Articles | Volume 12, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-2107-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-2107-2016
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
01 Dec 2016
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 01 Dec 2016

The 1430s: a cold period of extraordinary internal climate variability during the early Spörer Minimum with social and economic impacts in north-western and central Europe

Chantal Camenisch, Kathrin M. Keller, Melanie Salvisberg, Benjamin Amann, Martin Bauch, Sandro Blumer, Rudolf Brázdil, Stefan Brönnimann, Ulf Büntgen, Bruce M. S. Campbell, Laura Fernández-Donado, Dominik Fleitmann, Rüdiger Glaser, Fidel González-Rouco, Martin Grosjean, Richard C. Hoffmann, Heli Huhtamaa, Fortunat Joos, Andrea Kiss, Oldřich Kotyza, Flavio Lehner, Jürg Luterbacher, Nicolas Maughan, Raphael Neukom, Theresa Novy, Kathleen Pribyl, Christoph C. Raible, Dirk Riemann, Maximilian Schuh, Philip Slavin, Johannes P. Werner, and Oliver Wetter

Related authors

A Bayesian approach to historical climatology for the Burgundian Low Countries in the 15th century
Chantal Camenisch, Fernando Jaume-Santero, Sam White, Qing Pei, Ralf Hand, Christian Rohr, and Stefan Brönnimann
Clim. Past, 18, 2449–2462, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2449-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2449-2022, 2022
Short summary
Climatic, weather, and socio-economic conditions corresponding to the mid-17th-century eruption cluster
Markus Stoffel, Christophe Corona, Francis Ludlow, Michael Sigl, Heli Huhtamaa, Emmanuel Garnier, Samuli Helama, Sébastien Guillet, Arlene Crampsie, Katrin Kleemann, Chantal Camenisch, Joseph McConnell, and Chaochao Gao
Clim. Past, 18, 1083–1108, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1083-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1083-2022, 2022
Short summary
Climate indices in historical climate reconstructions: a global state of the art
David J. Nash, George C. D. Adamson, Linden Ashcroft, Martin Bauch, Chantal Camenisch, Dagomar Degroot, Joelle Gergis, Adrian Jusopović, Thomas Labbé, Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin, Sharon D. Nicholson, Qing Pei, María del Rosario Prieto, Ursula Rack, Facundo Rojas, and Sam White
Clim. Past, 17, 1273–1314, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1273-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1273-2021, 2021
Short summary
Droughts in Bern and Rouen from the 14th to the beginning of the 18th century derived from documentary evidence
Chantal Camenisch and Melanie Salvisberg
Clim. Past, 16, 2173–2182, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2173-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2173-2020, 2020
Short summary
Central Europe, 1531–1540 CE: The driest summer decade of the past five centuries?
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Martin Bauch, Chantal Camenisch, Andrea Kiss, Oldřich Kotyza, Piotr Oliński, and Ladislava Řezníčková
Clim. Past, 16, 2125–2151, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2125-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2125-2020, 2020
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Climate Modelling | Archive: Historical Records | Timescale: Decadal-Seasonal
ClimeApp: data processing tool for monthly, global climate data from the ModE-RA palaeo-reanalysis, 1422 to 2008 CE
Richard Warren, Niklaus Emanuel Bartlome, Noémie Wellinger, Jörg Franke, Ralf Hand, Stefan Brönnimann, and Heli Huhtamaa
Clim. Past, 20, 2645–2662, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2645-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2645-2024, 2024
Short summary
A major midlatitude hurricane in the Little Ice Age
John Dickie and Grant Wach
Clim. Past, 20, 1141–1160, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1141-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1141-2024, 2024
Short summary
Wet season rainfall characteristics and temporal changes for Cape Town, South Africa, 1841–2018
Nothabo Elizabeth Ndebele, Stefan Grab, and Herbert Hove
Clim. Past, 18, 2463–2482, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2463-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2463-2022, 2022
Short summary
Evaluating the utility of qualitative personal diaries in precipitation reconstruction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Alice Harvey-Fishenden and Neil Macdonald
Clim. Past, 17, 133–149, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-133-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-133-2021, 2021
Short summary
The Irish famine of 1740–1741: famine vulnerability and "climate migration"
S. Engler, F. Mauelshagen, J. Werner, and J. Luterbacher
Clim. Past, 9, 1161–1179, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-1161-2013,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-1161-2013, 2013

Cited articles

Achilles, W.: Getreidepreise und Getreidehandelsbeziehungen europäischer Räume im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, 7, 32–55, 1959 (in German).
Allen, R. C.: The great divergence in European wages and prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War, Explor. Econ. Hist., 38, 411–447, https://doi.org/10.1006/exeh.2001.0775, 2001.
Amann, B., Szidat, S., and Grosjean, M.: A millennial-long record of warm season precipitation and flood frequency for the North-western Alps inferred from varved lake sediments: Implications for the future, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 115, 89–100, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.03.002, 2015.
Ammann, C. M., Joos, F., Schimel, D. S., Otto-Bliesner, B. L., and Tomas, R. A.: Solar influence on climate during the past millennium: Results from transient simulations with the NCAR Climate System Model, P. Nal. Acad. Sci. USA, 104, 3713–3718, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605064103, 2007.
Andersson, M. E., Verronen, P. T., Rodger, C. J., Clilverd, M. A., and Seppälä, A.: Missing driver in the Sun–Earth connection from energetic electron precipitation impacts mesospheric ozone, Nat. Commun., 5, 5197, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6197, 2014.
Download
Short summary
Throughout the last millennium, several cold periods occurred which affected humanity. Here, we investigate an exceptionally cold decade during the 15th century. The cold conditions challenged the food production and led to increasing food prices and a famine in parts of Europe. In contrast to periods such as the “Year Without Summer” after the eruption of Tambora, these extreme climatic conditions seem to have occurred by chance and in relation to the internal variability of the climate system.