Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD
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DOI:
10.1038/NGEO2652URI (for links/citations):
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/27894Author:
Büntgen, Ulf
Myglan, Vladimir S.
Ljungqvist, Fredrik Charpentier
Mccormick, Michael
Di, Cosmo Nicola
Sigl, Michael
Jungclaus, Johann
Wagner, Sebastian
Krusic, Paul J.
Esper, Jan
Kaplan, Jed O.
de Vaan Michiel A. C.
Luterbacher, Jürg
Wacker, Lukas
Tegel, Willy
Kirdyanov, Alexander V.
Corporate Contributor:
Научно-исследовательская часть
Date:
2016-03Journal Name:
Nature GeoscienceJournal Quartile in Scopus:
Q1Journal Quartile in Web of Science:
Q1Bibliographic Citation:
Büntgen, Ulf. Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD [Текст] / Ulf Büntgen, Vladimir S. Myglan, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Michael Mccormick, Cosmo Nicola Di, Michael Sigl, Johann Jungclaus, Sebastian Wagner, Paul J. Krusic, Jan Esper, Jed O. Kaplan, de Vaan Michiel A. C., Jürg Luterbacher, Lukas Wacker, Willy Tegel, Alexander V. Kirdyanov // Nature Geoscience. — 2016. — Т. 9 (№ 3). — С. 231-236Abstract:
Climatic changes during the first half of the Common Era have been suggested to play a role in societal reorganizations in Europe (1,2) and Asia (3,4). In particular, the sixth century coincides with rising and falling civilizations (1–6), pandemics (7,8), human migration and political turmoil (8–13). Our understanding of the magnitude and spatial extent aswell as the possible causes and concurrences of climate change during this period is, however, still limited. Here we use tree-ring chronologies from the Russian Altai and European Alps to reconstruct summer temperatures over the past two millennia. We find an unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling following a cluster of large volcanic eruptions in 536, 540 and 547 AD (ref. 14), which was probably sustained by ocean and sea-ice feedbacks (15,16), as well as a solar minimum (17). We thus identify the interval from 536 to about 660 AD as the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Spanning most of the Northern Hemisphere, we suggest that this cold phase be considered as an additional environmental factor contributing to the establishment of the Justinian plague (7,8), transformation of the eastern Roman Empire and collapse of the Sasanian Empire (1,2,5), movements out of the Asian steppe and Arabian Peninsula (8,11,12), spread of Slavic-speaking peoples (9,10) and political upheavals in China (13).