo-
gists.34 Discussions on changing climates resurfaced when investigations of gla-
cier volumes by Swedish glaciologist Hans W. Ahlmann and observations at
meteorological stations showed a significant warming trend in Northern
Europe between about 1920 and 1940.35 This observation took the climato-
logical community by considerable surprise.
610 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

Even in the first half of the twentieth century, climatologists were reluctant
to accept global climate change, as evidenced by the reaction to British engi-
neer Guy Callendar’s theory of global warming. Building on work about the
greenhouse effect by Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius dur-
ing the nineteenth century, Callendar suspected that rising levels of carbon
dioxide were raising global temperatures. He completely reworked the theory
of infrared radiative transfer, estimated the rise in carbon dioxide levels, calcu-
lated warming due to the enhanced greenhouse effect, and related his calcula-
tions to collected observational data on surface temperature trends.36 The
majority of climatologists, however, questioned the explanatory power of his
conclusions or objected to such far-reaching claims. These objections included,
for example, Callendar’s neglect of atmospheric processes such as heat transfer
and of temperature inversions and modifications of the general circulation.
George Simpson, director of the Meteorological Office in London, concluded
that the increase of carbon dioxide and temperature “must be taken as rather a
coincidence.” The observed rise in temperature “was probably only … one of
the peculiar variations which all meteorological elements experienced.”37
Climatologists, immersed in a tradition of studying a great wealth of detailed
data, still put great emphasis on local diversity and difference and remained
highly suspicious of generalized explanations such as global climate change.38
It was to take another three decades until carbon dioxide was undisputedly
acknowledged as a potential climate change factor.

38.5   Making Climatology a Physical Science:

The Physical Understanding of the Atmosphere
Although classical climatology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
was open to physical ideas and reasoning, it remained, in essence, a geographi-
cal science. Many of its advocates, such as von Hann and Köppen, contributed
to the application of physical laws and quantitative understanding of climatic
and weather processes.39 The investigation of the physics of the atmosphere,
however, was rather a marginal endeavor in climatology and usually left to
meteorology. There was a tension between the empirical, holistic ambitions of
climatologists and the theory-oriented, reductionist approach of physicists,
who had to disregard particulars in order to arrive at quantifiable causal rela-
tions cast in mathematical equations. Climatology as a discipline belonged to
and was taught in geography departments and programs; furthermore, its
­practitioners worked at weather services in data collection and evaluation for
practical tasks and research.
Since climatologists were reluctant to turn to physics, physicists instead
took up climatology and meteorology. Most notably, Norwegian physicist
Vilhelm Bjerknes developed a foundational framework for the quantitative
description of atmospheric processes, hoping to make meteorology an exact
science of the atmosphere. In 1904, he published a famous paper laying out
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 611

the basis for a solution to the problem of weather prediction. Seven non-lin-
ear partial differential equations including seven physical parameters—the so-
called “primitive equations”—described in principle all atmospheric processes
and meteorological states at any point in time and space.40 An analytic solu-
tion to these equations did not yet exist. Bjerknes instead applied approxi-
mate graphical methods to integrate the equations. In 1917, Bjerknes moved
to Bergen, where he built up a weather forecasting group, the aforemen-
tioned famous Bergen School of meteorology. The Bergen School developed
dynamic concepts to better understand weather phenomena, namely a new
cyclone model and the “polar front” theory.41 Bjerknes’ work was widely
praised and much promoted, not least by Bjerknes himself and his students,
so that it has been celebrated as the beginning of modern scientific meteorol-
ogy.42 His work was a decisive step in advancing a physical theory of the
atmosphere, even though he had built on the work of others and meteorolo-
gists such as the Austrian Heinrich von Ficker had pursued similar ideas
(Fig. 38.1).43
Bjerknes’ theoretical work also excited many meteorologists because it laid
a theoretical foundation for quantitative weather prediction based on physical
laws. During World War I, British scientist Lewis Fry Richardson attempted an
approximate, or “numerical,” solution to Bjerknes’ primitive equations. This
approximation required a transformation into finite difference equations for
the calculation of averaged values on a spatial grid. The solution of the problem
required enormously tedious and lengthy computations. It took Richardson six
weeks to calculate a weather prediction on two grid elements for a specific day
in 1910. The effort failed dramatically due to numerical instabilities.
Nevertheless, in principle, Richardson’s approach was valid, even if much too
time consuming for practical application.44
The complexity of Bjerknes’ equations and the extravagant expense of solv-
ing them by approximation concealed at the same time a loss of complexity.
Moreover, they heralded a deeper transformation in climatology: physical
parameters and their causal relations cast in purely mathematical language were
entirely stripped of human elements. The intricate complexities of the interac-
tions and causal relations between the human world and climate dropped out
of the equation, literally and figuratively. Human-oriented climatology was
replaced by physical reductionism, which drew a neat boundary between natu-
ral and human systems. This transformation had been underway during the
nineteenth century, but it was accelerated by the work of the Bergen School,
and would be complete by the mid-twentieth century.
612 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

Fig. 38.1 Bjerknes’ so-called primitive equations in modern mathematical notation.

(Reproduced from Amy Dahan Dalmedico, “History and Epistemology of Models:
Meteorology (1946–1963) as a Case Study,” Archive for the History of Exact Sciences 55
(2001): 398. Permission of Springer)

38.6   The Rise of Atmospheric and Climate Modeling

Driven by World War II and the Cold War, military interests and military fund-
ing helped to make atmospheric equations work on one of the first digital com-
puters. In 1950, using drastically simplified versions of Bjerknes’ primitive
equations, a team around mathematician John von Neumann and meteorolo-
gist Jule Gregory Charney simulated “weather by the numbers”: the first
attempt at numerical weather prediction on a computer.45 The rise of numerical
weather prediction also set the course for the simulation of climate, which began
with Norman Phillips’ bold experiment in 1955. Phillips, a member of von
Neumann and Charney’s team, simulated with a further simplified version of
the weather model a forecast period of thirty days. While this was only an exper-
iment and not a simulation based on a realistic situation, it turned out to be
surprisingly successful. Phillips’ model experiment reproduced patterns of the
atmospheric circulation. He concluded that “the verisimilitude of the forecast
flow patterns suggests quite strongly that it [the model] contains a fair element
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 613

of truth.”46 The experiment was path-breaking in two ways: first, it showed that
computer-based simulation could serve to simulate atmospheric phenomena;
second, it proved that “[n]umerical integration of this kind … give[s] us [the]
unique opportunity to study large-scale meteorology as an experimental sci-
ence,” as the British meteorologist Eric Eady concluded after a presentation by
Phillips at the Royal Meteorological Society in London in 1956.47
So-called general circulation models (GCMs) became the basis for future
climate models and served as virtual laboratories to investigate atmospheric
processes (see Chap. 13). Initially, this research field remained small and only a
few groups built and experimented with climate models. The first global circu-
lation models represented a much simplified and idealized atmosphere with a
resolution of approximately 1000 kilometers. Furthermore, computers repre-
sented a very new technology, expensive and hard to acquire. In Europe,
Sweden first developed its own computer (called BESK) and weather model,
which became operational on a routine basis in December 1954, half a year
earlier than its US counterpart.48 Britain, Japan, Germany, and many other
countries followed suit within a few years, although often hampered by lack of
computer power. In Germany, the first model calculations were even performed
manually by two students and two female clerks, and later on computers in the
USA and France. The German Weather Service did not receive its first com-
puter until November 1965.49 Numerical analysis radically changed meteoro-
logical practice from “qualitative description” to “quantitative computation.”50
Even though computer models simulated a highly simplified representation of
the atmosphere, climatologists were hopeful that they could soon “ask more
specific questions regarding the details of the evolution” of weather and
climate.51
In the 1960s, only a few groups in the USA built and experimented with
climate models. During the 1970s, climate modeling expanded rapidly outside
the USA as well (see Fig. 38.2). Climate modeling mainly served scientists as a
research tool to improve understanding of atmospheric and climate processes.
At the same time, the problem of carbon dioxide emissions and the question of
global warming began to receive attention in parts of the scientific community.
By the early 1960s, measurements by Charles D. Keeling had established that
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were rising. Influential scientists such
as oceanographer Roger Revelle began to push the issue with the US govern-
ment.52 William W. Kellogg, a leading American climate scientist and consul-
tant of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), helped put the global
warming problem on the international scientific and political agenda. As early
as 1970, Kellogg suggested using climate models for climate prediction, even
though he was aware that these models had to use simplifications and had not
yet proved their reliability.53 “[T]here is the haunting realization that man may
be able to change the climate of the planet Earth,” he wrote. “This, I believe,
is one of the most important questions of our time, and it must certainly rank
near the top of the priority list in atmospheric science.”54
614 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

Fig. 38.2 GCM family tree (credit: Paul N. Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer
Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2010), 169)

In a 1977 report commissioned by the WMO, Kellogg published one of the

first long-term climate projections based on the results of climate simulations (see
Fig. 38.3). Two years later, the US National Academy of Sciences commissioned
a team led by Jule Charney to report simulation results of the newest climate
models. This so-called “Charney report” concluded: “If carbon dioxide contin-
ues to increase, the study group finds no reason to doubt that climate changes
will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.”55 In the
same year, the WMO World Climate Conference held in Geneva came to similar
conclusions in its “Final Declaration”: “It is possible that some effects on a
regional and global scale may be detectable before the end of this century and
become significant before the middle of the next century.”56 While concern about
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 615

Fig. 38.3 Kellogg’s climate projection (Source: William Kellogg, Effects of Human
Activities on Global Climate (Geneva: World Meteorological Association, 1977), 24.
Reproduced with permission of the WMO)

global warming had increased, it was still highly contested. Notably, the global
observation of temperature trends did not show warming but rather a tendency
of cooling between the late 1940s and the late 1970s (see Chap. 25).
In 1981, climate scientist James E. Hansen published his first long-term
model projections in the leading journal Science.57 This article encountered sig-
nificant criticism from some climate scientists, because Hansen based his claims
on an admittedly simple model involving tremendous uncertainties. Nevertheless,
Hansen’s results almost exactly resembled the projections published more than
thirty years later in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC). Both Hansen’s simple model and the result in the
IPCC report, which was based on the use of forty-­two climate models, pre-
dicted a warming of between 1 and 4 °C by the year 2100 and displayed very
similar lower and higher boundaries of the different scenarios (see Fig. 38.4).
Hansen’s study heralded the future direction of climate models as tools in the
emerging political debate over global warming (see Chap. 14).58

38.7   Data Networks and Satellites:

The Observational Revolution
The evolution of General Circulation Models into a major tool for investigat-
ing climate was also linked to the development of new technologies of mea-
surement. These technologies provided the huge increase in data required for
 616
M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

Fig. 38.4 Climate projections to the year 2100 by Hansen et al., 1981, 963 and by the IPCC, 2013, 1037. Both graphs are positioned to
allow direct comparison. The red zero-line is taken for the year 2000, as in the IPCC graph (whereas Hansen et al. put for the year 1990).
The range of temperature rise for different emission scenarios is almost exactly the same
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 617

climate modeling and simulation as compared to traditional approaches in

meteorology and climatology. The Soviet Union launched the first satellite,
“Sputnik,” in 1957; during the Cold War “space race” that followed, the USA
and USSR sent more and more satellites into space. While primarily of military
and political impetus, these satellites soon proved to be of interest for meteo-
rology, too. With the launch of the first successful weather satellite, TIROS-1,
in 1960, satellites became indispensable for meteorological and climate
research. They collected data about the heat balance of the Earth, the chemical
content of the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, and so on.59 Along with rock-
ets, satellites vastly expanded the reach of measuring instruments previously
limited to ground stations, radiosondes, balloons, kites, and airplanes.60
Gathering data about the global atmosphere was also a primary goal of the
Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) between 1967 and 1982.
GARP was a response to two resolutions of the United Nations General
Assembly in 1961 and 1962. These resolutions demanded intensified research
in atmospheric and climate science, as well as further development of weather
forecast capabilities. During the fifteen years of GARP, weather services and
scientific institutions of more than twenty participating countries, with the help
of vessels, radar, airplanes, and satellites, collected data with worldwide cover-
age. Some subprojects included up to sixty contributing countries.61 Weather
and climate models, which depended on global data, set the priorities and
standards for data gathering. The quick expansion of climate modeling after
1970 was owed not least to the availability of more and better data.

38.8   Earth System Analysis

Early General Circulation Models were principally energy and moisture mod-
els. Solar radiation provided energy and drove wind circulation systems.
Evaporation of water consumed energy, condensation of water set latent energy
free. Obviously, the atmosphere is not a closed system: energy fluxes and
hydrological cycles depend on exchange processes with other Earth systems,
such as the oceans and other water bodies (hydrosphere), soils at the surface of
the Earth (pedosphere), living beings (biosphere), and the height and density
of vegetation—if at this point only as physical objects, not as interacting bio-
logical organisms. Two decades later, vegetation became fully represented as an
interacting factor that not only influenced climate but also reacted to it. These
types of models simulated the full carbon dioxide cycle including the absorp-
tion of carbon dioxide by plants (photosynthesis). Because they modeled the
full Earth system, they came to be called “earth system models.”62
Historian of science Amy Dahan Dalmedico has called this type of modeling
“anti-reductionist.” She explains that “Scientists … have managed, in just a few
short years, to develop a methodology that … provides a de facto response to
the holistic aspiration—an analytic process that moves towards complexity …
This methodology is an example—obviously incomplete at this moment in
time—of what could be conceived as a concrete ‘anti-reductionist’ analytical
618 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

method.”63 Nevertheless, the claim that the increasing sophistication of (inher-

ently simplified) models has actually overcome reductionism remains
contentious.64
The conception of Earth as a complex and interconnected system gained
momentum with the rise of systems theory during the Cold War and with ris-
ing environmental awareness during the 1960s. A notable example was the
“Gaia hypothesis” proposed in 1974 by English chemist and biophysicist James
E. Lovelock and American microbiologist Lynn Margulis. Lovelock and
Margulis proposed “a new view of the atmosphere, one in which it is seen as a
component part of the biosphere rather than as a mere environment for life.”65
They suggested understanding the biosphere—“the total ensemble of living
organisms”—as a single living entity, which interacts with the inorganic envi-
ronment. According to this idea, the biosphere acted as an “active adaptive
control system,” regulating the conditions for life and maintaining its equilib-
rium on Earth. The biosphere, including the evolution of species, affected the
chemical composition, surface pH values, “and possibly also climate.”66 Hence,
the Earth appeared as a self-regulating organism of its own. Lovelock and
Margulis could not provide any proof for this hypothesis and were heavily criti-
cized by fellow scientists, even as they were enthusiastically received in the
public sphere.67 Controversial as it was, the “Gaia hypothesis” reflected the
growing interest in conceiving of the Earth as a complex system of interacting
entities—an interest that Earth system models neatly accommodated.
The challenge, however, was enormous. While the atmosphere was already
frighteningly complex, climate scientists now had to become masters of Earth
system science (see Fig. 38.5), a term coined in 1985 by Francis P. Bretherton,
director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder,
Colorado.68 Computer models were the major tools in this endeavor. They
could, in principle, be expanded in complexity by adding further submodels.
The “one model to fit all” strategy offered a means to create “virtual impact
laboratories”: artificial Earth systems in the computer, with which scenarios of
global change could be simulated.69 German climate scientist Hans Joachim
Schellnhuber considered Earth system models a revolutionary accomplish-
ment, worthy to be called a “second Copernican revolution.”70 In contrast to
telescopes and microscopes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which
magnified the object of investigation, an Earth system model represented a
“macroscope,” a tool which miniaturized the object and created “an objective
distance from their specimen.”71
On the other hand, the assembly of submodels under conditions of limited
computer power required pragmatic reductionist strategies. Each of these
models had to be reduced to selected algorithms and, hence, to be simplified
“to a ridiculous extent.”72 In addition, many Earth system processes were not
entirely understood. Earth system models became increasingly loaded with
complexity and uncertainty and their computational processes increasingly
inscrutable. While the holistic aspirations of Earth system models gave rise to
confidence that these models represented the Earth system adequately, their
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 619

Fig. 38.5 The Bretherton Diagram of the Earth system. Source: NASA, 1986, 19

intricacies rendered “analytic understanding of complex models of climate

either extremely difficult or even impossible.”73 Francis Bretherton put it in a
nutshell: “the more complex the model the messier the garbage.”74 In spite of
such challenges, Earth system science expanded quickly and became the back-
bone of climate science. Due to its global focus, geographer Nicholas Clifford
described Earth system science as “a microcosm of the globalization
syndrome.”75

38.9   Ice Core Research and Paleoclimatology

Paleoclimatology, the reconstruction of past climates from the archives of
nature, also played an important role in the development of climate science in
the twentieth century (see Chap. 3). Due to the breadth of research objects
and methods, paleoclimatologists come from disciplines that range from glaci-
ology, geology, chemistry, and physics, to biology, astronomy, and archeology.
Paleoclimatology thus exemplifies the highly interdisciplinary character of
modern climate research.
The study of ice, in particular, became one of the major pillars of climate
change research. Its ascent is closely tied to the development of climate science
and the shift of priorities from a local to a global perspective. In the early
­twentieth century, ice was investigated as a part of glaciology or crystallography
in order to find out more about the movement of glaciers, the metamorphosis
of snow into ice, and the mechanisms of avalanches.76 From the 1930s onward,
digging or drilling into the ice became a basic method to study snow and ice
layers, for example on glaciological expeditions to Greenland and in the Alps,
while the USA, USSR, Denmark, Switzerland, and France became the most
active countries in this field of research.77
620 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

The Danish physicist Willi Dansgaard played a key role in establishing ice
core research as part of climate science. He developed a method to reconstruct
past temperatures by analyzing the ratio between different oxygen isotopes in
rainfall.78 The method was based on the fact that the isotope 18O evaporates
more slowly than 16O. Consequently, when temperatures were higher, the rela-
tive amount of 18O in precipitation was higher. Dansgaard took care to empha-
size that his results “depend[ed] on the climatic and geographic conditions” of
the site where the samples were collected.79 Conclusions could only be drawn
for the temperature in the local area of investigation, in this case Copenhagen.
Dansgaard realized that the mechanism is the same for rain as for snow. Hence,
ice cores served Dansgaard as archives of oxygen ratios reflecting the tempera-
ture changes of the past. In the late 1960s, Dansgaard and his co-authors iden-
tified a correlation of oxygen ratios in a deep ice core from Greenland and
“known and reported climatic changes in other parts of the world.”80 He took
this finding as evidence that past temperature changes identified from ice cores
reflected climatic changes not only in a local area but on a large geographic
scale. In 1971, Dansgaard initiated the Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP)
together with Swiss physicist Hans Oeschger and American geophysicist
Chester C. Langway. As part of the program, the three scientists analyzed a
2000-meter-deep ice core from Greenland, containing ice from the last
150,000 years. They compared the results with data from lake sediments in
Switzerland and suggested that there had been abrupt global-scale shifts in air
temperature around 12,000 years ago.81 These abrupt changes were later called
Dansgaard-Oeschger events.
Paleoclimatic research became an indispensable part of climate research in
two ways. First, data retrieved from paleoclimatological records, such as ice
cores, documented that climate is not a stable condition but instead fluctuated
during different geological and historical epochs. Furthermore, these fluctua-
tions correlated with carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, and in combi-
nation with responses to temperature change in ocean currents, they could
occur very rapidly. In the eyes of many climate scientists, this finding added
urgency to dealing with the problem of climate change. “We play Russian rou-
lette with climate,” concluded climate scientist Wallace S. Broecker in Nature
in 1987.82 Second, knowledge about past climate changes from ice cores and
other paleoclimatic investigations became vital information for the validation
and calibration of climate models. These models could only be tested by inves-
tigating their performance for the case of past climate change. Today, paleocli-
matology, together with climate modeling and the empirical observation of
climate based on instruments, is one of the three major pillars of evidence of
ongoing climate change.

38.10   Conclusion
This chapter has analyzed major changes that the study of climate underwent
during the twentieth century. These changes concerned many developments,
including: a shift from a holistic understanding of climate–human relationships
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 621

to reductionist systems thinking; the expansion of the scope of research from

surface to space and from spatial distribution to temporal changes of climate; a
change in research approaches from empirical to theoretical, from geographical
and descriptive to physical and causal, and from local and regional to global;
and the development of new technologies from balloons, kites, and radio-
sondes to computers, computer models, and satellites.
Modern climate science is not a scientific discipline in the usual sense of the
word. It is a complex and highly collaborative enterprise comprising thousands
of scientists representing different backgrounds, training, methods, and fields
of research: meteorologists, physicists, climatologists, paleoclimatologists, gla-
ciologists, chemists, engineers, oceanographers, geologists, hydrologists, and
more. More recently, social scientists and researchers in the humanities have
increasingly contributed to broader perspectives in the investigation of climate.
Likewise, many branches in climate research, such as climate monitoring, Earth
system modeling, and paleoclimatology, are intricately linked to each other,
because the production of scientific evidence only works when these branches
intersect. For example, the production of observational data requires model
simulation, and model simulation requires observational data.83 This systemic
character of climate science is the reason historian of science Paul N. Edwards
has likened it to a “vast machine.”84
In this complex research field, General Circulation Modeling (GCM) and,
more recently, Earth System Modeling (ESM) have emerged as the overarch-
ing domain of research. These computer models signify the place or space in
which all scientific knowledge about processes relevant to climate needs to be
represented and synthesized. The scientific, intellectual, and social repercus-
sions of this relatively young and at the same time enormously influential
research field are vast. In this respect, two considerations deserve particular
attention: first, computers as a “phase change” in climate research; and second,
climate research as a driver of globalizing reductionism.
Several authors, including Jon Agar, have argued that computers did not
cause a “rupture” or “phase change” in science but rather provided new capac-
ities for already existing approaches to solving particular problems.85 Philipp
Lehmann has made a similar claim for the role of computers in climatology.
Conceptually, he has argued, much of postwar climate science was in place
before the era of computers and “not premised on the availability of new tech-
nologies of data analysis.”86 On the other hand, there is ample evidence that
computer modeling and simulation have fundamentally changed practices of
knowledge production, the form and content of knowledge, and its claims to
truth in many areas of research.87
Climate science is a particularly conspicuous example. The rise of climate
modeling and simulation played a decisive role for the understanding of cli-
mate, the very meaning of the term climate, and the authority and social sig-
nificance that it attained in the postwar period.88 Climate science at the end of
the twentieth century pursued different interests and different types of knowl-
edge, marginalizing the approaches and preoccupations of pre-war climatol-
ogy. The conceptual basis of physical climate science was seeded and developed
622 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

in the pre-war era. After World War II, however, successes in climate modeling
and simulation, particularly the numerical solution of partial differential equa-
tions, facilitated a fundamental redefinition of climate research based on com-
puters. This redefinition not only shifted research practices and standards; it
was also developed and pursued by scientists, including theoretical meteorolo-
gists and physicists, from outside the original climatology research commu-
nity.89 These innovations, along with the predominance of the physical and
marginalization of the geographical research tradition, represent a “phase
change” in the investigation of climate, rather than just an expansion or diver-
sification of climatology.90 It is unlikely that this hegemony of the physical
approach to climate would have been established without computers.
Computer-based climate and Earth system models pushed and shaped glo-
balizing agendas. Measurement technologies such as satellites and satellite
observation constructed a “global gaze.”91 Globally distributed and con-
nected monitoring stations established what historian of science James
R. Fleming has called a “planetary-scale fieldwork.”92 Ice core drilling tech-
niques opened up 800,000 years of climate history.93 Climate science, in
short, adopted a path of globalizing reductionism. That is, by the close of the
twentieth century, it operated on large spatial and temporal scales, putting
priority on global knowledge and marginalizing small-scale measurements
and changes. The overarching question of global climate change demanded
globally averaged, long-term information about climate, in which spatial and
temporal detail—the human scale, in other words—played a subordinate role.
Climate science at the close of the twentieth century resembled a mirror image
of the iconic “Blue Marble” photograph taken from outer space during the
Apollo 17 mission in 1972. This picture shows the whole Planet Earth as a
solitary entity in space and has been widely disseminated as a symbol of the
fragility of the globe.94
The globalizing tendency, culminating in Earth system analysis, has a long
history in climate research. It grew out of scientific as well as technological
and cultural conditions. Climate proved an immensely complex phenomenon
based on globally linked interactions. How could it be properly understood
without a globalizing perspective? Paul Edwards has described the emer-
gence of planetary observation systems as “quasi-obligatory globalism.”95
Climate, on the other hand, is also a cultural phenomenon. The questions
climatologists asked and in which society took an interest (such as the under-
standing of climates in different geographical regions or the understanding
of climatic change) have depended on cultural interests and contexts.
European and US overseas imperialism called for a focus on place and for the
exploration of geographies and climates on Earth (see Chap. 37).96 The age
of environmental concern, in contrast, placed particular value on knowledge
about environmental change due to human agency. This became, in part, a
global concern, with emphasis on global interconnections and global conse-
quences, as highlighted in the report Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome
in 1972 and as symbolized in the “Blue Marble” and “Gaia hypothesis.”
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 623

These proliferating cultural interests helped to mobilize and command intel-

lectual and material resources.97
Despite its successes, globalizing reductionism came at the price of margin-
alizing small-scale and local perspectives; and it largely erased humans from the
picture. In recent years, parts of climate science worked hard to adjust core
practices in order once more to factor in small-scale and human dimensions.
Climate modelers have attempted to increase spatial and temporal resolution
by downscaling global models and to bring regional information back into the
picture, particularly as that information has become relevant to climate adapta-
tion policies. The mathematics of numerical approximation under conditions
of limited computer power, however, have set strict limitations. It seems “ironic
that we cannot represent the effects of the small-scale processes by making
direct use of the well-known equations that govern them,” David Randall and
his co-authors have remarked with some frustration.98 These authors, along
with others, have considered the loss of the small scale as a “deadlock” and
perceived the restrictions imposed on their physics as “something scandalous”
and “almost shocking,” as historian of climate modeling Hélène Guillemot has
put it.99
Researchers in the humanities, particularly historians and anthropologists,
have increasingly called attention to humanities perspectives in global change
research in order to broaden scholarly and public discourse, to consider alter-
native types of knowledge about climate and culture–environment relations,
and to offer more comprehensive and more robust knowledge about climate,
environmental, and cultural change. “In nearly all domains of Global Change
Research (GCR), the role of humans is a key factor as a driving force, a subject
of impacts, or an agent in mitigating impacts and adapting to change,” a group
of authors led by historian Poul Holm argues.100 They suggest a stronger focus
on the “human dimension” of global change and contend that expertise on
human behavior is required as much as expertise on the climate or biological
systems. As Gísli Pálsson and colleagues put it, the “‘Anthropos’ in the
Anthropocene” needs to be reconceptualized.101 It remains to be seen how and
in what ways researchers in climate science and in the humanities can help to
include the human dimension, put the human and the local back into the pic-
ture, and develop perspectives for dealing with the problem of climate change
on both the local and the global levels.

Notes
1. Lehmann, 2015, 51.
2. e.g. Flohn, 1954, 11–13; Khrgian, 1970, 312.
3. Humboldt, 1845, 340.
4. Humboldt’s concept of climate was holistic in three ways: first, climate repre-
sented the whole of atmospheric phenomena at a defined location (synthesis of
phenomena); second, it represented the whole of climates in different locations
(synthesis in space); third, it focused on the relationship of humans and climate
624 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

(Heymann, 2010a, 587). Humboldt’s ideas stood representative of “the basic

goals of the nineteenth century climatologists … to understand the relation-
ship between climate, vegetation, agriculture, and man” (Khrgian, 1970, 302).
5. Khrgian, 1970, 312.
6. Knobloch, 2007, 12.
7. Rupke, 2008, 175–202. Similarly, Aleksandr Ivanovich Voeikov, one of the most
influential Russian climatologists and geographers, pursued an interest in large-­
scale climatic processes in his fundamental Climates of the Earth, Particularly of
Russia (1884). E.g. Khrgian, 1970, 314–15; Oldfield, 2013, 517.
8. Coen, 2010, 843–46.
9. Hann, 1908, 3–4.
10. Köppen, 1895, 614.
11. Köppen, 1895, 619.
12. Köppen, 1895, 627.
13. Köppen and Geiger, 1936.
14. Köppen, 1918, 1923, 1936; Wilcock, 1968.
15. Werlen, 1993, 244; Bahrenberg, 1995, 152.
16. Köppen and Geiger, 1936.
17. Kutzbach, 1979.
18. Nebeker, 1995, 48.
19. Wagner et al., 1931, F1–F3.
20. Flohn, 1951, 201.
21. Scherhag, 1936.
22. Flohn, 1992, 19.
23. Flohn, 1950a, 142; Flohn, 1992, 7, 14.
24. Flohn, 1950a, 1950b; Petterssen, 1950.
25. Bergeron, 1930.
26. Flohn, 1951, 210.
27. Hettner, 1930; Flohn, 1950b.
28. Christaller, 1933; Kiesewetter, 2000, 79–90; Bobek and Schmithüsen, 1949.
29. Flohn, 1954, 11–12.
30. Malberg, 2007; interview with Günther Warnecke, November 26, 2015; inter-
view with Heinz Fortak, November 27, 2015.
31. Krüger, 2013; Brönnimann, 2002; Imbrie and Imbrie, 1979, 19–57.
32. A notable exception is Brooks, 1922 and Brooks, 1949; see also Kenworthy,
2012.
33. Brückner, 1890; Lehmann, 2015.
34. Fleming, 1998.
35. Sörlin, 2011.
36. Callendar, 1938; Fleming, 2007, 65–77.
37. Callendar, 1938, 237.
38. Rudloff, 1967; Lamb, 1982.
39. Lehmann, 2015; Coen, 2010.
40. Bjerknes, 1904; Thorpe et al., 2003; Gramelsberger, 2009. Bjerknes provided
a description of these equations in prose. Figure 38.1 gives six of the seven
equations in the form elaborated by Lewis Fry Richardson and presented in
Aspray, 1990, 124–27; see also Dahan Dalmedico, 2001, 398–99 and Nebeker,
1995, 66.
41. Friedman, 1989.
 FROM CLIMATOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 625

42. Friedman, 1989; Ellingsen, 2015.

43. Volkert, 1999; Gramelsberger, 2017.
44. Richardson, 1922; Lynch, 2005.
45. Harper, 2008; Nebeker, 1995.
46. Phillips, 1956, 154.
47. Quoted in Lewis, 1998, 52.
48. Persson, 2005a.
49. Persson, 2005b, 2005c.
50. Flohn, 1965, 385.
51. Craddock et al., 1962, 7.
52. Weart, 2008; Edwards, 2010.
53. Kellogg, 1971; Heymann, 2012.
54. Kellogg, 1971, 123.
55. Charney et al., 1979, xiii.
56. WMO, 1979, 714.
57. Hansen et al., 1981.
58. Heymann and Hundebøl, 2017.
59. Faust, 1960.
60. DeVorkin, 1992; Devorkin and Sanchez-Ron, 1996.
61. Henderson, 2013; Mason, 1975.
62. Dahan Dalmedico, 2010.
63. Dahan Dalmedico, 2010, 291.
64. Hulme, 2011.
65. Lovelock and Margulis, 1974, 2.
66. Lovelock and Margulis, 1974, 3.
67. Ruse, 2013; Schneider and Boston, 1992.
68. Bretherton, 1985.
69. Uhrqvist, 2015; Schellnhuber, 1998, 8.
70. Schellnhuber, 1999.
71. Schellnhuber, 1999, C20.
72. Fisher, 1988, 59.
73. Lenhard and Winsberg, 2010, 253.
74. Quoted in Fisher, 1988, 55.
75. Clifford, 2009, 359.
76. Achermann, forthcoming.
77. Jouzel, 2013, 2526; Martin-Nielsen, 2012, 2013.
78. Dansgaard, 1953.
79. Dansgaard, 1953, 469.
80. Dansgaard et al., 1969, 380.
81. Dansgaard, 2005, 69–74.
82. Broecker, 1987.
83. Edwards, 1999.
84. Edwards, 2010.
85. Agar, 2006; Sepkoski, 2013.
86. Lehmann, 2015, 69.
87. Heymann, 2010b.
88. Heymann, 2009, 2010a.
89. Heymann, 2010a, 2010b.
90. e.g. Shackley et al., 1998; Hulme, 2008.
626 M. HEYMANN AND D. ACHERMANN

91. Smith, 2007; see also Edwards, 2006.

92. Fleming, 2010.
93. Jouzel et al., 2007.
94. Jasanoff, 2001; Cosgrove, 2001.
95. Edwards, 2006.
96. Livingstone, 1993, 216–93.
97. Meadows et al., 1972.
98. Randall et al., 2003, 1548.
99. Guillemot, 2017, 13.
100. Holm et al., 2013.
101. Palsson et al., 2012.

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 Epilogue

As several chapters in this volume explain, new evidence concerning the history
of climate and its myriad meanings is tumbling forth. Not a day goes by with-
out new findings from sediment cores, pollen assemblages, tree rings, or one of
the several other climate proxies—not to mention new research in historical
climatology. Few if any other arenas of history are so in flux. Thus, it is extremely
useful to take stock, as this book does, even if inevitably it will soon be out of
date in some details.
The spate of evidence concerning past climate is part of a more general
methodological revolution in the study of history. More than half a century
ago, French historians aspired to something they called histoire totale or total
history. Its chief distinction was an embrace of the social sciences, both their
theories and their varieties of evidence. But the proponents of total history
stopped short when it came to the natural sciences. They offered, in effect,
subtotal history. Lately, however, we see before our eyes the crystallization of
consilient history, a history based on theories and lines of evidences from all the
sciences, both social and natural, as well as upon the old standby of historians:
textual documents.
Consilient history is at the same time both terrifying and exhilarating. It is
terrifying because of the demands it makes upon readers and writers. No one
can master the strengths and weaknesses of evidence and arguments concern-
ing genetics, climatology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, and history—and
yet this is what consilient history asks. It is exhilarating because it promises far
greater explanatory power than history based merely on texts, or texts with the
occasional assistance from archeology or art history (which historians will rec-
ognize as their basic approach over the past 150 years).
Climate history is in the vanguard of consilient history, and its recent and ongo-
ing legitimation is telling. Until recently, few historians took climate seriously.
Generations ago, some had done so but in sufficiently simplistic fashion as to dis-
credit the entire enterprise, arguing for a straightforward determinism of climatic

© The Author(s) 2018 633

S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5
634 EPILOGUE

regimes. By the mid-twentieth century, such views had justifiably fallen out of
fashion. The newer generation of climate history is, by and large, more interested
in climate change than climate regimes. Its viability depends on plausible data
concerning past climate shifts and extreme climate events, most of which is verified
by the natural sciences.
The success of climate history in the last decade is indicated by the conversion
of several senior historians to the view that shifts in climate have exerted strong
influence over human history. Well-established historians who for two or three
decades had written well-received histories that made no reference to climate, all
of a sudden changed their approach and featured climate, particularly adverse
climate shifts, as a crucial engine of history. They found climate useful for explain-
ing things that they and their colleagues had long explained in other ways, such as
the downfall of medieval Islamic dynasties or the turbulence of Yuan and Ming
China. In doing so, they abandoned the longstanding reluctance among histori-
ans to attribute agency to anything other than human groups and individuals. By
and large, they find climate shifts useful in reference to political and economic
history rather than social or cultural history. If the depth and sincerity of their
conversions are proportional to the length of the books that they have authored,
then it is as thorough as a change of heart can be. This strikes me as a powerful
affirmation of the legitimacy of climate as an influence upon human history.1
Nonetheless, the climate turn among historians is a delicate flower. While
ever more young historians (several of them included in this book) are at work
on climate history, the broader legitimacy of the subject among historians risks
dismissal as mere climate determinism. For some seventy-five years, historians
and social scientists have rejected explanations for just about anything related
to humanity that seems to rely on the agency of anything non-human, includ-
ing and perhaps especially climate. That skittishness has declined lately. But
skepticism about the power of climate to affect human history remains strong
in some quarters, and for several reasons.
The majority of historians work on periods since 1815 and before 1980,
during which time climate shocks were few and climatic change modest and
manageable. The surfeit of documentation on most subjects during this period
meant that scholars have plenty of possibilities for convincing historical expla-
nation without bothering with tree rings or speleothems (or even instrumental
weather data). Moreover, the great majority of professional historians work on
Europe or North America, which (since 1815) have been comparatively
wealthy and resilient parts of the world, more able than most to withstand
climatic variability. Thus, most historians do not see much impact from cli-
mate shifts in their chosen fields, and as a result are not easily persuaded they
should be given weight anywhere. Given the surviving skepticism about the
usefulness of climate history, it is important that climate historians face up to
a few challenges.
The first challenge is the temptation to overstate the case about the conse-
quences of climate and invite the charge of climate determinism. The editors’
introduction to this volume alerts readers to this issue, noting that uncertain-
 EPILOGUE
   635

ties mount as one moves from climate reconstruction to biospheric conse-

quences and from there to economic, political, and cultural impacts. Claims
that climate shifts explain the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties over two millen-
nia, for example, made starkly by some Chinese climatologists, win no follow-
ers among historians.
To meet this challenge, climate historians must consistently identify con-
vincing and specific pathways by which climate affected human affairs. It is rare
to find any textual document (the traditional gold standard of evidence for
historians) that makes a direct connection between climate and human events.
One will look in vain for one that states that the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt fell
as a result of prolonged drought. Historians of climate’s impacts must, if they
expect to be convincing, find links in any causal chain they wish to posit. In
happy cases, that might take the form of price series of grain, showing rising
prices that coincide with a period of anomalous weather. This would provide a
persuasive link to economic history, and if combined with documentation con-
cerning political unrest resulting from high prices, would then link persuasively
to political history. But quantitative data of this sort will often be lacking, mak-
ing it harder to show that a change in climate meant a change in economy or
society. This, I think, is the greatest challenge for climate history. The nature of
the evidence, whether textual or from natural archives, is such that it rarely
delineates the pathways, the missing links between climate events and human
events, and instead requires inference. Those inferences may be made well or
badly, but in either case some (unimaginative) historians are allergic to infer-
ence altogether, and others are skeptical of inferences that strike them as cli-
matic determinism.
A second challenge for climate history is the routine hazard of interdisciplin-
ary work. A standing temptation for scholars is to seek conveniently simple
explanations for things outside their own arenas of expertise. Even with a single
discipline, this is normally the case. Historians who would never accept a simple
explanation for the onset of the Great Depression will happily repeat one for
the rise of the Mongols (and vice versa). This is human nature given that we all
have limited time and cannot read up properly on all historical subjects. It is all
the harder for scholars to operate responsibly outside their home disciplines.
Yet this is exactly what climate history requires. Dendrochronology and paly-
nology and all the scientific fields that generate proxy data for climate history
have their fine points. Who, as an outsider, can reliably assess the weaknesses of
such data or interpretation?
To meet this second challenge, aspiring historians of climate will either need
to become miraculous polymaths or take part in collaborative research projects.
The first of these is scarcely realistic for most mortals, although some people have
made valiant attempts and remarkable progress. (Some of the chapters in this
book can help ambitious readers learn about the limits of all manner of evidence.)
The second has its pitfalls, such as incentive structures in the institutional settings
in which most scholars work, but is a much more plausible route. Perhaps this
second challenge is better seen as an opportunity.
636 EPILOGUE

A third challenge, which surely is an opportunity, is the awkward fit in terms

of units of analysis between climate history and history in general.
Chronologically, historians slice up the past into periods based typically on
political criteria. Every subfield does this differently, so for example, Chinese
history is organized by dynasty and African history into a tripartite scheme of
pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial. None of this, whether in China,
Africa, or anywhere else, matches up usefully with turning points in climate
history. Reconciling this is a challenge for climate historians but perhaps even
more so for historians generally.
Historians have no periodization for global history. Widely used terms—
such as modern, early modern, medieval, and ancient—mean quite different
things in different contexts. Medieval India, by some reckonings, lasted until
1857. The West African Kingdom of Mali is routinely called ancient, yet it took
shape in the fourteenth century and survived into the sixteenth (which else-
where would qualify as early modern). The few efforts to create a periodization
for global history have not caught on.2
It could be that in the fullness of time, climate history will help achieve
greater consistency among historians’ schemes of periodization. But first it will
likely muddy the waters further. They are already muddied thanks to other
recent developments such as the rise of social history or women’s and gender
history, for which conventional periodizations based on politics sometimes
make little sense. In the 1970s, a feminist historian asked if women had a
Renaissance (the answer was no).3 Climate history, if it continues to prosper,
will add competing schemes of periodization, possibly based on climate data
alone, or on the shifting relationships between humankind and climate. In
2014, John Brooke attempted something of the sort for global history.4 At the
moment, the standard terminology of climate history carries a residue of euro-
centrism (Roman Climate Anomaly, Medieval Climate Anomaly) and has terms
for departures from Holocene averages but not for periods that conformed
reasonably well to the long-term averages. This will likely change, and a fuller
and perhaps more coherent scheme of periodization for climate history will
emerge.
If climate history is ever to do more than obscure periodization—if the
challenge is to be converted into opportunity—somehow it will have to con-
vince historians in general of the salience of climate for all history. At the
moment, that looks unlikely, even if existing schemes of periodization are
based on little more than familiarity. But should world and global history
continue to gain adherents and prestige in the profession of history, they will
have the effect of destabilizing existing chronologies and periodizations
(which are national or regional in scope). And the more inadequate current
periodization schemes appear, the greater the likelihood that historians will
seek ­alternatives, including schemes based on climate criteria rather than
political ones.
African history can be seen as instructive in this regard. Its prevailing peri-
odization is an ungainly misfit. All African history before the 1880s falls into a
 EPILOGUE
   637

single (pre-colonial) period, and its successor period (the colonial era) is only
eighty years long. Terms such as “Iron Age” or “ancient” are sometimes used
too, although their meanings differ for different parts of Africa. In reaction to
this unhappy muddle, in 1994, George Brooks tried to organize West African
history into periods based on climate shifts, mainly wetter and dryer intervals,
using the scanty data available at that time.5 His colleagues did not follow suit.
One could probably do a more precise job today thanks to a quarter century
more work on African climate history. But would what might fit West Africa
also fit eastern or southern Africa? Probably not, except for the most macro-
scale trends and shifts.
The same obstacle exists, a fortiori, for global history. Different regions
have different climate histories. And yet there do seem to be some macro-scale
shifts and trends, even if they manifested themselves differently around the
world. The Little Ice Age, while not icy everywhere, seems to be a departure
from longer-term norms quite widely. So, perhaps renamed, it could conceiv-
ably one day seem a coherent period of historical time for global history. In the
same way, possibly also renamed, might the Anthropocene describe an age in
which humans affected climate by elevating greenhouse gas levels.
Thus, for history, whether local, regional, or global, the spate of new data
on climate invites a reconsideration of the schemes of periodization that are the
building blocks of coherent narratives. Global history, I would imagine, is the
scale on which climate criteria are likeliest to have the strongest influence,
because there is no incumbent scheme. Those parts of the world where climate
evidence is most abundant already have incumbent periodizations for their his-
tories, which will be hard to modify, let alone dislodge. Nonetheless, I expect
in the decades ahead that historians will continue to take on board climate
considerations, and eventually bake them into the building blocks they use to
construct coherent narratives.
Climate data will challenge the way historians analyze space as well as time.
Historians have long preferred geographic scales that match up with political
units. Indeed, the origins of professional history in the nineteenth century
were often bound up with nationalist political agendas. Moreover, textual his-
torians rely on documents kept in archives, and those archives are normally
maintained by states or other political entities, and contain records generated
by states and bureaucracies. For all these reasons of convenience and tradition,
historians do not normally consider spaces defined by climatic criteria, such as
zones affected by the North Atlantic Oscillation or by the Indian Ocean mon-
soon, as appropriate units of analysis.
To the extent that historians absorb the new data from climate history, they
will struggle to reconcile their traditional scales with ones that correspond to
climates. They may wish to lump countries of the northern Andes together as
lands of ENSO, instead of choosing either smaller units, such as Peru, Ecuador,
or Colombia, or larger ones such as Latin America. Rather than choose the
Middle East as a whole, or its various nation-states, they may wish to bundle
the Levant and Egypt together as lands united in a socioclimatic system.6 Such
638 EPILOGUE

reimagined units of historical analysis will be tempting in some cases, where

and when climatic phenomena have intruded powerfully on human affairs, and
less tempting in others.
In time, climate history could also challenge the recent emphasis of
(­anglophone) history on race, class, and gender. Thinking in these categories is
not incompatible with climate history. In some cases, as in histories of Hurricane
Katrina, it readily suggests itself. Taking climate seriously often means de-
emphasizing these social categories, and correspondingly de-­ emphasizing
social groups as drivers of history. It remains to be seen, of course, how the
traditions of history-writing will evolve under the impact of new information
concerning climate.
In any case, history has always been a matter of discussion and debate. As
this book shows, it is now enriched by new forms of evidence that suggest cli-
matic shifts sometimes played powerful roles in human affairs. But, as this book
shows as well, the new evidence requires judicious handling, awareness of
uncertainties and of contexts—in other words, the skills of the historian.

Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA John McNeill

Notes
1. See, for example, Lieberman, 2009; Bulliet, 2009; Ellenblum, 2012; Parker,
2013; Brooke, 2014; Campbell, 2016; and Brook, 2010. These historians work
in the USA, Canada, the UK, and Israel, and they are all male. Is the conversion
experience confined to men? Confined to Anglophone academia? If it is, it will
not be for long, because younger historians, female and male, working in many
countries, are taking climate into account, and indeed probably doing most of the
groundbreaking research. Yet another senior historian who has taken the climate
turn lately is Nicola di Cosmo, scholar of Central Asia, Mongolia and China, who
has co-authored several pieces with climate scientists, e.g. Büntgen and Cosmo,
2016. One could add to this list of senior historians Michael McCormick, John
Haldon, Stuart Schwartz, and others.
2. E.g., Bentley, 1996.
3. Kelly, 1977.
4. Brooke, 2014, 279.
5. Brooks, 1993.
6. As in Ellenblum, 2012 This is a socioclimatic regime because Egypt and the
Levant are subject to different rhythms of drought because Egypt’s water comes
mainly from Ethiopian rains, governed by the Indian Ocean Monsoon, not the
Atlantic patterns that affect the Levant. Thus, drought almost never strikes both
at once, and each served as insurance for the other against crop failure. This pat-
tern is hard to detect if one pays attention only to Egypt or only to Syria, and
would be hard to detect if one chose one’s unit of analysis on purely climatic
criteria, as opposed to socioclimatic ones.
 Epilogue 
   639

Bibliography

Bentley, Jerry. “Cross-Cultural Interaction and Periodization in World

History.” American Historical Review 101 (1996): 749–70.
Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.
Brooke, John L. Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough
Journey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Brooks, George. Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western
Africa, 1000–1630. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.
Bulliett, Richard. Cotton, Climate and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment
in World History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Büntgen, Ulf, and Nicola Di Cosmo. “Climatic and Environmental Aspects of
the Mongol Withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 ce.” Scientific Reports 6
(2016): 25606.
Campbell, Bruce. The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the
Late-Medieval World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Ellenblum, Ronnie. The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate
Changes and the Decline of the East, 950–1072. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012.
Kelly, Joan. “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” In Becoming Visible: Women in
European History, edited by Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, 137–63.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
Lieberman, Victor. Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context,
c.800–1830. Vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the
Seventeenth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
Glossary

Most technical terms in this volume, including terms borrowed from (paleo)clima-
tology and meteorology, will be defined as they appear in the text of the chapters.
The following list is intended only to distinguish the way that common terms are
typically used in historical climatology and climate history, especially when those
terms may have different meanings in other fields.

Adaptation: the adjustment of human or natural systems over time to local

climates, climate variability, or climatic change. In human systems, adapta-
tion is often an active process, not merely reactive to climate impacts (see
impacts). The capacity to change cultural strategies usually leaves a variety of
options in proactive or reactive human adaptation. Hence, adaptation is not
mechanistic (see determinism)
Archives of Nature: see paleoclimatology
Archives of Societies: see historical climatology
Calibration: a statistical procedure that converts direct or indirect (proxy)
documentary evidence about weather and climate into meteorological units,
such as degrees Celsius or millimeters of precipitation
Climate: “Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather,
or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and
variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from
months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for averag-
ing these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological
Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables
such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is
the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.” (IPCC,
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_
FINAL_Glossary.pdf)
Climate Anomaly: the difference between average climate (over a period of
years or decades) and the climate during a particular month or season

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S. White et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History,
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642 Glossary

Climate Change: a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on

Earth; a modification in the statistics of the weather
Climate Determinism: see determinism
Climate Forcing: a driver of climate change, such as solar irradiance, atmo-
spheric aerosols (e.g., from volcanic sulfates or industrial output), surface
reflectivity, or natural or human-induced changes in atmospheric green-
house gas concentrations. Forcings are categorized as either natural or man-
made (anthropogenic). Their relative influence is calculated and modeled as
radiative forcing, i.e., the difference of sunlight (insolation) absorbed by
the Earth and long-wave radiation reflected back to space (measured in
watts per square meter, wm−2)
Climate History: the investigation of past weather and climate and their role in
human history, usually (but not always) combining methods and insights from
conventional historical research, historical climatology, and paleoclimatology
Climate Impact(s): see impact(s)
Climate System: “The climate system is the highly complex system consisting
of five major components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere,
the lithosphere, and the biosphere and the interactions between them. The
climate system evolves in time under the influence of its own internal dynam-
ics and because of external forcings (see climate forcing)” (IPCC)
Climate Variability: short-term or medium-term variations in climate, or the
extent to which those variations depart from long-term averages. In histori-
cal climatology, the term may encompass extreme events (such as hail
storms), persistent periods (such as droughts), or even little ages (such as
the Little Ice Age), depending on context
Determinism: the reduction of human–climate interactions to linear causal
chains that neglect historical contingency and human agency, including
adaptability (see adaptation)
Drought: a period of below-average precipitation in a given region, resulting
in prolonged shortages in its water supply; the term includes:
–– agricultural drought: a deficiency of soil moisture that affects agricul-
tural activities, whether due to an extended period of below-average pre-
cipitation, above-average temperatures, erosion, or poorly planned
agricultural endeavors
–– hydrological drought: a shortage of water reserves available in sources
such as aquifers, lakes, and reservoirs; like agricultural drought, this can
be triggered by more than just a loss of rainfall
–– meteorological drought: a prolonged period with less than average
precipitation
Environmental History: an interdisciplinary subfield of history that investi-
gates: (1) the past impact of human activities on the environment, (2) the
impact of environmental factors on human history, and (3) the history of
ideas and politics related to the environment
Forcing: see climate forcing
 Glossary 
   643

Glacier Fluctuations: a change in mass of a glacier resulting from the balance

between accumulation (gain of ice and snow) and ablation (loss of ice and
snow); these changes include:
–– advance: an increase in the length of a glacier compared to a previous
point in time; as ice in a glacier is always moving forward, a glacier’s ter-
minus advances when less ice is lost due to melting and/or calving than
the amount of yearly accumulation
–– retreat: a decrease in the length of a glacier compared to a previous point
in time; as ice in a glacier is always moving forward, its terminus retreats
when more ice is lost at the terminus to melting and/or calving than
reaches the terminus
Historical Climatology: the reconstruction of past climates and weather from
physical and written sources left by humans, or what this volume calls “the
archives of societies”
Historical Hydrology: the reconstruction of run-off conditions as well as
extreme hydrological events such as floods, ice damming, and hydrological
droughts (see drought) for the period before modern hydrological
networks
Homogenization: the detection and removal of non-climatological breaks or
trends in a time series of climatic or weather data, such as early instrumental
records or grape harvest dates; a perfectly homogenized series reflects only
climate variability, free from artificial influences such as changes in instru-
ments or procedures for recording measurements
Impact(s): effects of climate change, climate variability, and meteorological or
climatological extremes on natural and human systems. Climate historians
generally focus on the latter, i.e., the effects that weather and climate have
on lives, livelihoods, health, economies, societies, and cultures
Little Ice Age (LIA): a period of climatic cooling occurring between the late
thirteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, the precise definition of which
remains contested. The LIA may be identified specifically with: Northern
Hemisphere or global cooling between the Medieval Climate Anomaly
[q.v.] and the onset of anthropogenic global warming; the period of maxi-
mum global or Northern Hemisphere cooling between around 1560 and
1710 ce; or the maximum advance of glaciers (global or Northern
Hemisphere only) during the late Holocene
Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA): a time of warm climate in the North
Atlantic region c. 950–1250 ce, possibly related to other climate events in
other parts of the world, including China. The warmest period of the last
2000 years prior to the twentieth century in the Northern Hemisphere very
likely occurred between 950 and 1100; possible causes of the Medieval
Warm Period include increased solar activity, decreased volcanic activity, and
changes to ocean circulation
Medieval Warm Period (MWP): see Medieval Climate Anomaly
644 Glossary

Paleoclimatology: the statistical reconstruction of past climates from physical

sources left by natural processes, or what this volume calls “the archives of
nature”
Phenology: recurring natural processes whose characteristics and timing can
be used to help reconstruct climate and weather patterns, including:
–– plant phenology: plant life-cycle events such as flowering and fruit
maturity
–– agricultural phenology: the dates of recurrent agricultural work, such as
planting and harvesting
–– animal phenology: the seasonal appearance of animals such as frogs and
migratory birds
–– ice and snow phenology: the seasonal formation and melting of ice
bodies and snow-cover
Principle of Stationarity: in historical climatology, the assumption that a cli-
mate proxy bears the same relation to some climate variable in the
­pre-­instrumental past as in the period of modern instrumental measure-
ments (i.e., the period used for calibration [q.v.])
Proxies: indirect representations of past climate, such as the width of tree rings
or the dates of grape harvests
Resilience: the capacity of social systems, economies, and cultures to cope with
or recover from climate change, (natural) hazards, and extremes in ways that
maintain their essential functioning
Resolution: temporal and/or spatial density of available data. Resolution is
higher where the (temporal or spatial) distance between data points is
smaller. For example, thermometer readings taken every day could provide
temperature data at daily resolution, while yearly growth rings in trees could
provide temperature or precipitation data at annual resolution
Transfer Function: a statistical relationship between a measurement of a proxy
and some climate variable or variables
Vulnerability: the extent to which human systems are exposed to climate vari-
ability and extremes and may experience harm or damage; also a lack of
capacity to adapt or cope (see adaptation and resilience)
Weather: atmospheric conditions during time periods of less than a year, typi-
cally within a day, but in some cases, for weeks months or seasons (as
captured by the term “Grosswetterlagen” in German)
 Index1

A Almanacs, 54, 55, 267, 271, 300

Abbe, Cleveland, 312 Alps, 6, 94, 147, 178, 252, 254, 266,
Acclimatization, 426–429 278, 280, 282, 340, 419, 455,
Account books, 39, 40, 72, 250 457–459, 553, 619
Adaptation, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14, 301, American Revolution, 298, 303–304
303, 331–333, 337, 343, 344, 346, Anasazi, see Ancestral Pueblo
387, 388, 390, 392, 394, 396, 402, Anatolia, 185, 204, 250, 282, 336, 340,
413, 428, 429, 432, 593, 597, 623 417
Aegean Sea, 184 Ancestral Pueblo, 336, 387, 420
Aerosols, 32, 142, 144, 148n3, 153, Angkor, 207, 336
155, 313, 324–326, 345, 370, 417, Angola, 226–228, 539, 540
423, 424, 462, 464, 466, 470, Anthropocene, 379, 401, 580, 584n47,
479n98, 521, 536, 542n26, 551 623, 637
Africa, 10, 24, 41, 72, 225–233, 358, Arabia, 204–205
360, 361, 362n7, 373, 376, 414, Aral Sea, 377
416, 417, 426, 435, 471, 472, Arctic Ocean, 76, 165, 267, 268, 280,
518, 536–541, 589, 595–597, 298, 310, 315, 322, 357, 389–390,
636, 637 464, 536, 552, 556
Agriculture, 2, 40, 71, 175, 184, 186, Argentina, 214, 216, 218–220
189, 196, 249, 254, 269, 278, 279, Aristotle, 566, 567, 573, 575, 582n4
281, 301, 316, 317, 325, 331–346, Army Signal Service (US), 310
346n4, 355, 357, 369–371, 373, Arrhenius, Svante, 150, 610
375, 377–380, 418–421, 429, 430, Asia, 10, 69, 176, 203–208, 282, 313,
469, 500, 508, 532–534, 552, 606, 316, 416, 431, 468, 471, 474, 507,
624n4 521, 579, 589
Ahlmann, Hans W., 609 Asian Brown Cloud (ABC), 150, 325
Alaska, 268, 316, 464 Assiniboine, 394
Albedo, 12, 25, 268, 322, 417 Astro-meteorology, 569, 573–575, 581
Algeria, 226–230, 481n151, 538, 594 Athapaskan, 391

1
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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646 INDEX

Atlantic Ocean, 24, 219, 266, 317, Bond cycle, 179

496 Botswana, 229, 540
Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions Breslau network, 88
over the Earth (ACRE), 131, 519, Bridge repairs, 39, 51, 72
595 Brittany, 501
Australia, 10, 25, 41, 149, 164, Broadside, 41, 51–53
237–239, 241, 242, 327, 343, Broecker, Wallace S., 620
345, 403n8, 416, 427, 431, Brückner, Eduard, 6, 312, 609
467, 518, 519, 531–534, 541, Brussels Maritime Convention, 310
596, 597 Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de, 428,
Austria, 39, 51, 72, 103, 104, 163, 580
185, 249, 252, 266, 268, 455, Burgundy, 248, 253
457, 521 Burkina Faso, 539
Azerbaijan, 507 Burma, 207, 431, 432, 592
Aztec, 38, 213, 214 Byzantine Empire, 247, 250, 255

B C
Bacon, Roger, 53 Cahuilla, 418
Baghdad, 518 Cairo (Egypt), 536, 537
Balkans, 247, 267, 282, 340 Calakmul, 473
Baltic Sea, 59, 340, 417, 521 California, 298, 302, 391, 392, 435,
Banaba, 400 452, 455
Bangladesh, 431 Callendar, Guy, 150, 610
Barcelona, 74, 75, 89 Cambodia, 207, 336
Barometer, 42, 83, 85, 86, 88, 275, Canada, 176, 178, 297, 298, 301, 310,
519 345, 447, 552, 556, 580, 638n1
Basra, 518 Canary Islands, 72
Bay of Bengal, 24, 417, 431, 523 Cape Verde Islands, 226, 228, 229,
Beijing, 191–193, 459 538
Belgium, 100, 120, 504, 521 Caribbean Sea, 35
Bengal famine, 344, 525 Carpathian Basin, 117, 123, 250, 553
Bergen School, 608, 611 Cattle, 241, 337, 339, 340, 357, 369,
Bergeron, Tor, 608 495, 499, 503, 504, 506–508, 520,
Bering Strait, 208 527, 529, 556
Bern Meteorological Network, 88 Cave deposits, see Speleothem
Biem, Marcin, 57 Central England Temperature Series, 71,
Biophysical climate impact factors, 125 85, 521
Bjerknes, Jacob, 591 Central European Temperature Series
Bjerknes, Vilhelm, 608, 610–612, (CEUT), 109, 122, 124, 276
624n40 Chaco Canyon, 392, 419, 420
Black Death, 267, 472, 481n149, 504, Chad, 228, 481n151, 538, 539
506, 508, 509 Chalisa famine, 525, 526, 530
Black Sea, 266, 274, 419 Charney, Jule Gregory, 152, 612, 614
Bodin, Jean, 573, 576, 577 Cherry blossom, 33, 205
Bogota, 215, 216 Chesapeake Bay, 391
Bohemia, 39, 59, 267, 503 Chihuahua, 396
Bolivia, 397 Chile, 216–219, 454
 INDEX
   647

China, 10, 33, 40, 42, 53, 58, 59, 76, Dendroclimatology, 109, 111, 448, 452,
189–199, 203–208, 266, 268, 297, 458, 459, 471
304, 337, 342–344, 359, 369–373, Denmark, 225, 267, 275, 340, 378, 507,
375, 376, 416, 419, 447, 451–456, 619
458, 459, 469, 470, 472, 473, 507, Deserts, 23, 34, 189, 297, 298, 316, 416
519, 521, 557, 634, 636, 638n1 Diaries, 30, 31, 38, 40, 42, 49, 52–59,
Chloroflourocarbons (CFCs), 325 119, 122, 190, 193, 205, 207, 225,
Cholera, 557 239, 270, 271, 299, 300, 534, 535,
Chookanedí, 390 594, 595
Chosun dynasty, 207 Disease, 8, 249, 269, 275, 298, 300,
Chronicles, 30, 31, 38, 41, 51, 53, 67, 331, 337, 340, 342, 344, 355–362,
93, 122, 204, 205, 207, 208, 363n24, 370, 378–380, 393, 394,
249–251, 269, 450, 451, 497, 498, 396, 427, 428, 469, 471–473,
501, 503–505, 507 503–508, 537, 540, 541, 592, 593,
Climate determinism, 6, 7, 186, 250, 597
284, 341, 589, 593, 597, 634 Divergence, 143, 185
Climate model, 134, 135, 141, 142, Dove, Heinrich Wilhelm, 312
144–147, 153, 324, 326, 388, 606, Drought, 12, 25, 37, 39, 41, 69, 75,
613–615, 617, 620 131, 132, 134, 164, 165, 178, 184,
Climate Model Intercomparison Project 186, 190, 191, 196, 198, 199, 204,
(CMIP), 144, 148n3 205, 207, 208, 213, 214, 217–220,
Climatic Research Unit (CRU), 7, 8, 225–233, 239, 241, 242, 249, 250,
271, 272, 519 259, 274, 281–283, 299–303,
Climatological Database for the World’s 315–317, 325–327, 332, 333,
Oceans (CLIWOC), 76, 595 335–340, 343–345, 355, 359, 360,
Colombia, 214–217, 274, 637 369–371, 373, 375, 376, 378, 379,
Colorado River, 395, 419, 618 387, 388, 391–400, 419–421, 430,
Columbian Exchange, 299, 380 431, 449–451, 459, 462, 469, 472,
Comanche, 393–395 473, 517–541, 556, 557, 591,
Constantinople, 247, 248, 450, 466 595–597, 635
Corals, 31, 33, 131, 165, 430, 522 Dust Bowl, 315, 345
Coriolis force, 23 Dutch East India Company, 76, 207
Cree, 394
Crete, 271, 282
Cuba, 216, 597 E
Cyprus, 271 Earth system model, 23, 142, 147, 617,
Cysat, Renward, 279, 338 618, 622
Czech Republic, 39, 59, 72, 109, 117, East Anglia, 7, 253, 255
163, 267, 271 East India Company (EIC), 76, 205,
517–519, 523, 525, 540, 557, 590,
594, 595
D Economics, 2, 4–6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 53, 71,
Dahomey, 426, 539 116, 125, 160, 186, 199, 213, 225,
Dai Viet, 207 253, 256, 267, 268, 270, 276, 284,
Dalton minimum, 312, 423, 425, 552 303, 316, 326, 331, 337, 340–346,
Dansgaard-Oeschger events, 620 369–371, 374, 390, 393, 413, 414,
Dansgaards, Willi, 620 421, 423, 429, 433, 467, 468, 473,
Deep water formation, 24 506, 507, 537, 538, 552–554, 556,
Deforestation, 12, 579, 593, 594, 606 590, 596, 634, 635
648 INDEX

Ecosystem, 30, 154, 456 Fertile Crescent, 335, 418

Ecuador, 214, 216, 218, 397, 637 Fimbulwinter, 471, 481n140
Egypt, 53, 184, 186, 343, 370, 518, Finland, 60, 250, 270, 275, 453
536–541, 635, 637, 638n6 First GARP (Global Atmospheric
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Research Program) Global
25, 142, 143, 177, 205, 214, 218, Experiment” (FGGE), 321
220, 239, 336, 343, 345, 389, 397, First International Meteorological
399, 400, 402, 423, 425, 522, 523, Congress, 40, 122
530, 531, 534, 540, 541, 591, 596, Fisheries, 496
597, 637 FitzRoy, Robert, 312
El Salvador, 465 Flohn, Hermann, 54, 161, 608, 609
England, 39, 42, 43, 52, 71, 88, 249, Flood, 12, 37–42, 51, 53, 60, 72, 74,
251–255, 267, 268, 271, 272, 276, 75, 165, 184, 185, 190, 191,
277, 279–281, 314, 342, 362n10, 196, 207, 214, 227, 249, 270,
378, 379, 452, 481n149, 496, 497, 332, 355, 397, 431, 497,
500–505, 507, 508, 510n40, 519, 517–544, 595
521, 553, 556, 579, 582n12, Food
583n25, 593 entitlement, 344, 429, 501
Epidemic, 75, 213, 249, 269, 298, 357, scarcity, 394, 469
359, 360, 362, 375, 376, 378–380, security, 345, 348n52
394, 397, 426, 469, 521, 526, 551, Forest, 59, 99, 104, 189, 279, 327,
553 380, 391, 394, 417, 431, 466,
Equator, 22–24, 176, 448, 464, 465, 594
475n2, 478n81, 567–569, 574, Fourier, Joseph, 610
576, 606 France, 40–42, 51, 54, 58, 60, 68, 69,
Ergotism, 471, 504 76, 94, 163, 184, 248, 249, 251,
Eritrea, 417, 568 266–268, 280, 282, 298, 339,
Espy, James Pollard, 312 427, 428, 496, 499, 501, 502,
Estonia, 59, 73, 269, 270, 272, 340, 507, 518, 521, 580, 593, 613,
471, 481n145, 521 619
Ethiopia, 326, 476n27 Franklin, Benjamin, 428, 521, 542n21,
Eudoxos, 566 579, 584n41
Europe, 8, 41, 49, 68, 84, 89, 100, Freezing dates, 60, 72, 109
116, 132, 144, 149, 189, 218, French Alps, 271
247, 265–287, 297, 309–318, French Revolution, 68, 267, 268, 369,
326, 331, 359, 370, 416, 427, 518, 552, 597
459, 468, 470, 495, 519, 552,
573, 609, 634
Exner, Felix, 312 G
Extinction, 417 Galileo, 84, 85, 164
Galton, Francis, 312
Gambia, 538
F Gazette, 74, 190–192, 197, 594
Famine, 8, 125, 184, 207, 213, 225, General circulation model (GCM), 135,
241, 255, 269, 303, 331, 359, 613–615, 617, 621
370, 393, 419, 451, 498, Geology, 159, 590, 619
517–544, 551 George C. Marshall Institute, 150–152,
Ferrel Cell, 23 156, 159, 160
 INDEX
   649

Germany, 52, 54, 56, 58, 69, 74, 104, H

109, 117, 122, 123, 161, 163, 249, Hadley Cell, 22, 23, 327, 552
266–268, 270, 279, 342, 452, 503, Hall statt solar cycle, 179
518, 521, 556, 580, 613 Han dynasty, 189, 190
Ghana, 226, 481n151, 539 Hann, Julius von, 312, 591, 606, 607,
Gibbon, Edward, 6, 183, 184, 579, 610
580 Hansen, James E., 615, 616
Glacier des Bois, 552 Hay, 339, 499, 504, 553
Glaciers, 28, 41, 42, 60, 93, 94, 176, High-water marks, 30, 42, 51, 74
178, 184, 218–219, 268, 279, 282, Himalayas, 24, 203, 208
313, 315, 322, 338, 389, 398, 399, Hipparchus, 566, 582
552, 619 Hippocrates, 566, 575, 577, 582, 583
Glaciology, 93–96, 389, 619 Hohokam, 359, 392
history of, 93–96, 389 Holocene, 11, 93, 175–181, 268, 332,
Global Climate Observing System, 321 334, 335, 357, 414, 418, 456, 457,
Global warming, 1, 7, 10–11, 118, 636
149–168, 181, 199, 268, 282, 283, Holocene Thermal Maximum, 176
309, 312, 321–328, 332, 334, 337, Holy Roman Empire, 248, 267, 268
338, 344–346, 348, 356, 361, 369, Homogenization, 30, 87, 89, 99–105,
373, 380, 389, 390, 397, 398, 401, 239, 565
403n8, 413, 420, 429–433, Huaynaputina eruption, 274, 282, 302
438n87, 565, 580, 598, 610, 613, Hudson Bay, 552
615 Hudson, Henry, 62n48, 301, 310, 394
Grain harvest dates, 39, 59, 69, 71, 253 Humboldt, Alexander von, 312, 573,
Great Basin, 457 578, 582, 583, 591, 593, 606,
Great Famine, 255, 279, 337, 362n10, 623n3, 623n4
495, 496, 504, 530, 535 Hungary, 39, 123, 248, 250, 255, 267,
Great Lakes, 298 268, 270, 521, 553
Great Plains, 298, 304, 315, 316, 345, Hurricane Katrina, 433, 638
389, 393 Hurricanes, 218, 301, 322, 403n7, 427,
Greece, 184, 579 433, 438n85, 595–597, 638
Greenhouse gas, 21, 25, 26, 142, Hydrology, 37, 60, 473
150–153, 159, 161, 164, 165, 177,
312, 322, 324, 326, 380, 422, 424,
430, 521, 637 I
Greenland, 132, 165, 179, 184, 185, Iberia, 54, 266
254, 267, 272, 315, 322, 332, 415, Ice core, 185, 402, 415, 447–449,
416, 461, 463, 465, 496, 520, 552, 462–467, 475n7, 479n98, 496,
556, 579, 619, 620 524, 619–620, 622
Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP), Iceland, 94, 248, 250, 251, 254, 255,
416, 620 266–268, 270, 272, 274–276, 279,
Grindelwald glacier, 94, 96n3, 279, 280, 496, 518, 520, 536, 537, 540,
459 552
Guanajuato, 396 Inca, 214, 397
Guiana, 593 India, 25, 41, 42, 76, 86, 203, 205, 206,
Guinea, 416, 464 417, 431, 432, 451, 517–519,
Guinea Coast, 226–228, 232, 538–541 522–526, 528, 540, 541, 557, 590,
Gulf of Mexico, 298, 299, 301 592, 594, 595, 597, 636
650 INDEX

Indian Meteorological Department, Jing Shi Zi Ji, 190

203 Juniper, 456
Indian Ocean, 24, 325, 326, 417, 430, Justinian, 186, 359, 450, 469
519, 536, 557, 595, 637, 638 Justinianic Plague, 471–473, 481n146,
Indonesia, 203, 204, 207, 327, 417, 481n150
480n123, 596
Instrument, 1, 42, 50, 56, 83–90, 94,
99–105, 272, 401, 541n4, 565, K
590, 591, 608, 617, 620 Kalm, Pehr, 579
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Kaskaskia, 393
Change (IPCC), 11, 150, 157, Keeling, Charles D., 613
165n4, 268, 368, 615 Kellogg, William W., 613–615, 625n53,
International Meteorological Committee, 625n54
83, 89 Kenya, 228, 376, 481n151
International Meteorological Congress, Kesähalla, 275
40, 122, 310 Kirwan, Richard, 40
International Surface Pressure Databank Köppen, Wladimir, 204, 312, 591,
(ISBD), 311 606–610, 624n10–624n14,
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), 624n16
176, 177, 179, 180, 336, 343 Korea, 86, 204, 205, 207, 451, 452,
Inuit, 390 468, 470
Iran, 42, 338, 450, 472 Kuroshio Current, 24
Iraq, 204, 518
Ireland, 269, 272, 280, 422, 452, 471,
497, 502, 505, 507, 553, 556 L
Irish Potato Famine (an Gorta Mór), Labrador, 521
504 Lakagígar eruption, 276, 303, 425, 520,
Iron Age, 184, 637 521, 536, 537
Irrigation, 344, 419, 594 Lake
Israel, 416, 638n1 Edward, 228
Italy, 84, 100, 104, 117, 248, 251, 255, Rukwa, 539
266, 267, 271, 272, 281, 282, Tanganyika, 228, 539
285n39, 302, 339, 340, 419, 428, Turkana, 228
450, 466, 497, 500, 507 Van, 185
Victoria, 228, 229, 237
Lamb, Horace Hubert, 7, 8, 12,
J 14n11, 14n13, 15n26, 61n19,
Jamaica, 428, 429, 522 116, 127n5, 248, 249, 256n6,
Jamestown, 298, 302 256n8, 256n24, 271, 279,
Japan, 10, 33, 41, 53, 72, 73, 152, 285n44, 286n91, 312, 369, 377,
203–207, 343, 344, 452, 465, 381n5, 381n32, 624n38
470, 474, 518, 534–536, 541, La Nina, 177, 179, 241, 242, 303, 327,
557, 613 400, 423, 521–523, 530, 531, 540,
Jesuits, 220n9 541, 597
Jet stream, 176, 179, 279, 298, 536, Last Glacial Maximum, 417
552, 608 Latvia, 521
Jianghuai, 196–199 Legumes, 498, 503, 507, 508,
Jiangnan, 196–199 509n22
 INDEX
   651

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, 6–9, 14n7, Medieval Climate Anomaly, 145, 146,
14n9, 44n19, 68, 78n3, 78n29, 181, 184, 195, 248, 495, 636
96n6, 217, 248, 256n7, 271, 283, Medieval Warm Period, 7, 9, 248, 254,
286n87, 286n94, 287n123, 312 643
Lesotho, 595 Mediterranean, 39, 72, 123, 176,
Levant, 178, 184, 185, 416, 637, 638n6 183–187, 248, 250, 266, 267, 271,
Lithuania, 269, 507 273, 274, 278, 281–283, 298, 371,
Little Ice Age (LIA), 7, 13, 42, 60, 71, 449, 464–467, 496
93, 122, 125, 126, 145, 181, 184, Meiyu, 197
185, 194, 208, 217, 219, 248, 268, Memorials, 191
269, 301, 309, 312, 331, 338, 339, Mer de Glace, 42, 94, 95
344–346, 360, 362n12, 368, 388, Mesa Verde, 392, 419, 420
390, 413, 419, 421–426, 448, 496, Mesolithic, 334
637 Mesopotamia, 370
Little Ice Age-type Events (LIATES), Meteorology, 3, 12, 40, 58, 88, 121n11,
269 220n9, 280, 310, 526, 565, 569,
Liver fluke, 499, 505, 511n79 573–575, 589, 590, 606–608, 610,
Livres de raison, 40 617
Locusts, 191, 451, 526 Middle East, 10, 176, 327, 333, 335,
Logbook, 38, 39, 75–77, 218, 275, 301, 338, 345, 416, 418, 637
595 Mid-Holocene Transition, 178, 181
London, 85, 88, 272, 275, 504, 508, Milankovitch cycles, 175
523, 541n1, 553, 584n41, 613 Millennium Drought, 327
Louisiana, 298, 299, 301 Ming Dynasty, 190, 369
Lovelock, James E., 618, 625n65, Mississippi River, 298
625n66 Moche, 397
Low Countries, 8, 119, 120, 123, 124, Mojave, 391
126, 249, 251, 253, 255, 266, 502, Mold, 339
507 Mongolia, 370, 375, 507, 638n1
Monsoon, 24, 134, 176–179, 189, 197,
205, 206, 298, 313, 325, 326, 333,
M 335, 336, 343, 420, 431, 432, 523,
Madras, 517–519, 525–527, 529, 590, 536, 541, 552, 557, 608
595 Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas, 208, 522
Magnetisch en Meteorologisch Mont Blanc Massif, 552
Observatorium, 203 Montesquieu, Baron de, 575, 576, 580,
Maine, 298, 302, 303, 391, 556 583n26–583n28, 592
Malaria, 304, 357, 358, 360, 361, 378, Morocco, 226, 228, 230, 234n21, 538
473, 482n165 Mosquitoes, 358, 361, 378, 473, 500
Maliseet, 391 Mozambique, 540
Mandatory reporting, 76–78 Murrain, 499, 503, 505
Manorial records, 71 Muslims, 248, 369
Massachusetts, 300 Myanmar, 207, 431, 432
Maunder Minimum, 274, 303, 378
Maury, Matthew, 312
Maya, 213, 336, 359, 370, 387, 402, N
447, 461, 470, 471, 473 Namibia, 229, 481n151, 540
Medici network, 56, 88, 272 Natufian culture, 418
652 INDEX

Navaho (Diné), 395 P

Netherlands, 42, 52, 73, 76, 120n1, 203, Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), 196,
249, 266, 268, 271, 272, 342, 314
521 Pacific Ocean, 24, 218
Neutrals, 391 Pagan, 207
New England, 299–304, 313, 393, 422, Paintings, 41, 42, 93, 94, 218, 394, 417
556, 579 Pakistan, 327, 525
Newfoundland, 298, 521 Paleoclimatology, 2–4, 8, 12, 27–29,
New Mexico, 299, 302, 303, 419 109, 266, 283, 346, 449, 461, 468,
New Orleans, 428, 433, 438n85 471, 474, 481n151, 619–621
New South Wales (NSW), 237–242, 518, Palestine, 204
519, 522, 531, 596 Palynology, 41n145, 635
Newspaper, 38, 40, 41, 161, 163, 164, Pamphlet, 41, 51–53, 270, 271, 299,
214, 239, 270, 299–301, 310, 594, 300, 427
596 Papal States, 248
Newton, Isaac, 85, 90n8, 569, 582n12 Papua New Guinea, 416, 464
Nigeria, 228, 229, 481n151, 538 Paris, 58, 88, 164, 165, 272, 275–277,
Nilometer, 38 280, 281, 298, 499, 572, 580
North Africa, 204, 335, 357–359, 496, Patagonia, 477n49
538 Peat, 28, 29, 461
North America, 10, 24, 41, 69, 134, Pennsylvania, 422
176, 178, 208, 297–304, 309–318, Persia, 451, 507
334, 336, 360, 387, 389–395, 422, Peru, 25, 214, 217–219, 274, 397, 399,
423, 426–428, 430, 467, 522, 552, 459, 637
556, 578, 579, 582n12, 634 Pfister, Chrstian, 1–15, 27–35, 37–45,
North Atlantic Oscillation, 72, 274, 313, 49–62, 67–79, 111, 115–127,
314, 326, 496, 521, 637 149–168, 220, 249, 265–287,
North China Plain, 196–199 331–348, 551–559
North Sea, 377, 521 Pfister indices, 117
Norway, 41, 42, 94, 254, 267, 270, 275, Phenology, 49, 58, 68, 191, 249
497, 521 Philippines, 207, 218, 313, 593, 595
Norwich, 7, 59 Phillips, Norman, 612, 613
Nova Scotia, 428, 429 Photographs, 41, 52, 93–95, 622
Pigs, 335, 356, 503, 531
Plague, 68, 191, 213, 303, 338, 340,
O 359, 360, 380, 451, 471–473, 508,
Oaxaca, 396 537–539, 541
Oeschger, Hans, 161, 620 Pleistocene, 175, 332, 414, 415, 417,
Ogilvie, Astrid E. J., 7, 60n2, 249, 250, 435
265–287, 517–544 Poland, 56, 117, 123, 266–269, 278,
Ohio, 298, 556 283, 423, 497, 503
Omiwatari, 72, 73, 207 Polar, 23, 176, 267, 274, 278, 313, 430,
O’odham, 392 461–466, 469, 534, 556, 557, 567,
Ottoman Empire, 78, 247, 267, 268, 568, 573, 576, 611
342, 371 Pollen, 28, 30, 31, 301, 402, 633
“Out of Africa,” 414, 416 Pollution, 59, 60, 345, 361, 396
Oxygen isotopes, 28, 29, 33, 185, 452, Polynesia, 400
459, 461–463, 620 Portugal, 214, 272, 426, 556
Ozone, 154, 321, 322, 324, 325 Preboreal Oscillation, 176
 INDEX
   653

Precipitation, see Rain; Rainfall; Rinderpest, 340, 357, 495, 499, 506, 507
Variability Roanoke, 392
“Primitive migration,” 432, 438n80 Rocky Mountains, 298, 316
Pro pluvia, see Rogation Rogation, 39, 72, 75, 272, 282
Pro serenitate, see Rogation Roman Empire, 186, 204, 247, 338
Prussia, 268, 423 Romania, 123
Pseudo-proxy, 136, 253 Roman Warm Period/Roman Climate
Ptolemy, 53, 567, 568, 570, 573 Optimum, 184
Pueblo, 302, 303, 336, 392, 393, 419 Rome, 184, 186, 248, 369, 450, 469,
Puerto Rico, 522 622
Pyrenees, 266, 282 Roxburgh, William, 517, 518, 523, 527
Royal Society (UK), 88, 160, 591
Russia, 43, 100, 255, 266–269, 282,
Q 283, 317, 327, 378, 453, 458
Qin dynasty, 189 Russian Central Physical Observatory,
Qing dynasty, 190–192 203
Quebec, 298–302, 304, 556, 580 Rwanda, 481n151
Rye, 58, 59, 69, 126, 471, 498, 504

R
Rabaul, 464 S
Radiosonde, 155, 321, 605, 608, 617, Sahara, 23, 176, 183, 240, 357, 378,
621 414, 416, 539, 594
Rain, 24, 39, 51, 53, 56, 69, 70, 74, 75, Sahel, 229–232, 317, 325–326, 345,
85, 87, 125, 176, 179, 192, 194, 360, 378, 538–541
214, 217, 218, 225, 230, 241, 242, Samalas eruption, 144, 268, 551
266, 279, 280, 282, 298, 335–337, Santer, Benjamin, 153, 155–157
339, 340, 343, 379, 397, 400, 420, Satellites, 154, 155, 321, 322, 605,
495, 497–501, 504, 505, 525–527, 615–617, 621, 622
529–534, 536, 539–541, 552, 553, Scandinavia, 250, 266, 275, 278, 315,
556, 557, 620 339, 417, 447, 459, 470, 471
Rainfall, 25, 30, 53, 54, 58, 72, 111, Scherhag, Richard, 608, 609
184, 197, 218, 219, 226, 227, Scotland, 251, 254, 267, 268, 339, 452,
229–231, 238–242, 250, 267, 272, 496, 497, 502, 507, 521, 553
282, 313, 358–360, 368, 373, 375, Sea ice, 28, 76, 267, 269, 270, 276, 279,
376, 397, 472, 517, 526, 527, 531, 280, 301, 322, 324, 325, 389, 390,
536, 538–541, 552, 566, 590, 593, 496, 520, 556
595, 596, 620 Sea level, 22, 23, 125, 162, 165, 271,
Rain gauge, 30, 83, 86–88, 103, 226, 274, 315, 324, 326, 334, 361, 399,
230, 399 415–418, 430, 431, 608
Records of Sunny or Rainy Days (Qing Sea Peoples, 184
Yu Lu), 192 Sedentism, 418
Records on Rainfall infiltration and Seine, 50
Snowfall (Yu Xue Fen Cun), 192, Senegambia, 227–229, 538
193, 195, 197 Sheep, 71, 241, 335, 337, 340, 395,
Red Sea, 417, 472 499, 503–506, 520, 531
Regional climate models, 147 Siberia, 203, 204, 208, 267, 507
Rhine, 51, 60 Sierra Leone, 429, 538, 592
Richardson, Lewis Fry, 611 Si Ku Quan Shu, 190
654 INDEX

Simpson, George, 610 temperature, 59, 68, 69, 124, 207,

Sioux, 394 252, 255, 268, 278, 280, 281,
Slavery, 426–428, 591, 593 313, 419, 448, 456, 459–461,
Slave trade, 426–428, 434, 539 468, 534
Slovakia, 88, 123, 252, 521 Sunspots, 178, 184, 197, 303, 341
Slovenia, 103, 282 Sweden, 100, 225, 250, 268, 270, 272,
Smallpox, 304, 356, 358, 360, 394, 398, 452, 470, 475, 502, 613
520 Swiss Alps, 6, 147
Smithsonian Institution, 310, 312 Swiss Society of Natural Sciences, 557
Snow, 12, 28, 33, 39, 40, 42, 51, 54, 56, Switzerland, 39, 40, 42, 58, 60, 69, 88,
74, 101, 118, 176, 179, 191–194, 94, 103, 109, 118, 123, 125, 126,
197, 214, 278, 282, 300, 302, 303, 161, 249, 253, 266, 270, 276,
322, 326, 394, 417, 451, 497, 498, 278–281, 313, 342, 423, 459,
552, 556, 557, 619, 620 552–554, 556, 619, 620
Soil, 147, 192, 266, 316, 326, 340, 380, Sydney (Australia), 237, 238, 241, 519,
419, 428, 430, 497, 532, 533, 569, 531–534
577, 578, 594, 617 Syria, 204, 336, 368, 369, 376, 450,
Solar, 22, 23, 25, 33, 42, 43, 142, 144, 469, 472
151, 175–181, 184, 185, 199, 252,
253, 255, 268, 269, 273, 302, 312,
324, 332, 423–425, 464, 496, 500, T
551, 552, 557, 568, 574, 578, 617 Tallinn, 39, 73, 269, 272
Song dynasty, 191 Tambora eruption, 13, 312, 313, 342,
South Africa, 226, 228, 229, 539, 540 464, 551
Southeast Asia, 24, 204, 207, 595, 596 Tanzania, 228, 481n151
South-eastern Australia (SEA), 237–239, Tasmania, 237, 238, 241
241, 242, 531 Technology, 84, 147, 186, 299, 304,
South Eastern Australian Recent Climate 334, 343, 355, 391, 393, 432, 605,
History project (SEARCH), 613, 615, 621, 622
239–240, 242, 531, 595 Teleconnections, 25, 232, 522
Southern Oscillation, see El Niño-­ Telegraph, 310, 590
Southern Oscillation Tenmei famine, 534, 541
Spatial climate field reconstruction Thailand, 207
(CFR), 131–136 Thermohaline, 24, 176
Speleothem, 184, 459, 462, 466, 497, Thermometer, 30, 42, 83–85, 88, 519,
524, 634 533, 579
Spitsbergen, 315 Tibet (Tibetan Plateau), 268, 524, 557
Spörer Minimum, 255 Tithes, 72, 498
Stalagmites, see Speleothem Tiwanaku, 397
Stockholm, 39, 49, 73, 100, 122, 269 Tlaxcala, 396
Strabo, 566, 578 Toba eruption, 417
Stratigraphy, 33 Tokugawa, 343
Straw, 420, 499, 504 Tokyo, 203, 205, 465, 518, 534, 535
Sudan, 326, 368, 369, 373, 376, 539 Tokyo Meteorological Observatory, 203
Summer Torricelli, Evangelista, 84, 85, 86
monsoon, 24, 325, 536, 552, 557 Transatlantic migration, 421–423, 426
precipitation, 126, 279, 280, 496 Transfer function, 34, 107, 110
 INDEX
   655

Tree rings, 4, 29, 30, 33–34, 107, 116, 452, 459, 462, 463, 496, 521,
118, 122, 124, 131, 135, 185, 531, 534, 535, 595–597, 634
197, 203, 207, 208, 230, 250, Varves, 28, 29
272, 282, 301, 394, 395, 402, Venezuela, 214, 462, 593
419, 420, 448, 449, 452–459, Vesuvius, 184, 466, 479n100, 479n105
462, 463, 465, 466, 474, 522, Victoria (Australia), 237, 238, 241
524, 539, 552, 633, 634 Vienna, 40, 83, 104, 122, 152, 272,
Trelawny Maroons, 428, 429 591, 606
Trypanosomiasis, 358, 378 Vietnam, 207
Tunisia, 226, 228, 229, 450, 538, 592 Viking, 254, 332, 579
Turkey, 185, 247, 392, 419, 450 Viticulture, 184, 500
Tyndall, John, 150, 162, 610 Volcanoes
Typhoon, 207, 430, 523, 527, 528, 530, volcanic activity, 249, 276, 312, 324,
595 466, 520
Typhus, 8, 342, 360, 553 volcanic eruptions, 7, 25, 33, 134,
144, 178, 181, 185, 199, 254,
256, 268, 274, 302, 312, 322,
U 326, 327, 337, 338, 343, 346,
Uganda, 228 370, 419, 422, 423, 425, 449,
Ulster, 422, 503 452, 462, 464, 467, 474, 496,
United Kingdom, 7, 49, 59, 76, 160, 520, 521, 540, 541n4, 551,
162, 203, 268, 272, 312 557
United Nations, 83, 152, 159, 429, 431, volcanology, 466
432, 617
United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC), W
152, 159, 164, 321 Wabanaki, 393
United States, 10, 150–152, 154, 155, Wages, 39, 69, 71, 72, 279, 341, 342,
159–161, 163–165, 297, 298, 310, 503
315–317, 327, 361, 380, 388, Wales, 237–239, 502, 505, 507, 518,
419, 425, 427, 453, 556, 613, 519, 531, 596
614, 622 Walker circulation, 324, 327
Warming, 1, 10, 26, 60, 99, 101, 104,
135, 151–154, 158, 176, 177, 179,
V 185, 199, 309, 312, 313, 315,
Valencia, 593 322, 324, 327, 334, 335, 344,
Vanuatu, 430 346, 355, 361, 373, 376, 399,
Varenius, Bernhard, 569 401, 418, 430, 464, 470, 521,
Variability, 1–3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 22, 25, 551, 609, 610, 615
53, 99, 104, 111, 116, 122–124, Washington, 150, 152, 160
134, 135, 142–144, 147, 151, Water level, 87
178, 185, 205–208, 217, 219, Weather diaries, 40–41, 49, 52–58, 119,
230, 237, 239, 241, 242, 250, 122, 207, 270, 299, 300, 534
254, 255, 269, 273–275, 278–280, West Africa, 177, 226, 229, 378, 538,
282, 298, 301–303, 313, 322, 637
325, 326, 333, 334, 341, 345, West African Monsoon, 326
346, 368, 418, 421–423, 434, West Nile virus, 361
656 INDEX

Wolf Minimum, 496 Younger Dryas, 175, 176, 181, 334,

World Meteorological Organization 335, 418
(WMO), 59, 83, 89, 312, 368, 613, Yuan dynasty, 634
614 Yucatán, 218, 336, 462
World Weather Records, 312 Yunnan, 557

Y Z
Yangtze River, 189, 192, 195, 197, 451, Zambia, 540
469 Zimbabwe, 229, 540
Yersinia pestis, see Plague Zimmermann, Eberhard August
Yokut, 391 Wilhelm, 577