Evidence of social upheaval and other adverse effects of climate variability in Europe over the past 2,500 years should give pause to people reluctant to mitigate climate change.
European climate was exceptionally variable from 250 to 550 AD, a period when the region experienced some of its worst societal challenges. That's according to an analysis of tree-ring records that is the first to reveal year-by-year climate in central Europe beyond the last millennium.
Ulf Büntgen, a paleoclimatologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape research in Birmensdorf, Switzerland and colleagues reconstructed the climate in central Europe from 500 BC to today and then looked at how long-term climatic changes lined up with societal trends1. From the middle of the third to the sixth centuries, Europe experienced barbarian invasions, political turmoil and economic dislocation. In general, rapidly fluctuating climate, combined with population declines brought about by frequent epidemics, dramatically trimmed crop yields produced by the region's largely agrarian societies during that period.
The researchers contend that although modern populations are potentially less vulnerable because of their ability to adapt to or mitigate climate fluctuations, they are not totally immune to extreme climate variability — especially given that migration to more favourable locations is increasingly difficult in today's crowded world.
References
Büntgen, U. et al. 2500 years of European climate variability and human susceptibility. Science 10.1126/science.1197175 (2011).
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Perkins, S. Tree-ring tale. Nature Clim Change (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1036
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1036
