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Historical precipitation records are fundamental for the management of water resources, yet rainfall observations typically span 100–150 years at most, with considerable uncertainties surrounding earlier records. Here, we analyse some of the longest available precipitation records globally, for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To assess the credibility of these records and extend them further back in time, we statistically reconstruct (using independent predictors) monthly precipitation series representing these regions for the period 1748–2000. By applying the Standardized Precipitation Index at 12‐month accumulations (SPI‐12) to the observed and our reconstructed series we re‐evaluate historical meteorological droughts. We find strong agreement between observed and reconstructed drought chronologies in post‐1870 records, but divergence in earlier series due to biases in early precipitation observations. Hence, the 1800s decade was less drought prone in our reconstructions relative to observations. Overall, the drought of 1834–1836 was the most intense SPI‐12 event in our reconstruction for England and Wales. Newspaper accounts and documentary sources confirm the extent of impacts across England in particular. We also identify a major, “forgotten” drought in 1765–1768 that affected the British‐Irish Isles. This was the most intense event in our reconstructions for Ireland and Scotland, and ranks first for accumulated deficits across all three regional series. Moreover, the 1765–1768 event was also the most extreme multi‐year drought across all regional series when considering 36‐month accumulations (SPI‐36). Newspaper and other sources confirm the occurrence and major socio‐economic impact of this drought, such as major rivers like the Shannon being fordable by foot. Our results provide new insights into historical droughts across the British Irish Isles. Given the importance of historical droughts for stress‐testing the resilience of water resources, drought plans and supply systems, the forgotten drought of 1765–1768 offers perhaps the most extreme benchmark scenario in more than 250‐years., We reconstruct and re‐evaluate historical droughts across the British Irish Isles (England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland) since 1748 and identify a major, “forgotten” drought in 1765–1768. We show that the event was likely the most extreme multi‐year drought across the region. Newspaper and other sources confirm the occurrence and major socio‐economic impact of this drought, which offers perhaps the most extreme benchmark scenario in more than 250‐years for stress‐testing drought and water resource plans.

Research that twins data from human (written) archives with data from natural environmental archives represents a rapidly advancing frontier in understanding the ecosystem and linked societal impacts of climatic change. The study of explosive volcanic eruptions, capable of inducing severe short-term climatic anomalies, provides a proving ground in which to develop the methodologies required to combine these disparate sources of evidence, and for showcasing the insights that can be achieved. Volcanic influences on the oceans are becoming increasingly understood, through advances in marine palaeoenvironmental proxies and more sophisticated Earth system modelling. At the same time, growing concern exists over the impacts of present and projected climatic changes on marine ecosystems and important higher trophic level species (Cod, Herring) exploited by commercial fisheries. Here we examine the impact of major explosive volcanism on North Atlantic sea-surface-temperatures (SSTs) using the Norwegian Earth System Model, and on North Sea Herring (1600-1860 CE) and Grand Banks Cod (1675-1827 CE) populations, using rigorously reconstructed catch volumes from contemporary documentation. We show that volcanic eruptions, identifiable through elevated sulfate levels in polar ice cores, impacted ocean temperatures and triggered population booms in both species during the first post-eruption decade. We also show this response to be consistent with expected increases in plankton productivity (a key food source for Cod and Herring) under lower SSTs in the North Sea and higher SSTs in the Grand Banks, respectively. We complement our historical analyses with Cod and Herring population modelling, similarly predicting a population boom in the first decade following a positive ecosystem disturbance (e.g., increased food availability for Cod and Herring, promoting increased survivorship). Lastly, we employ historical Herring price data to examine market responses post-eruption, observing an increase in prices in the first two post-eruption years, thus indicating an increased demand for Herring as a substitute for terrestrial agriculture likely to have been impacted by volcanic climatic anomalies. Our results will help improve fish population projections for the North Atlantic after the next big eruption. This work has been funded by the ERC NorFish (ID 669461) and 4-OCEANS (ID 951649) projects.

The Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (Volumes I-III) provide sub-daily precisely dated meteorological observations recorded by ṭupšūtu (Akkadian for scribes) who were expert astronomers conducting a programme of observation spanning many centuries. Thanks to their use of clay as a medium, 209 (known) tablets survived, were excavated, translated and published, providing a unique window into the climate in the first millennium BCE.A focus of the Irish Research Council-funded CLICAB Project (Climates of Conflict in Ancient Babylonia) is on deriving historic climate data from the translated tablets. Information has therefore been categorised into 50 unique keys, 24 of which refer to meteorological and related phenomena. This has facilitated the extraction of over 230,000 rows of observational data. Initial findings afford insight into the impact that ruling elites (and changes in governing regimes) had on the recording of observations, and therefore the availability of data with which to analyse past climate; but also on how mitigation strategies were implemented to improve (not always successfully) daily life. For the Ancient Babylonians the ruling elite (of Babylonia or neighbouring regions) could act as a key facilitator in promoting socio-economic viability in an often challenging environment through for example, the division of land for food production, as noted in the diary which remarked that fields were given “in year 32 at the command of the king for sustenance for the people of Babylon” (April 273 BCE). However the monarch could also act as an obstacle to societal environmental resilience. An example presented in the diaries highlights the use of water as a tool of conflict in an attempt to take over the kingdom (119 BCE). The diaries record Euphrates River level heights which may provide a longer time series than is available for the contemporary period due to ongoing and contentious hydro-politics in the region today (Travis et al., forthcoming; Kirschner & Tiroch, 2012).There is also abundant evidence of the climatic impacts from major explosive eruptions in the diaries, the dating of which is now known thanks to recently revised ice-core chronologies (Sigl. et al., 2015), e.g. “the cold became severe” from the 8th-15th January 247 BCE. The combination of precisely dated meteorological information and river levels, alongside evidence of volcanic induced perturbations, and historical or “event” data are a distinctive characteristic of the diaries. This combination enables a deeper understanding into societies of the First Millennium BCE and their adaptive capacity when faced with changing political regimes and climates.

Before its destruction by the Roman army in 146 BCE, Carthage was one of the largest cities on earth. Established on a site some 15 km from modern day Tunis in ca. 814, the ancient town developed into the first truly urban centre of northwestern Africa; eventually housing a population of over half a million within its environs. As the hegemon of a vast territorial and maritime domain stretching by the fourth century from Morocco in the west to Libya in the east, Carthage was also the first state in the Maghreb to face the challenges incumbent in administrating provinces of such pronounced environmental diversity as their rain-fed hinterland in northern Tunisia and the arid coastal region of Tripolitania in modern Libya. Today, the majority of agriculture in Tunisia remains centred on the north of the country which benefits from the fickle graces of a Mediterranean climate, and where food production is deeply connected with the spatial distribution of winter rains critical to the farming season. Further south, and inland, drought risk increases concomitant with higher temperatures and less rainfall.In 396, the Carthaginians faced a major rebellion of the subaltern working population of the countryside – one of a series of six rebellions recorded in classical sources for the 250 years until the fall of the city. Acknowledging the role of climate in influencing rapid social and political change in the modern region – with the outbreak of the Arab Spring occurring in the water-stressed region of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia in 2011, for example – this paper examines whether the timing of internal war in the Carthaginian state was influenced by volcanically induced climatic perturbations via impacts on the agro-economy. Made possible by the publication of a revised chronology of explosive volcanic eruptions over the past 2,500 years (Sigl et al. (2015)), preliminary statistical testing reveals a non-random correlation with the timing of internal war. Recognising the complexity of the linkages between climate and conflict in agriculturally based economies, it can be hypothesized that the non-uniform impact of climatic shocks across geographically and demographically diverse spaces, as well as social strata within regions, was a key driver of unrest by increasing competition for land and resources between more well off resilient communities and those surviving on subsistence (Vesco et al. (2021)).

Climate extremes over the mid-latitudes are driven by a combination of thermodynamical and dynamical factors. In Europe, the primary dynamical driver of summer climate extremes is the position of the jet stream over the Europe-North Atlantic (EU) region. In certain configurations, the EU jet creates a summer climate dipole between northwestern and southeastern Europe that can result in contrasting extreme weather conditions in the two regions. To study long-term variability in the EU jet configuration, as well as its potential impact on past climate extremes and human systems, we have reconstructed EU jet variability over the past 800+ years (1200-2005 CE). To accomplish this, we have combined five European tree-ring chronologies to reconstruct the July-August jet stream latitude for the EU domain (30°W - 40°E; EU JSL). Our reconstruction explains 40% of summer EU JSL variability over the instrumental period (1948-2005 CE) with strong skill.We find that, over the past 800 years, opposite phases of EU JSL variability have consistently resulted in contrasting climate extremes, including heatwaves, droughts, floods, and wildfires, between northwestern Europe, specifically the British Isles, and southeastern Europe, specifically the Balkans and Italy. This EU JSL-driven summer climate dipole is captured in a network of historical documentary data that further document the societal impacts of EU JSL-related climate extremes on both sides of the dipole.Our summer EU JSL reconstruction shows a century-long negative phase from ca. 1355-1450 CE, corresponding to anomalously wet and cool summers over the British Isles and dry and hot conditions over the Balkans. This negative phase is comparable to the recent (1970-present) EU JSL configuration. We also found a positive phase, with opposite summer climate dipole conditions, from ca. 1812-1861 CE. Our results thus suggest that the EU JSL has been a long-term primary driver of the European summer climate dipole, as well as of the associated climate extremes and societal impacts.

The Ptolemaic era (305–30 BCE) is an important period of Ancient Egyptian history known for its material and scientific advances, but also intermittent political and social unrest in the form of (sometimes widespread) revolts against the Ptolemaic elites. While the role of environmental pressures has long been overlooked in this period of Egyptian history, ice-core-based volcanic histories have identified the period as experiencing multiple notable eruptions, and a repeated temporal association between explosive volcanism and revolt has recently been noted. Here we analyze the global and regional (Nile River basin) hydroclimatic response to a unique historical sequence of four large and closely timed volcanic eruptions (first a tropical one, followed by three extratropical northern hemispheric events) between 168 and 158 BCE, a particularly troubled period in Ptolemaic history for which we now provide a more detailed hydroclimatic context. The NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) ModelE2.1 Earth system model simulates a strong radiative response with a radiative forcing (top of atmosphere) of −7.5 W m−2 (following the first eruption) and −2.5 W m−2 (after each of the three remaining eruptions) at a global scale. Associated with this, we observe a global surface cooling of the order of 1.5 ∘C following the first (tropical) eruption, with the following three extratropical eruptions extending the cooling period for more than 15 years. Consequently, this series of eruptions is observed to constrain the northward migration of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) during the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon season, and major monsoon zones (African, South Asian, and East Asian) were seen to experience a suppression of rainfall of >1 mm d−1 during the monsoon (JJAS) season averaged for 2 years after each eruption. A substantial suppression of the Indian and North African summer monsoon (over the Nile River headwater region) was seen to strongly affect the modeled river flow in the catchment and discharge at river mouth. River mass flow over the basin was observed to decrease by 29 % and 38 % relative to an unperturbed (non-volcanic) annual mean flow in the first and second year, respectively, after the first (i.e., tropical) eruption. A moderate decrease ranging between 5 % and 18 % was observed after the third and fourth (extratropical) eruptions. These results indicate, in sum, that the first eruption likely produced a strong hydroclimate response, with the following extratropical eruptions prolonging this. These results also support the recently hypothesized association between ice-core-based signals of explosive volcanism and hydroclimatic variability during the Ptolemaic era, including the suppression of the agriculturally critical Nile summer flooding.

The mid-17th century is characterized by a cluster of explosive volcanic eruptions in the 1630s and 1640s, deteriorating climatic conditions culminating in the Maunder Minimum as well as political instability and famine in regions of Western and Northern Europe as well as China and Japan. This contribution investigates the sources of the eruptions of the 1630s and 1640s and their possible impact on contemporary climate using ice-core, tree-ring and historical evidence, but will also look into the socio-political context in which they occurred and the human responses they may have triggered. Three distinct sulfur peaks are found in the Greenland ice core record in 1637, 1641–42 and 1646. In Antarctica, only one unambiguous sulfate spike is recorded, peaking in 1642. The resulting bipolar sulfur peak in 1641–1642 can likely be ascribed to the eruption of Mount Parker (6° N, Philippines) on December 26, 1640, but sulfate emitted from Koma-ga-take (42° N, Japan) volcano on July 31, 1641, has potentially also contributed to the sulphate concentrations observed in Greenland at this time. The smaller peaks in 1637 and 1646 can be potentially attributed to the eruptions of Hekla (63° N, Iceland) and Shiveluch (56° N, Russia), respectively. To date, however, none of the candidate volcanoes for the mid-17th century sulphate peaks have been confirmed with tephra preserved in ice cores. Tree-ring and written sources point to severe and cold conditions in the late 1630s and early 1640s in various parts of Europe, and to poor harvests. Yet the early 17th century was also characterized by widespread warfare across Europe – and in particular the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), rendering any attribution of socio-economic crisis to volcanism challenging. In China and Japan, historical sources point to extreme droughts and famines starting in the late 1630s, and thus preceding the eruptions by some years. The case of the eruption cluster in the late 1630s and early 1640s and the climatic and societal conditions recorded in its aftermath thus offer a textbook example of difficulties in (i) unambiguously distinguishing volcanically induced cooling, wetting or drying from natural climate variability, and (ii) attributing political instability, harvest failure and famines solely to volcanic climatic impacts. This example shows that the impacts of past volcanism must always be studied within the contemporary socio-economic contexts, but that it is also time to most past reductive framings and sometimes reactionary oppositional stances in which climate (and environment more broadly) either is or is not deemed an important contributor to major historical events.

Europe’s rich heritage of historical documents has been used to reconstruct the flooding history of the continent for the past five centuries. This could help policymakers to develop flood-management strategies for the future. Flood-rich periods in Europe identified from historical documents.

We present an overview of a weather diary for Glendooen, Co. Donegal in Ireland for the years 1846–1875. The record contains valuable direct observations of temperature and precipitation for the years 1864–1871, together with qualitative descriptions of weather covering the years of the Great Irish Famine and the exceptionally wet year of 1872.

In this paper we summarize and supplement results to date from an ongoing case study that highlights both the physical complexities of Nile flood responses under hydroclimatic forcing wrought by explosive volcanic eruptions and the equally complex social responses to these failures. The physical response to volcanic forcing often resulted in a suppression of the agriculturally critical Nile summer flood in what is commonly, but somewhat subjectively, described as a “Nile failure.” We can now begin to more quantitatively examine the drivers and scale of Nile variability, and examine what this variability means for Egyptian history.

We report (1) ice core evidence that unambiguously identifies massive sulfur fallout over much of the Arctic, attributed using tephra geochemistry to eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano, with climate model simulations indicating 2 y of extreme temperatures and precipitation throughout the Northern Hemisphere starting in early 43 BCE. This climate event occurred in the waning years of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom during a period of well-known social, political, and economic stress including food shortages, epidemic disease, and unusually inclement weather reported in ancient sources (Fig. 1). We contend that such a climate anomaly—corroborated by paleoclimate proxies—undoubtedly contributed to historical events primarily through disruptions in food production in the Mediterranean region. Without offering any specific criticisms or … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: Joe.McConnell{at}dri.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Funding: National Science Foundation grants 1925417, 1023672, and 0909541 to J.R.M., and 1824770 to J.G.M. and F.M.L. funded this research, as well as support to A.I.W. and J.R.M. from the John Fell Oxford University Press (OUP) Research Fund and All Souls College, Oxford. Clare Hall, Cambridge provided additional support to J.R.M. through the Sir Nicholas Shackleton fellowship. F.M.L. also acknowledges support from an Irish Research Council Laureate Award (CLICAB project, IRCLA/2017/303). Swiss National Science Foundation grant 18001 funded C.C.R. and W.M.K. European Research Council grant 820047 under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme supported M.S. A.B. was supported by Marie Curie Career Integration Grant CIG14-631752. The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE triggered a power struggle that ultimately ended the Roman Republic and, eventually, the Ptolemaic Kingdom, leading to the rise of the Roman Empire. Climate proxies and written documents indicate that this struggle occurred during a period of unusually inclement weather, famine, and disease in the Mediterranean region; historians have previously speculated that a large volcanic eruption of unknown origin was the most likely cause. Here we show using well-dated volcanic fallout records in six Arctic ice cores that one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the past 2,500 y occurred in early 43 BCE, with distinct geochemistry of tephra deposited during the event identifying the Okmok volcano in Alaska as the source. Climate proxy records show that 43 and 42 BCE were among the coldest years of recent millennia in the Northern Hemisphere at the start of one of the coldest decades. Earth system modeling suggests that radiative forcing from this massive, high-latitude eruption led to pronounced changes in hydroclimate, including seasonal temperatures in specific Mediterranean regions as much as 7 °C below normal during the 2 y period following the eruption and unusually wet conditions. While it is difficult to establish direct causal linkages to thinly documented historical events, the wet and very cold conditions from this massive eruption on the opposite side of Earth probably resulted in crop failures, famine, and disease, exacerbating social unrest and contributing to political realignments throughout the Mediterranean region at this critical juncture of Western civilization. Postprint

Ancient Babylonia is a kingdom / province in the Fertile Crescent in south-central Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). It has a rich textual and archaeological history and is the origin of many scientific and cultural advances, such as the definition of the seven-day week, the invention of zero, and many legal principles still underlying modern contract, tort, criminal, property, and family law.The Irish Research Council-funded “Climates of Conflict in Ancient Babylonia” (CLICAB) project aims to investigate climatic changes in Babylonia during the final eight centuries BCE and assess for linkages to patterns of violence and conflict, through the application of methods from historical climatology to the wealth of data available. Although there are gaps in the recorded observations, and potentially more tablets yet to be found and translated, the 209 precisely dated, transliterated and translated tablets presently available will provide for many years a sub-daily window into the weather, and therefore the climate of this key historical region. This is a far greater resolution than is currently available for any region or period in the Ancient world, and indeed unprecedented in the world of historical climatology before the Early Modern Period.Key to the project’s broader aims is the reconstruction of the climate for the region based on the information held in the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries. This paper thus examines the process of mining information from the detailed record maintained by Ancient Babylonian scribes in the Astronomical Diaries and presents an overview of the findings. These diaries are a collection of cuneiform tablets spanning 652-61BC, housed in the British Museum. They are rich in systematic weather observations (even down to an hourly resolution), astronomical phenomena, price data, and river heights for the Euphrates. Much work has been undertaken to examine the economic, astronomical and fluvial data, but until now the weather observations have remained relatively untouched, despite their unparalleled temporal resolution for this period, the systematic methodology applied in their recording, and the sheer breadth of information provided. This ranges from wind direction and intensity, to the level of cloud cover and references to atmospheric clarity (clear vs. dusty skies), to the general conditions (temperature and precipitation), for all seasons. This project will see the reconstruction of the climate for the region of Babylonia, and therefore provide one of the oldest weather records in the world. This paper presents high-resolution weather data from the Astronomical Diaries. Specifically, the authors will present the frequency of meteorological extremes over the period, alongside a discussion into the mitigation methods the Babylonians employed to reduce their vulnerability to these extremes. KEYWORDS: Ancient Babylonia, Climate, Conflict

Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, the alternative involves grasping the challenges that a holistic analysis presents, taking account of the many different levels and paces at which societies function, and developing appropriate methods that help to integrate science and history. Often neglected elements in considerations of collapse are the perceptions and beliefs of a historical society and how a given society deals with change; an important facet of this, almost entirely ignored in the discussion, is the understanding of time held by the individuals and social groups affected by change; and from this perspective ‘collapse’ depends very much on perception, including the perceptions of the modern commentator. With this in mind, this article challenges simplistic notions of ‘collapse’ in an effort to encourage a more nuanced understanding of the impact and process of both social and environmental change on past human societies. Discrepant temporalities: time and human agency Time Human Agency Reframing the concept of collapse Collapse and Palaeoclimate Challenging collapse: belief, environment, response Byzantium – the collapse that never happened The Maya – between collapse and resilience Conclusion

The landscape motif of the Irish rath, or ringfort, is closely associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland (400–1100 AD). Ringforts were circular or near-circular enclosures, typically constructed by digging a surrounding ditch, the material from which would be used to construct an adjacent earthen bank. The majority of ringfort sites feature a single ditch and bank (known as a univallate site), but double or triple banked sites are also known, and are described as bivallate and trivallate, respectively. Variations in ringfort morphology and in the physical geographical characteristics of their site location provides a valuable field record that is indicative of the diversity of socioeconomic roles played by these sites and of status of individuals and clans responsible for their construction and occupation. Ringfort locations generally represented the habitation centre of the farmstead, comprising one or more dwellings. Petal-shaped fields would surround the site. This chapter discusses a geographical information science (GIScience) and geostatistical study of ringfort locations in the Irish Midlands, utilizing data sourced from the Irish Government’s Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government archaeological site spatial database. This study also draws on archaeological and historical database records and fieldwork analysis in order to consider the relations between physical environmental context and ringfort settlement patterns.

In this article, we ask how considerations about moral (and immoral) ecologies have motivated and shaped ecological resistance movements. The concept of ‘moral ecologies’ involves expectations of reciprocal, just, and sustainable relations between society and environment, which we consider a central concern of environmental movements. We analyze the cultural, material, and political importance of moral ecologies as a form of resistance by examining social movements in Alaska and Turkey, as well as ideas about sumak kawsay (‘good living’) in Ecuador and historical precursors in the form of the ‘righteous ruler’ in early medieval Ireland. Our analysis demonstrates that a focus on moral ecologies has often resonated widely, facilitated new and cross-cutting coalitions, and in some cases garnered elite support and signilcantly inmuenced national politics and landscapes.

We propose the concept of the “Fish Revolution” to demarcate the dramatic increase in North Atlantic fisheries after AD 1500, which led to a 15-fold increase of cod (Gadus morhua) catch volumes and likely a tripling of fish protein to the European market. We consider three key questions: (1) What were the environmental parameters of the Fish Revolution? (2) What were the globalising effects of the Fish Revolution? (3) What were the consequences of the Fish Revolution for fishing communities? While these questions would have been considered unknowable a decade or two ago, methodological developments in marine environmental history and historical ecology have moved information about both supply and demand into the realm of the discernible. Although much research remains to be done, we conclude that this was a major event in the history of resource extraction from the sea, mediated by forces of climate change and globalisation, and is likely to provide a fruitful agenda for future multidisciplinary research.

Chronologically-secure volcanic event histories are important for improving our understanding of volcano-climate responses, and securing ice core chronologies. We present an exploratory case-study that attempts to reconcile the chemical fingerprints of major volcanism in Greenland ice-cores for the years 670–730 CE. This period experienced considerable volcanic perturbation with multiple volcanic signals registered in all 8 Greenland ice-core datasets studied, including some comparable in magnitude to the great 1815 Tambora eruption, but reconciling signals with divergent dating between datasets presents a number of challenges. To further our understanding of the volcanic history of this period, frost-rings, tree-ring growth width and density minima from Europe, Siberia and China are considered together with Western European, Near Eastern and Chinese documentary evidence. These reveal a striking sequence of co-occurring inter-regional climatic extremes and social crises. We further examine a recently proposed 7-year adjustment to the GICC05 chronology used by many Greenland ice cores, and find that this results in a more coherent volcanic history for these years, and an improved agreement with tree-ring and written records. Three major volcanic events can now be identified, dated to 681, 684–686 and 706–707, with several moderate events further contributing to a sustained climate perturbation reflected in prolonged temperature reductions in high-resolution reconstructions.

Climate history and historical climatology are closely evolving fields that aim (1) to reconstruct past climatic conditions and (2) examine the societal impacts of climatic changes. Such research can be characterized as a multi-disciplinary STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Humanities and Mathematics) frontier that thrives under multidisciplinary collaboration. This chapter presents two case studies pertaining to each aim, linking palaeoenvironmental data from ice-cores and tree-rings with climatic and societal information preserved by the long Irish tradition of annalistic record keeping between the fifth or sixth to seventeenth centuries. The product of this recording survives today in texts known collectively as the “Irish Annals”, which provide detailed time series of extreme weather experienced in Ireland. The first case study revisits work that employs the Irish medieval record of severe cold weather together with Greenland ice core sulphate records to reveal a persistent winter-season climatic impact from explosive volcanism at Ireland’s climatically sensitive northeast Atlantic location. This result complements evidence of spring-summer (i.e., growing season) volcanic climatic impacts identified from tree-rings, and furthers our understanding of the potential impacts of the next big eruption or of geoengineering implemented via the stratospheric injection of sulphur dioxide. The second case study compares Irish annalistic evidence of violence to evidence of drought gleaned from Irish oak tree-ring growth widths. This exercise reveals suggestive linkages between extreme weather and violence, operating most obviously (but likely not solely) via the pressures of scarcity induced resource competition. This comparison also shows that medieval Irish society was not a passive victim of extreme weather, with a range of coping strategies available to restore order. Such knowledge is critical at a time when an increased risk of conflict arising from anthropogenic climatic change is regarded by many scholars and policymakers as a key security issue. Suggestions that human-induced climate change may act to catalyze contemporary or future violence and conflict remain controversial, however, with data shortages and the complexity of societal “pathways” that may connect climate to conflict presenting major research barriers. STEAM approaches that combine different methodologies and evidentiary bases to facilitate the examination of multiple historical climate parameters and a broad range of conflict typologies are thus essential to identifying the range of possible correlations between climate, violence, and conflict, and to resolving the complex pathways underlying observed correlations. Both case studies presented here illustrate how multidisciplinary STEAM approaches, well represented by climate history and historical climatology, can meaningfully inform contemporary debates by revealing how humanity has been influenced by past environments.

Volcanic eruptions contribute to climate variability, but quantifying these contributions has been limited by inconsistencies in the timing of atmospheric volcanic aerosol loading determined from ice cores and subsequent cooling from climate proxies such as tree rings. Here we resolve these inconsistencies and show that large eruptions in the tropics and high latitudes were primary drivers of interannual-to-decadal temperature variability in the Northern Hemisphere during the past 2,500 years. Our results are based on new records of atmospheric aerosol loading developed from high-resolution, multi-parameter measurements from an array of Greenland and Antarctic ice cores as well as distinctive age markers to constrain chronologies. Overall, cooling was proportional to the magnitude of volcanic forcing and persisted for up to ten years after some of the largest eruptive episodes. Our revised timescale more firmly implicates volcanic eruptions as catalysts in the major sixth-century pandemics, famines, and socioeconomic disruptions in Eurasia and Mesoamerica while allowing multi-millennium quantification of climate response to volcanic forcing.

Volcanic eruptions provide tests of human and natural system sensitivity to abrupt shocks because their repeated occurrence allows the identification of systematic relationships in the presence of random variability. Here we show a suppression of Nile summer flooding via the radiative and dynamical impacts of explosive volcanism on the African monsoon, using climate model output, ice-core-based volcanic forcing data, Nilometer measurements, and ancient Egyptian writings. We then examine the response of Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE), one of the best-documented ancient superpowers, to volcanically induced Nile suppression. Eruptions are associated with revolt onset against elite rule, and the cessation of Ptolemaic state warfare with their great rival, the Seleukid Empire. Eruptions are also followed by socioeconomic stress with increased hereditary land sales, and the issuance of priestly decrees to reinforce elite authority. Ptolemaic vulnerability to volcanic eruptions offers a caution for all monsoon-dependent agricultural regions, presently including 70% of world population., The degree to which human societies have responded to past climatic changes remains unclear. Here, using a novel combination of approaches, the authors show how volcanically-induced suppression of Nile summer flooding led to societal unrest in Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE).

First workshop of the Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society Working Group; Palisades, New York, 6–8 June 2016. To predict and prepare for future climate change, scientists are striving to understand how global-scale climatic change manifests itself on regional scales and also how societies adapt—or don’t—to sometimes subtle and complex climatic changes. In this regard, the strongest volcanic eruptions of the past are powerful test cases, showcasing how the broad climate system responds to sudden changes in radiative forcing and how societies have responded to the resulting climatic shocks.

The climatic response to the eruption of the Samalas Volcano in 1257 has been elusive. Medieval archives tell of a spatially variable reaction, with Europe and Japan experiencing severe cold compared to relative warmth in North America.

This essay reviews the status of Irish environmental history. Although presently embryonic in scope, there are important beginnings as well as many key antecedent studies, often written by scholars in the disciplines of social, economic and agricultural history, and historical geography. The work of these scholars suggests the great potential of the discipline in Ireland, with a rich body of evidence awaiting interrogation by environmental historians. Starting with the advent of the Irish written record and the early medieval period, we highlight a selection of the most pertinent documentary sources and outline their potential for environmental historians. Key questions that might be asked by Irish environmental historians are suggested. A concise introduction to the large body of relevant work that examines the history of human-environmental * Author’s e-mail: ludlowf@tcd.ie doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.2014.114.07 1 Both authors contributed equally to this work. Juliana wishes to acknowledge the inspiration of Wilson Flight (1947 2013), earth science teacher at Concord-Carlisle Regional High School, who convinced generations of teenagers that identifying leaves and rocks was not only important, but cool. Juliana and Francis thank James Kelly and William Nolan for their valuable comments on the manuscript. Francis thanks Fergus Kelly for guidance on early Irish law tracts and Mark Hennessy on the environmental context to the decline of the Anglo Norman colony. He thanks the Harvard Initiative for the Science of the Human Past and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society for their support, and Michael McCormick, Michael Monk, Michael Baillie, David Brown, Bruce Campbell, Daniel McCarthy, Arlene Crampsie, Conor Kostick, David Dickson, Poul Holm and Brianan Nolan for many discussions of how written records may be combined with archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records to more fully understand the human past. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 114C, 359 391 # 2014 Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 40.77.167.110 on Wed, 08 Mar 2017 18:25:15 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms interactions in Ireland, including within the allied disciplines of environmental and landscape archaeology and palaeoecology, is provided. Integrating the results and insights of these disciplines with those that can be gleaned from scrutiny of the documentary record should be of central concern to environmental historians of Ireland. Improving our awareness and understanding of the human consequences of past environmental change has never been more important than in the context of current debates about the social and economic effects of environmental changes presently experienced and projected for coming decades. Introduction In 1973 the geographer Emyr Estyn Evans, influenced by the Annales School of French social history, published a series of lectures collectively entitled The personality of Ireland. Evans argued that a combined perspective on Ireland’s past was needed, incorporating ‘habitat, heritage and history’, and encouraged Irish historians to move away from a fascination with the ‘morbid phenomena of British rule in their country’. The approach that he advocated, combining environmental and cultural perspectives, is still relevant today, but remains conspicuously absent from published works of Irish history. In the same year as Estyn Evans’ lectures were published, the discipline of environmental history was in its infancy, but in 2014 it is a thriving area of international study, examining the history of human interactions with the environment. Yet it remains virtually ignored in Ireland. A 2009 audit of academic and teaching staff at Irish and Northern Irish research institutions identified just one scholar explicitly proclaiming ‘environmental history’ as a research interest in 8,848 online staff profiles. This audit was conducted as part of an effort to establish a network of scholars to further the study of Irish environmental history by assessing existing research foci and by identifying a base of invitees for membership. Moreover, when the Irish Environmental 2 E. Estyn Evans, The personality of Ireland: habitat, heritage and history (Cambridge, 1973), 5. Evans is for some a controversial figure because of his views on the culture of Northern Ireland. See recently Mary Burgess, ‘Mapping the narrow ground: geography, history and partition’, in Seamus Deane and Breandan Mac Suibhne (eds), Field Day Review (Dublin, 2005), vol. 1, 121 32. 3 A similar call was made two decades ago by Virginia Crossman and Dympna McLoughlin, ‘A peculiar eclipse: E. Estyn Evans and Irish Studies’, The Irish Review 15 (1994), 79 96. 4 The relevance of landscape and environment is at least recognised in the important volumes of A new history of Ireland (9 vols, Oxford, 1986 2005) by the inclusion of ‘Land and people’ chapters, contributed by historical and economic geographers, often highlighting the gulfs in the available literature. Little attempt is generally made by other contributors (most exceptions being in those chapters devoted to social and economic history) to consider the influence of environment in the major developments of Irish history. 5 Conducted in 2009, published in 2010: Francis Ludlow, David Dickson and Poul Holm, ‘Audit of research activity in Irish environmental history’: see www.tcd.ie/ trinitylongroomhub/iehn/audit.php (last accessed 14 December 2013). Juliana Adelman and Francis Ludlow

Notepad of the European Society for Environmental History, May 2013

Miyake et al. (henceforth M12) recently reported, based on 14C data, an extreme cosmic event ca. AD775. Using a simple model, M12 claimed that the event was too strong to be caused by a solar flare within the standard theory. This implied a new paradigm of either an impossibly strong solar flare or a very strong cosmic ray event of unknown origin occurred ca. AD775. We show that the strength of the event was significantly overestimated by M12. Several subsequent works have attempted to find a possible exotic source for such an event, but they are all based on incorrect estimates by M12. We revisit this event with analysis of new datasets and consistent theoretical modelling. We verified the experimental result for the AD775 event using independent datasets including 10Be series and newly measured 14C annual data. We surveyed available historical chronicles for astronomical observations for the AD770s to identify potential sightings of aurorae or supernovae. We interpreted the 14C measurements using an appropriate carbon cycle model. We show that: (1) The reality of the AD775 event is confirmed by new measurements of 14C; (2) by using an inappropriate carbon cycle model, M12 strongly overestimated the event's strength; (3) The revised magnitude of the event is consistent with different independent datasets (14C, 10Be, 36Cl) and can be associated with a strong, but not inexplicably strong, SEP event (or a sequence of events), and provides the first evidence for an event of this magnitude (the fluence >30 MeV was about 4.5*10^{10} /cm2) in multiple datasets; (4) This is in agreement with increased auroral activity identified in historical chronicles. This point to the likely solar origin of the event, which is the greatest solar event on a multi-millennial time scale, placing a strong observational constraint on the theory of explosive energy releases on the Sun and cool stars., Published by Astron. Astrophys. Lett

We have determined this item to be in the public domain according to US copyright law through information in the bibliographic record and/or US copyright renewal records. The digital version is available for all educational uses worldwide. Please contact HathiTrust staff at hathitrust-help@umich.edu with any questions about this item., Maritime law--Great Britain., (OCoLC)2813221., 1759763., Sdr-ia-srlf1759763., Http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t2794968d.