Articles | Volume 18, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2345-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2345-2022
Research article
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24 Oct 2022
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 24 Oct 2022

Is it possible to estimate aerosol optical depth from historic colour paintings?

Christian von Savigny, Anna Lange, Anne Hemkendreis, Christoph G. Hoffmann, and Alexei Rozanov

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Cited articles

Amstutz, N.: Transparente Bilder: Caspar David Friedrichs Umgang mit Optik und Naturkunde, in: Das Bild der Natur in der Romantik – Kunst als Philosophie und Wissenschaft, edited by: Amstutz, N., Bohnenkamp, A., Henning, M., and Wedekind, G., Brill, Paderborn, München, 119–145, ISBN: 9783846765968, 2021. a, b, c
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Bauch, M.: The Day the Sun Turned Blue: A Volcanic Eruption in the Early 1460s and Its Possible Climatic Impact – A Natural Disaster Perceived Globally in the Late Middle Ages?, in: Historical Disaster Experiences – A Comparative and Transcultural Survey between Asia and Europe, 1st edn., edited by: Schenk, G. J., Heidelberg, Springer, Cham, 107–138, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9, 2017. a
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Co-editor-in-chief
Although previous studies addressed this original way of how deducing past climate conditions from color paintings, such as aerosol optical depth (AOD) the new results are critically reviewing these former publications and yield new critical elements in this original research. While concluding that reconstructions of AOD may be possible in some specific cases, the authors do warn about the strong uncertainties related to parameters not carefully considered, which restrains the field of possibilities. To assess the scientific soundness of the results, three reviewers from complementary fields of atmospheric sciences positively reviewed the original manuscript. They have contributed to improve the quality of this paper and all agreed upon the conclusions research, which is a fair guarantee that these results should broadly interest the geoscience community.
Short summary
This study investigates the possibility of inferring information on aerosol optical depth from photographs of historic paintings. The idea – which has been applied in previous studies – is very interesting because it would provide an archive of the atmospheric aerosol loading covering many centuries. We show that twilight colours depend not only on the aerosol optical thickness, but also on several other parameters, making a quantitative estimate of aerosol optical depth very difficult.