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Paper short abstract:

Global warming has provided ample material for social science research on current climate impacts and adaptations, especially migration and conflict. This paper considers how this research may contribute to climate history scholarship, particularly qualitative and quantitative analysis of causation.

Paper long abstract:

Environmental historians often propose lessons or parables from the past to guide present politics, policy, or decision-making. Yet sometimes it is environmental historians who have much to learn from research on the present. A generation of accelerating global warming has produced abundant information on climate change, extreme weather, and human responses—more than we could find in historical periods. Sociologists, anthropologists, economists, and demographers have parsed this data, particularly regarding mobility and immobility, conflict and cooperation. Research has moved beyond simple linear models and the alarmist projections often found in media. Work has begun to identify robust, compelling, and counterintuitive patterns, as well as interesting contingencies and divergences in outcomes. For example, effects of climate on conflict are predominately indirect, delayed, and displaced. Climate-related disasters may lead to less long-distance migration rather than more—but outcomes depend whether disasters are fast- or slow-onset, on socioeconomic conditions, and sometimes on gender. This paper argues for similar patterns in the past. Thus, current perspectives can be a guide to historical research, offering better ways to frame research questions and guidance for quantitative methods to identify historical impacts and adaptations. History will have other kinds of insights for present policy, such long-term patterns absent in present-focused research, understanding of contingencies and divergences in climate effects, and ways to narrate change to different audiences. This paper draws on discussions and projects from the 2023 Oslo workshop “Climate and Conflict: Past and Present Perspectives,” which brought together historians and researchers in current peace and conflict studies.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses the hydroclimate and (other) weather-related extremes of the anomalous late 15th-early 16th century period and its social and economic implications, including the potential causative links with the timing and rapid spread of the Reformation (1517).

Paper long abstract:

Preceded by a decade famous of its drought extremes, in the 1480s-1510s an unusually high number of significant hydroclimatic and weather extremes occurred in Europe. Apart from the long-term wet-shift and European flood-rich period in the central part of the Spörer Solar Minimum, interannual variability was also rather significant in these decades. Droughts, interrupted by wet years with significant floods, and other weather-related extremes (e.g. frequent hard winters, hot or cool summers, late-spring frosts, convective events), were mainly responsible for the increasing unpredictability of agricultural production, reduced crop and hay harvests, and severe food shortages in multiple years. These circumstances, in combination with other socio-economic factors, could be responsible amongst others for the increased social tension of the period, manifesting itself in major peasant uprisings, and might have acted as a catalyst in the timing (e.g. the great drought of 1517 in large part of Europe) and rapid spread of the Reformation.

The first part of the presentation is concentrated on the potential causes and main characteristics of this anomalous period, the reconstruction and spatial-temporal analysis of weather and hydroclimatic extremes based on documentary, tree-ring/multiproxy and sedimentary evidence, and its environmental and landscape implications. The most significant groups of socio-economic consequences are analysed in the second part of the presentation, with special emphasis on discussing the possible cumulative effects of the anomalous weather conditions of this period on the ongoing transformation of the late-medieval society, economy and the Reformation itself.

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Paper short abstract:

The convergence of data from sedimentary and historical sources has made it possible to understand human-nature interactions in Spanish wetlands. The aim has been to shed light on how the Spanish Empire coped with the droughts of the Little Ice Age by modifying wetlands.

Paper long abstract:

The convergence of data from sedimentary, archaeological, and historical sources provides a corpus of high-quality information that can be used to examine the historical impact of human societies on the environment. It is imperative to identify suitable study areas where methodologies can be skilfully applied to merge sedimentary and historical records over broad temporal scales. Among these remarkable domains, wetlands emerge as a paramount enclave.

The evolution of wetlands is inextricably linked to human behaviour and the construction of hydraulic infrastructures. These changes have led to variations in wetland characteristics. A good example of this is the interplay that occurred during the Little Ice Age, a period characterised by pronounced droughts in Spain.

During this juncture, a paradigm shift unfolded through the formulation of agricultural and hydraulic policies aimed at mitigating the adverse climatic conditions. It was within this context that the concept of "Arid Spain" took root—a political and geographical construct that rationalized endeavours to drain Spanish wetlands, spanning from the early modern period to the contemporary era. One may ponder whether the inception of Arid Spain was a direct consequence of the extreme droughts witnessed during the Little Ice Age or if it was a strategic political manoeuvre aimed at averting the end of Spanish dominance in Europe. Through an exhaustive analysis employing both sedimentary and historical data, this study elucidates that both factors—extreme droughts and geopolitical considerations—were pivotal in the genesis of Arid Spain and the ensuing transformation of numerous wetlands.

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Paper short abstract:

Hydrometeorological extremes often disrupted agricultural production, leading to a sequence of negative impacts. Extreme weather events also caused severe damage to the forests, resulting in environmental changes. Such impacts were reflected in the socio-economic issues of the affected population.

Paper long abstract:

The impacts of the hydrometeorological extremes can be assessed as the result of interaction among hydrological and meteorological factors, environmental patterns and human society. Understanding past impacts of the hydrometeorological extremes requires their systematic analysis. For many regions, including the Czech Lands, a comprehensive assessment of such impacts from a broader perspective is, however, missing. Therefore, several documentary evidence (damage and taxation records, narrative sources, early journalism), as well as secondary sources (historical research into forests, professional papers, recent books on the history of towns and villages), were used to analyse various social, economic and environmental impacts of hydrometeorological extremes (e.g. floods, windstorms, hailstorms) in the Czech Lands since the 17th century. Individual consequences of hydrometeorological extremes were classified into four groups: impacts on agriculture, material property, forestry and socio-economic impacts. A series of extreme weather events that occurred in a short period could significantly disturb agricultural production, leading to a sequence of negative impacts resulting in peasant poverty, debts and low investments in the farmstead. Similarly, strong windstorms, long-term droughts or heavy rime caused severe damage to the forests, leading to short-term land-use and environmental changes. All these individual impacts were reflected in the socio-economic issues of the affected population. Despite several negative impacts of hydrometeorological extremes, various mitigation and adaptation measurements of that time are known (e.g. tax alleviation, loans, contribution funds). Contributing to a better understanding of the consequences of the past hydrometeorological extremes, the results reveal the importance of documentary sources in climate history studies.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to explore rapid and short-term socio-environmental consequences as well as long-term changes related to agriculture, livestock farming, forest resources exploitation, etc… induced by adverse effects of the Great European Frost of 1709 in Europe.

Paper long abstract:

Many historical documents and textual archives contain information with more or less detailed data about extremely long and cold winters for historical times. Moreover, nowadays, available temperature reconstructions for different regions, based on instrumental, documentary and natural proxy data, provide useful information to accurately locate particularly cold years/clusters of years or long-lasting frost periods.

Although negative impacts, such as shortages, famines or the emergence of infectious diseases, due to extreme climatic events have already been the subject of several academic works many other environmental aspects still remain overlooked.

The most famous cases in the early 18th century is the Great European Frost of 1709. After massive tree mortality in many European regions, at local and regional scale, wood markets were “glutted” by logs and deeply disrupted for several years; the trade and export of many species of trees, such as walnuts, strongly regulated. In Southern areas, like the South of France, the sudden and unexpected death of almost all olive trees has led to a long-term collapse of regional olive oil production, deep changes into cultivated lands but also a migration of artisans and oil workers – and their know-how - to other South European countries.

This paper aims to explore rapid and short-term socio-environmental consequences as well as long-term changes related to agriculture, livestock farming, forest resources exploitation, etc… induced by adverse effects of this extreme cold event in Europe.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the socio-economic and environmental impacts of hurricanes and droughts in colonial Belize (1787-1981), which caused rapid price fluctuations in the markets and initiated long-term changes to human activities, including everyday agricultural practices.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the socio-economic and environmental effects of extreme climate events in colonial Belize, with a specific focus on hurricanes and droughts. Situated on the Caribbean coast of Central America, Belize was partially occupied by the Spanish empire during the mid-16th century and later attracted the interest of British loggers who settled in the area from the 1720s to exploit the timber resources of the country. Raised to Crown Colony in 1871, Belize’s history has been shaped by the recurrence of extreme climate events, which have heavily affected human activities and livelihood. According to historical records, at least 28 hurricanes hit Belize in the colonial period, while droughts are a frequently documented event during the mid-19th century, intensifying in frequency and duration from the early-20th century.

This paper will retrace colonial Belize’s climatic history by analysing the effects triggered by several extreme climate events. It will explore the short-term economic effects of the 1787 hurricane, when the arrival of supplies from Jamaica in response to the destruction of the crops inundated local markets with provisions and reduced the price of commodities, damaging the elites that traditionally controlled staples prices. It will also reflect on how floods or late rains could determine rapid rises in mahogany and logwood prices, the main exports of colonial Belize, as happened in 1792, 1828 and 1860. It will finally address the long-term changes introduced in agricultural and farming practice as 19th and 20th century settlers tried to adapt to floods, gales and droughts.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper papers looks at the climatic and societal impacts of three tropical volcanic eruptions – Huaynaputina (1600), Komaga-take/Parker (1640/1641) and the 1690s unknown event – in eastern and western Switzerland by combining modern climate reconstruction data with novel archive material.

Paper long abstract:

Since the extensive research on the long-term effects of the 1815 Tambora eruption (Behringer 2015) it is recognized, how much large tropical volcanic eruptions can transform a society. However, where single eruptions events such as Parker in 1640/1641 have been analysed (Stoffel et al. 2022), there has been less focus on the potential teleconnections of multiple eruptions on the same study area. With a transdisciplinary approach, this paper papers looks at the climatic and societal impacts of three tropical volcanic eruptions – Huaynaputina (1600), Komaga-take/Parker (1640/1641) and the 1690s unknown event – in eastern and western Switzerland.

Using the newly developed data processing tool called ClimeApp, in a first step the climatological impact will be assessed with modern climate reconstruction data from the ModE-RA project (Franke et al. 2023). Novel archive material from two municipal institutions – the Hôpital des bourgeois de Fribourg and the Heilig-Geist-Spital in St. Gallen – allows us in a second step to determine the annually recorded harvest yields especially of the viti- and caseiculture for those two regions, which enables to look then for potential interrelations. Essential archival sources, such as the Ratsmanuale (protocols) and the Mandatenbücher (regulations), depict whether the municipalities of Fribourg and St. Gallen deployed any measures or coping mechanisms in the wake of these volcanic eruptions and how these measures transformed over a century.

In other words, we will better understand the possible impacts of multiple volcanic eruptions spanned over the period of almost hundred years on the same study region.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper examines exceptional weather in 1783-84 in Estonia and Finland and mortality increase. The research question is whether there were causal correlations between 2 phenomena. Contemporaries considered connections between volcanic pollution from Icelandic eruption & abnormally high mortality.

Paper long abstract:

In the summer 1783, ash and haze clouds from the Laki eruption might have reached the areas of present Estonia and Finland in a week or two. A contemporary Jacob B. Fisher, a student of the famous Swedish botanist Carl von Linné, describes in his book of 1791, that dry fog covered the northernmost provinces of the Baltics, Virumaa (Estonia) and Liivimaa (Livonia) for almost eight months in 1783–1784. Meanwhile, the weather remained warm and dry while the air smelled sulphur. Exceptional weather was unhealthy for humans and might have been fatal for those with breathing problems. In some parishes of Virumaa, the mortality increased from June to August 1783, whereas a similar phenomenon occurred in some municipalities of South-Finland.

In the 1780s, several misfortunes affected the death rate in Estonia and Finland. In the latter, at least one extensive harvest failure per decade was regular in 18th-century Finland. Moreover, epidemics caused variations in mortality. Finally, the Russo-Swedish war in 1788 – 1790 increased the death rate in the Baltic Sea rim.

The lack of sufficiently good sources makes explaining variations in the death rate and total population in the late 18th century challenging. By scrutinising carefully available documents, the paper attempts to find answers to enigmatic phenomena, such as why the death rate started to rise in Estonia immediately when the eruption burst out in June 1783, as well as why mortality remained high in Finland up to 1785, although the eruption in Iceland stopped in February 1784.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the impact of climate extremes on farming in SE Norway during the Little Ice Age, and how farming practices and human responses might have contributed to different levels of social vulnerability to changing climates within this region.

Paper long abstract:

18th century Norway experienced several climate extremes that seem to have coincided with documented incidents of harvest failure, food shortages, and increased mortality rates. The climate during the Little Ice Age, characterized by reduced summer temperatures, increased humidity, and a shorted growing season, is likely to have caused considerable difficulties for grain dependent communities. Situated far north, in a marginal agricultural landscape, Norwegian farmers are considered particularly vulnerability to even minor changes in growth conditions. However, 18th century Norway is a highly diversified country in terms of local climates, topography, and farming strategies, which resulted in different facets of agricultural vulnerability to climate change and weather extremes. Statistical data from the period, such as grain prices and birth and mortality rates, also suggest that the socio-economical impact on society was unevenly distributed between regions, of which Southeastern Norway seems to have been particularly susceptible.

This paper examines the historical evidence for farming practices, adaptational strategies, and climate conditions in Southeastern Norway in the late 18th century, and discuss its relevance for understanding how society was affected by and responded to changing environmental circumstances during the Little Ice Age. The study pay particular focus to the works of late 18th century meteorologist, agronomist, intellectual, and member of the Mannheim society, Jacob Nicolaj Wilse, and utilizes his weather observations and agricultural data in a GIS simulation of growth conditions for different crops during climate extremes. Together, the data provide new insights in the socionatural dynamics of the Little Ice Age.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the great Central European flood of 1827 using the example of the Danube, Drava, Sava and Mura rivers, which are recorded in written historical sources in settlements affected by the flood, i.e. recorded by people who experienced the flood or by journalists.

Paper long abstract:

Socio-Economic and Environmental Impacts of the flood in Central Europe in 1827 are analyzed in the paper, using the example of the Danube, Drava, Sava and Mura rivers, which are recorded in written historical sources in settlements affected by the flood, i.e. recorded by people who experienced the flood or by journalists. The flood of 1827 was one of the strongest floods, about which relatively many records have been preserved. As an example of the flood from 1827, which can be observed from the source to the mouth, the example of the river Drava was taken. According to the scheme for classification of historical flood intensity, based on the classification and primary and secondary indicators, flood levels are proposed by numbers 1-3, where 1 is the lowest and 3 the highest. Based on the above, we can suggest that the flood of the Drava in 1827 could be allocated to the highest level of floods - 3.