Journal article
2500 years of European climate variability and human susceptibility.
- Büntgen U Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland. buentgen@wsl.ch
- Tegel W
- Nicolussi K
- McCormick M
- Frank D
- Trouet V
- Kaplan JO
- Herzig F
- Heussner KU
- Wanner H
- Luterbacher J
- Esper J
- 2011-01-15
Published in:
- Science (New York, N.Y.). - 2011
Agriculture
Civilization
Climate Change
Climatic Processes
Epidemics
Europe
History, 15th Century
History, 16th Century
History, 17th Century
History, 18th Century
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century
History, 21st Century
History, Ancient
History, Medieval
Humans
Quercus
Seasons
Temperature
Trees
English
Climate variations influenced the agricultural productivity, health risk, and conflict level of preindustrial societies. Discrimination between environmental and anthropogenic impacts on past civilizations, however, remains difficult because of the paucity of high-resolution paleoclimatic evidence. We present tree ring-based reconstructions of central European summer precipitation and temperature variability over the past 2500 years. Recent warming is unprecedented, but modern hydroclimatic variations may have at times been exceeded in magnitude and duration. Wet and warm summers occurred during periods of Roman and medieval prosperity. Increased climate variability from ~250 to 600 C.E. coincided with the demise of the western Roman Empire and the turmoil of the Migration Period. Such historical data may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- closed
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1126/science.1197175
- PMID 21233349
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/39480
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