Journal ArticleDOI
Twilight of the gods? The ‘dust veil event’ of AD 536 in critical perspective
Bo Gräslund,Neil Price +1 more
TLDR
In this article, the popular notion of social collapse consequent on natural catastrophe is elegantly disentangled in a study of the dark summer of AD 536 leaving aside the question of its cause, the authors show there is good scientific evidence for a climatic downturn, contemporary with archaeological evidence for widespread disruption of settlement and population displacement in the northern latitudes.Abstract:
The popular notion of social collapse consequent on natural catastrophe is here elegantly disentangled in a study of the dark summer of AD 536 Leaving aside the question of its cause, the authors show there is good scientific evidence for a climatic downturn, contemporary with good archaeological evidence for widespread disruption of settlement and population displacement in the northern latitudes. They then navigate through the shifting shadows of myth, and emerge with a welcome prize: strong circumstantial reasons for recognising that this widespread horror, like so many others, did leave its imprint on Scandinavian poetry and sculpture.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Climatic and societal impacts of a volcanic double event at the dawn of the Middle Ages
Matthew Toohey,Matthew Toohey,Kirstin Krüger,Michael Sigl,Michael Sigl,Frode Stordal,Henrik Svensen +6 more
TL;DR: Using a coupled aerosol-climate model, with eruption parameters constrained by recently re-dated ice core records and historical observations of the aerosol cloud, the authors reconstruct the radiative forcing resulting from a sequence of two major volcanic eruptions in 536 and 540 CE.
Journal ArticleDOI
Towards a rigorous understanding of societal responses to climate change
Dagomar Degroot,Kevin J. Anchukaitis,Martin Bauch,Jakob Burnham,Fred Carnegy,Jianxin Cui,Kathryn M. de Luna,Piotr Guzowski,George Hambrecht,Heli Huhtamaa,Heli Huhtamaa,Adam Izdebski,Adam Izdebski,Katrin Kleemann,Katrin Kleemann,Emma Moesswilde,Naresh Neupane,Timothy P. Newfield,Qing Pei,Elena Xoplaki,Natale A. Zappia +20 more
TL;DR: An interdisciplinary framework for uncovering climate-society interactions that emphasizes the mechanics by which climate change has influenced human history, and the uncertainties inherent in discerning that influence across different spatiotemporal scales is proposed.
MonographDOI
Waiting for the End of the World? : New Perspectives on Natural Disasters in Medieval Europe
Journal ArticleDOI
Towards a science of past disasters
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on volcanic eruptions and draw on matched case studies to illustrate the usefulness of a two-step, quasi case-control comparative method for examining vulnerability and impacts in the near and far fields of these eruptions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Volcanic dust veils from sixth century tree-ring isotopes linked to reduced irradiance, primary production and human health.
Samuli Helama,Laura Arppe,Joonas Uusitalo,Jari Holopainen,Hanna M. Mäkelä,Harri Mäkinen,Kari Mielikäinen,Pekka Nöjd,Raimo Sutinen,Jussi-Pekka Taavitsainen,Mauri Timonen,Markku Oinonen +11 more
TL;DR: This work offers a hypothesis that persistently low irradiance contributed to remarkably simultaneous outbreaks of famine and Justinianic plague in the eastern Roman Empire with adverse effects on crop production and photosynthesis of the vitamin D in human skin and thus, collectively, human health.
References
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Book
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
TL;DR: The Shock Doctrine as mentioned in this paper is one of the most popular non-fiction books of the year in the UK and the US, and it has been widely cited as the best book of all time.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
TL;DR: Klein this paper wrote: "Do you know what war in Iraq, hurricane Katrina, the recent Asian tsunami, 9/11 and the HIV/AIDS pandemic have caused?
Journal ArticleDOI
2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility
Ulf Büntgen,Ulf Büntgen,Willy Tegel,Kurt Nicolussi,Michael McCormick,David Frank,David Frank,Valerie Trouet,Valerie Trouet,Jed O. Kaplan,Franz Herzig,Karl Uwe Heussner,Heinz Wanner,Jürg Luterbacher,Jan Esper +14 more
TL;DR: Reconstruction of tree ring–based reconstructions of central European summer precipitation and temperature variability over the past 2500 years may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Fennoscandian summers from ad 500: temperature changes on short and long timescales
Keith R. Briffa,Philip Jones,Thomas Seip Bartholin,D. Eckstein,Fritz H. Schweingruber,Wibjörn Karlén,Pentti Zetterberg,M. Eronen +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show the results of spectral analyses of treering data from northern Sweden and show that only a few peaks in the spectra are consistently significant when the data are analyzed over a number of sub-periods.
Journal ArticleDOI
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or survive
TL;DR: Jared Diamond investigates the fate of past human societies and the lessons for our own future as mentioned in this paper, and investigates the history of human societies, and their history is described in detail.
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