Journal ArticleDOI
Weather compilations as a source of data for the reconstruction of european climate during the medieval period
W. T. Bell,A. E. J. Ogilvie +1 more
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In this article, the authors of these compilations were, for the most part, scientists, unfamiliar with historical methodology and techniques of source analysis, and were either unaware of the problematic character of their sources, or ignorant of the techniques developed by historians for dealing with them.Abstract:
Research into the climate of the Middle Ages has relied heavily upon data provided by compilations of references to weather and related phenomena extracted from a variety of historical texts and source documents. These compilations, produced from 1858 onwards, have generally neglected the essential need for source validation. While a considerable amount of reliable and useful information about medieval climate is to be found in documentary sources, it occurs together with material which is spurious, inaccurate, or whose reliability cannot be properly authenticated. Because they were, for the most part, scientists, unfamiliar with historical methodology and techniques of source analysis, the authors of the compilations were either unaware of the problematic character of their sources, or ignorant of the techniques developed by historians for dealing with them. The material included in the compilations must be regarded as suspect until its authenticity has been checked by validating individual sources. Unless this is done, a misleading picture of the climate of the Middle Ages may emerge from uncritical use of the compilations. In particular, the climate may appear to have been more extreme than authentic sources alone would suggest.read more
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Climate over past millennia
Philip Jones,Michael E. Mann +1 more
TL;DR: This paper reviewed evidence for climate change over the past several millennia from instrumental and high-resolution climate "proxy" data sources and climate modeling studies and concluded that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric and, likely, global scales.
Journal ArticleDOI
The evolution of climate over the last millennium.
TL;DR: Present knowledge of changes in temperatures and two major circulation features—El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillations (NAO)—over much of the last 1000 years are reviewed, mainly on the basis of high-resolution paleoclimate records.
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Was There a ‘Medieval Warm Period’, and if so, Where and When?
Malcolm K. Hughes,Henry F. Diaz +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a number of lines of evidence are considered, including climate sensitive tree rings, documentary sources, and montane glaciers, in order to evaluate whether it is reasonable to conclude that climate in medieval times was indeed warmer than the climate of more recent times.
Journal ArticleDOI
Historical Climatology in Europe - the State of the Art
TL;DR: The state of European research in historical climatology is discussed in detail in this paper, where the main focus concentrates on data, methods, definitions of the "Medieval Warm Period" and the "Little Ice Age", synoptic interpretation of past climates, climatic anomalies and natural disasters, and the vulnerability of economies and societies to climate as well as images and social representations of past weather and climate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era
Edward R. Cook,Richard Seager,Yochanan Kushnir,Keith R. Briffa,Ulf Büntgen,David Frank,Paul J. Krusic,Willy Tegel,Gerard van der Schrier,Laia Andreu-Hayles,Michael Baillie,Claudia Baittinger,Niels Bleicher,Niels Bonde,David Brown,Marco Carrer,Richard J. Cooper,Katarina Čufar,Christoph Dittmar,Jan Esper,Carol B. Griggs,Björn E. Gunnarson,Björn Günther,Emilia Gutiérrez,Kristof Haneca,Samuli Helama,Franz Herzig,Karl-Uwe Heussner,Jutta Hofmann,Pavel Janda,Raymond Kontic,Nesibe Köse,Tomáš Kyncl,Tom Levanič,Hans W. Linderholm,Sturt W. Manning,Thomas M. Melvin,Daniel Miles,Burkhard Neuwirth,Kurt Nicolussi,Paola Nola,Momchil Panayotov,Ionel Popa,Andreas Rothe,Kristina Seftigen,Andrea Seim,Helene Løvstrand Svarva,Miroslav Svoboda,Terje Thun,Mauri Timonen,Ramzi Touchan,Volodymyr Trotsiuk,Valerie Trouet,Felix Walder,Tomasz Ważny,Tomasz Ważny,Rob Wilson,Christian Zang +57 more
TL;DR: Megadroughts reconstructed over north-central Europe in the 11th and mid-15th centuries reinforce other evidence from North America and Asia that droughts were more severe, extensive, and prolonged over Northern Hemisphere land areas before the 20th century, with an inadequate understanding of their causes.
References
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Book
Early Christian Ireland: introduction to the sources
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the Eleventh and Twelfth-Century Histories and Compilations of the Church of the Bible and the Annals of Thessaloniki.