Sam White

An interdisciplinary assessment of climate engineering strategies

Mitigating further anthropogenic changes to the global climate will require reducing greenhouse-gas emissions ( abatement ), or else removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and/or diminishing solar input ( climate engineering ). Here, we develop and apply criteria to measure technical, economic, ecological, institutional, and ethical dimensions of, and public acceptance for, climate engineering strategies; provide a relative rating for each dimension; and offer a new interdisciplinary framework for comparing abatement and climate engineering options. While abatement remains the most desirable policy, certain climate engineering strategies, including forest and soil management for carbon sequestration, merit broad-scale application. Other proposed strategies, such as biochar production and geological carbon capture and storage, are rated somewhat lower, but deserve further research and development. Iron fertilization of the oceans and solar radiation management, although cost-effective, received the lowest ratings on most criteria. We conclude that although abatement should remain the central climate-change response, some low-risk, cost-effective climate engineering approaches should be applied as complements. The framework presented here aims to guide and prioritize further research and analysis, leading to improvements in climate engineering strategies.

Unpuzzling American Climate: New World Experience and the Foundations of a New Science

In the early exploration and colonization of the Americas, Europeans encountered unfamiliar climates that challenged received ideas from classical geography. This experience drove innovative efforts to understand and explain patterns of weather and seasons in the New World. A close examination of three climatic puzzles (the habitability of the tropics, debates on the likelihood of a Northwest Passage, and the unexpectedly harsh weather in the first North American colonies) illustrates how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century observers made three intellectual breakthroughs: conceiving of climates as a distinct subject of inquiry, crossing the hitherto-separated disciplines of geography and meteorology, and developing new theories regarding the influence of prevailing winds on patterns of weather and seasons. While unquantified and unsystematic, these novel approaches promoted a new understanding of climates critical to the emergence of climate science. This study offers new insights into the foundations of climatology and the role of the New World in early modern science.

North American Climate History (1500–1800)

This chapter outlines the available sources and studies for the climate history of North America c.1500–1800. Although most US and Canadian climate history for the period has relied on evidence from the archives of nature, Spanish, French, and English colonial records provide an expanding source base for historical climatology. Early instrumental records, phenological observations, newspapers, almanacs, and weather diaries become particularly important for studying climate and weather reconstruction and impacts around the mid-1700s. The chapter concludes with a review of three important episodes in North American climate history: Europe’s first colonial expeditions to North America, the “Late Maunder Minimum” of the 1680s–1690s, and the US War of Independence of the 1770s–1780s.

Early Modern Europe

The most intensive research in historical climatology has concentrated on Europe in the early modern period (c.1500–1800), and established many of the methods and procedures that have become standard in this discipline. This chapter reviews the source material, methodology, and results of climate reconstructions from the archives of societies for each region of Europe during this period, which overlaps with the Little Ice Age (LIA). These reconstructions demonstrate that the LIA was by no means uniformly cold across the continent. Nevertheless, during these centuries Europe experienced numerous decades of frequent and severe temperature and precipitation anomalies, with significant human impacts.

Climate from 1800 to 1970 in North America and Europe

The climate history of North America and Europe from 1800 to 1970 has been relatively well studied. Climate reconstructions for the early nineteenth century largely depend on proxy data from natural archives, documentary evidence, and early instrumental series. The period marks a transition from the Little Ice Age to the current age of global warming. The climate underwent several fluctuations during these two centuries, with cold periods in the early and late nineteenth century and the cool mid-twentieth century interspersed with rapid warming, as in the early twentieth century. The establishment of American and European national weather services during the mid- to late nineteenth century marked a new era, with continuous standardized instrumental data. A global observation system gradually came into being, with particularly dense information for North America and Europe. This chapter provides an overview of the available data and main climatic trends for the period, followed by descriptions of major climate historical events.

The Social Burden of Resilience: A Historical Perspective

We examine the social burden associated with resilience to environmental shocks in pre-modern societies. We argue that analyses of state-level interventions to mitigate the consequences of catastrophic events tend to isolate these measures from their larger social contexts and thereby overlook the uneven distribution of their burden across different groups. We use three cases of pre-modern societies in the northeastern Mediterranean - the sixth century Roman Empire, the tenth century Byzantine Empire, and the sixteenth century Ottoman Empire. We demonstrate how the adaptive processes that reinforced resilience at the state level incurred different burdens for those at lower levels of the social hierarchy. We found that some groups sustained losses while others gained unexpected benefits in the context of temporary systemic instability. We also found that although elites enjoyed enhanced buffers against the adverse effects in comparison with non-elites, this did not consistently guarantee them a better outcome. We conclude that the differentiated burden of resilience could in some cases entrench existing political or economic configurations, and in other cases, overturn them. Our case studies indirectly address the pressing issue of environmental justice.

General Introduction: Weather, Climate, and Human History

This chapter introduces the field of climate history, the study of past climates and weather, and their role in human history. Climate history builds on the insights of paleoclimatology (the reconstruction of past climates from the archives of nature) and historical climatology (the reconstruction of past climates and weather from the archives of societies), as well as the methods of conventional history. European climate history emerged as a distinct field of study during the mid-twentieth century and has since developed into a more expansive, global field of study. The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History presents the state of the field with respect to climate history methods, regional results, themes, case studies, and the history of climate science.

A Year Without a Summer, 1816

The April 1815 eruption of the Tambora volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa turned 1816 into the most recent and most memorable “year without a summer.” The Tambora eruption was among the largest in recent history. It brought dramatic climatic and human consequences, which were closely observed around the world. The bicentennial anniversary of the eruption and the “year without a summer” became the occasion for many new studies of this already well-researched event. Thus, Tambora and its aftermath provide a valuable case study in volcanic weather and its historical impacts.

Archives of Nature and Archives of Societies

Paleoclimatology and historical climatology share a common goal of reconstructing past climates, but they draw on different sources of evidence. Paleoclimatologists work primarily with physical remains left by natural processes, what this volume calls the “archives of nature.” Historical climatologists work primarily with written and physical sources left by humans, what this volume calls the “archives of societies.” Each type of evidence has certain strengths and weaknesses with respect to accuracy, precision, dependability, homogeneity, and relevance to human history. Both depend on the careful analysis of “proxies,” or indirect representations of past climate. Current climate history draws on both types of evidence to understand how climate and weather influenced human history.

Climate, Weather, Agriculture, and Food

Climate and weather are vital factors in food production, principally through their influence on the possibilities, limits, and risks of farming and pastoralism. Nevertheless, the historical links among climate, weather, agriculture, and food are often complex and contingent. This chapter reviews the growing body of research on these links, from the first domestication of plants and animals to the modern era, with emphasis on the contributions of climate history to explaining food shortages, famines, and related disasters in Little Ice Age Europe.