Chantal Camenisch

The year-long unprecedented European heat and drought of 1540 – a worst case

The heat waves of 2003 in Western Europe and 2010 in Russia, commonly labelled as rare climatic anomalies outside of previous experience, are often taken as harbingers of more frequent extremes in the global warming-influenced future. However, a recent reconstruction of spring–summer temperatures for WE resulted in the likelihood of significantly higher temperatures in 1540. In order to check the plausibility of this result we investigated the severity of the 1540 drought by putting forward the argument of the known soil desiccation-temperature feedback. Based on more than 300 first-hand documentary weather report sources originating from an area of 2 to 3 million km2, we show that Europe was affected by an unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought. The estimated number of precipitation days and precipitation amount for Central and Western Europe in 1540 is significantly lower than the 100-year minima of the instrumental measurement period for spring, summer and autumn. This result is supported by independent documentary evidence about extremely low river flows and Europe-wide wild-, forest- and settlement fires. We found that an event of this severity cannot be simulated by state-of-the-art climate models.

Tree-rings and people – different views on the 1540 Megadrought. Reply to Büntgen et al. 2015

Buntgen et al. (2015; hereinafter B15) present the result of new research which question the results of Wetter et al. 2014, (hereinafter W14) and Wetter et al. (2013, hereinafter W13)regarding European climate in 1540. B15 conclude from tree-ring evidence that the results based on documentary data of W14 probably overstated the intensity and duration of the 1540 drought event. W14 termed it Megadrought because of its extreme duration and spatial extent compared to other drought events in central Europe, although they note that the term is generally used for decadal rather than for single-year droughts (Seneviratne et al. 2012). We take the opportunity to recall the following issues. Firstly, when dealing with drought the complexity of this phenomenon should be kept in mind. Meteorological drought defined as a large negative precipitation anomaly during a certain period can trigger agricultural, hydrological, groundwater and socioeconomic droughts. Lloyd-Hughes (2013] and references cited herein) concluded that any workable objective definition of drought does not exist. To quantify droughts, various indices based on precipitation, temperature and evapotranspiration are used such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Z-index and PDSI. Their calculation depends on different periods (seasons, combination of months) and so different indices may classify the same drought episode differently (e.g. Brazdil et al.2014).

European Middle Ages

This chapter introduces the state of the field in the historical climatology of the Middle Ages in Europe. This region and era witnessed significant human historical changes, as well as climatic phases identified as the Medieval Warm Period and the beginnings of the Little Ice Age. Starting with the work of Hubert H. Lamb and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie in the 1960s, the field has seen a continual extension and refinement of research. Historical climatologists of medieval Europe have drawn on both narrative and administrative sources, which have provided both qualitative weather descriptions and information on climate proxies. Use of these sources poses particular methodological challenges, but historical climatologists have developed seasonal temperature and precipitation indices and long phenological records covering parts of medieval Europe.

Analysis and Interpretation: Temperature and Precipitation Indices

This chapter introduces the methodology and applications of indexing temperature and precipitation from narrative and proxy sources. Monthly and seasonal indices provide a critical link between historical weather descriptions and quantitative climate reconstruction and analysis. Best practices in indexing, as they were developed in the late twentieth century, require careful handling of data, as well as close familiarity with relevant source material and local climates. Several examples demonstrate the utility of indexing for extending high-resolution temperature and precipitation series, and for demonstrating climate impacts on agriculture and prices.

Two Decades of Crisis: Famine and Dearth During the 1480s and 1490s in Western and Central Europe

During the 1480s and 1490s, parts of Western and Central Europe were hit by subsistence crises. This paper examines both crises by analysing narrative sources, sources derived from administrative processes, and grain price series. During both crises, the Low Countries were affected the most severely; the Holy Roman Empire and parts of modern Switzerland suffered less, even though the dearth was evident there as well. In both cases, the subsistence crises were followed by epidemic diseases. Several factors caused the crises, which can be attributed either to food availability decline (FAD) theories, such as back-to-back harvest failures, or food entitlement decline (FED) theories, amongst them market failures or the unequal distribution of goods within society. The crises of the 1480s and 1490s show characteristics that belong to both the FAD and the FED theories.

Erratum to: The year-long unprecedented European heat and drought of 1540 – a worst case

Oliver Wetter & Christian Pfister & Johannes P. Werner & Eduardo Zorita & Sebastian Wagner & Sonia I. Seneviratne & Jurgen Herget & Uwe Grunewald & Jurg Luterbacher & Maria-Joao Alcoforado & Mariano Barriendos & Ursula Bieber & Rudolf Brazdil & Karl H. Burmeister & Chantal Camenisch & Antonio Contino & Petr Dobrovolný & Rudiger Glaser & Iso Himmelsbach & Andrea Kiss & Oldřich Kotyza & Thomas Labbe & Danuta Limanowka & Laurent Litzenburger & Oyvind Nordli & Kathleen Pribyl & Dag Retso & Dirk Riemann & Christian Rohr & Werner Siegfried & Johan Soderberg & Jean-Laurent Spring