Climate in Nordic historical research – a research review and future perspectives

This article assesses the development and current state of climate history research conducted in the five Nordic countries and Estonia. The possible societal impacts of past climatic changes already interested a handful of Nordic historians in the early twentieth century, but the lack of data on past climate fluctuations constrained scholarship in this field until recently. The data availability has increased fundamentally over the past decades due to the advances of palaeoclimatology. However, these advances have created new challenges, related to the ability to utilize data from the natural sciences in historical research as well as acquiring a basic knowledge on climatology. In many European countries, climate history has established itself as a strong academic subfield and consequently has created approaches as to how to overcome some main pitfalls, like climate determinism, related to the early works in the field. These epistemological advances are just beginning to gain a foothold in Nordic historical research. Thus, the article concludes with ten recommendations to improve future research in Nordic climate history

Climate and society in European history

This article evaluates 165 studies from various disciplines, published between 2000 and 2019, which in different ways link past climate variability and change to human history in medieval and early modern Europe (here, c. 700–1815 CE). Within this review, we focus on the identification and interpretation of causal links between changes in climate and in human societies. A revised climate–society impact order model of historical climate–society interactions is presented and applied to structure the findings of the past 20 years' scholarship. Despite considerable progress in research about past climate–society relations, partly expedited by new palaeoclimate data, we identify limitations to knowledge, including geographical biases, a disproportional attention to extremely cold periods, and a focus on crises. Furthermore, recent scholarship shows that the limitations with particular disciplinary approaches can be successfully overcome through interdisciplinary collaborations. We conclude the article by proposing recommendations for future directions of research in the climatic change–human history nexus

Crop yield responses to temperature fluctuations in 19th century Finland : provincial variation in relation to climate and tree-rings

Past agricultural responses to climate variability can helps us to better understand the current and future impacts of climate change on agricultural production. We studied rye (Secale cereale) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) yield responses to temperature fluctuations in Finland during the period 1861–1913. Our analyses demonstrate the high sensitivity of non-industrialised northern agriculture to temperature anomalies. We found evidence of a strong relationship between monthly and seasonal mean temperatures and crop yields. In particular, high spring temperatures were associated with higher yields. Additionally, we tested temperature-sensitive tree-ring series for their value in indicating previous agricultural outputs. The results imply that tree-ring proxies (in particular, maximum latewood density) can provide novel material for studies of historical periods and locations where instrumentally measured climate and harvest data are not available

New perspectives on historical climatology

Historical climatology is an interdisciplinary field of research encompassing the reconstruction of past climate and weather from written sources and artifacts, as well the application of climate reconstructions to the study of human history. Historical climatology has grown in recent years, and this growth has brought both insights and challenges. Research has expanded into new regions and periods and diversified into novel sources, methods, and interdisciplinary collaborations. At the same time, the heterogeneity of evidence and approaches has complicated the integration of multiple climate and weather reconstructions. Moreover, the diversity of disciplinary perspectives, terminologies, and perspectives can create miscommunication among scholars in the field, particularly on issues of historical knowledge and causation. Innovative approaches in the field, including Bayesian methods, may help address these challenges.This article is categorized under:Climate, History, Society, Culture > Disciplinary PerspectivesClimate, History, Society, Culture > World Historical PerspectivesAssessing Impacts of Climate Change > Representing UncertaintyThe Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and PracticePeer reviewe

The 1600 CE Huaynaputina eruption as a possible trigger for persistent cooling in the North Atlantic region

Paleoclimate reconstructions have identified a period of exceptional summer and winter cooling in the North Atlantic region following the eruption of the tropical volcano Huaynaputina (Peru) in 1600 CE. A previous study based on numerical climate simulations has indicated a potential mechanism for the persistent cooling in a slowdown of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG) and consequent ocean–atmosphere feedbacks. To examine whether this mechanism could have been triggered by the Huaynaputina eruption, this study compares the simulations used in the previous study both with and without volcanic forcing and this SPG shift to reconstructions from annual proxies in natural archives and historical written records as well as contemporary historical observations of relevant climate and environmental conditions. These reconstructions and observations demonstrate patterns of cooling and sea-ice expansion consistent with, but not indicative of, an eruption trigger for the proposed SPG slowdown mechanism. The results point to possible improvements in future model–data comparison studies utilizing historical written records. Moreover, we consider historical societal impacts and adaptations associated with the reconstructed climatic and environmental anomalies.This research has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. P2BEP1_175214), the Swiss National Science Foundation through the SNSF Sinergia CALDERA project (grant no. CRSII5_183571), the Spanish Sci-ence and Innovation Ministry (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación) through the STREAM project (grant no. PID2020-114746GBI00), Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS and the FWO under the Excellence of Science (EOS) program through the PARAMOUR project (grant no. O0100718F, EOS ID no. 30454083), and the Georgetown Environment Initiative.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Buried in water, burdened by nature-Resilience carried the Iron Age people through Fimbulvinter

Levanluhta is a unique archaeological site with the remains of nearly a hundred Iron Age individuals found from a water burial in Ostrobothnia, Finland. The strongest climatic downturn of the Common Era, resembling the great Fimbulvinter in Norse mythology, hit these people during the 6th century AD. This study establishes chronological, dietary, and livelihood synthesis on this population based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic and radiocarbon analyses on human remains, supported by multidisciplinary evidence. Extraordinarily broad stable isotopic distribution is observed, indicating three subgroups with distinct dietary habits spanning four centuries. This emphasizes the versatile livelihoods practiced at this boundary of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. While the impact of the prolonged cold darkness of the 6th century was devastating for European communities relying on cultivation, the broad range of livelihoods provided resilience for the Levanluhta people to overcome the abrupt climatic decline.Peer reviewe

Buried in water, burdened by nature – Resilience carried the Iron Age people through Fimbulvinter

Levänluhta is a unique archaeological site with the remains of nearly a hundred Iron Age individuals found from a water burial in Ostrobothnia, Finland. The strongest climatic downturn of the Common Era, resembling the great Fimbulvinter in Norse mythology, hit these people during the 6th century AD. This study establishes chronological, dietary, and livelihood synthesis on this population based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic and radiocarbon analyses on human remains, supported by multidisciplinary evidence. Extraordinarily broad stable isotopic distribution is observed, indicating three subgroups with distinct dietary habits spanning four centuries. This emphasizes the versatile livelihoods practiced at this boundary of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. While the impact of the prolonged cold darkness of the 6th century was devastating for European communities relying on cultivation, the broad range of livelihoods provided resilience for the Levänluhta people to overcome the abrupt climatic decline

The 1430s: a cold period of extraordinary internal climate variability during the early Spörer Minimum with social and economic impacts in north-western and central Europe

Changes in climate affected human societies throughout the last millennium. While European cold periods in the 17th and 18th century have been assessed in detail, earlier cold periods received much less attention due to sparse information available. New evidence from proxy archives, historical documentary sources and climate model simulations permit us to provide an interdisciplinary, systematic assessment of an exceptionally cold period in the 15th century. Our assessment includes the role of internal, unforced climate variability and external forcing in shaping extreme climatic conditions and the impacts on and responses of the medieval society in north-western and central Europe. Climate reconstructions from a multitude of natural and anthropogenic archives indicate that the 1430s were the coldest decade in north-western and central Europe in the 15th century. This decade is characterised by cold winters and average to warm summers resulting in a strong seasonal cycle in temperature. Results from comprehensive climate models indicate consistently that these conditions occurred by chance due to the partly chaotic internal variability within the climate system. External forcing like volcanic eruptions tends to reduce simulated temperature seasonality and cannot explain the reconstructions. The strong seasonal cycle in temperature reduced food production and led to increasing food prices, a subsistence crisis and a famine in parts of Europe. Societies were not prepared to cope with failing markets and interrupted trade routes. In response to the crisis, authorities implemented numerous measures of supply policy and adaptation such as the installation of grain storage capacities to be prepared for future food production shortfalls