Climatic, weather and socio-economic conditions corresponding with the mid-17th century eruption cluster
- 1Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene (C-CIA), Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
- 2Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
- 3Department F.-A. Forel for Environmental and Aquatic Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
- 4Geolab, Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France
- 5Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, and Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- 6Climate and Environmental Physics and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
- 7Institute of History and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
- 8UMR 6249 CNRS Chrono-Environnement, University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France
- 9Natural Resources Institute Finland, Ounasjoentie 6, 96200 Rovaniemi, Finland
- 10School of Geography, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
- 11Department of History, University of Freiburg, 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
- 12German Maritime Museum - Leibniz Institute for Maritime History, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany
- 13Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, 89512, Reno, USA
- 14School of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
- 1Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene (C-CIA), Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
- 2Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
- 3Department F.-A. Forel for Environmental and Aquatic Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
- 4Geolab, Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France
- 5Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, and Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- 6Climate and Environmental Physics and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
- 7Institute of History and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
- 8UMR 6249 CNRS Chrono-Environnement, University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France
- 9Natural Resources Institute Finland, Ounasjoentie 6, 96200 Rovaniemi, Finland
- 10School of Geography, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
- 11Department of History, University of Freiburg, 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
- 12German Maritime Museum - Leibniz Institute for Maritime History, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany
- 13Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, 89512, Reno, USA
- 14School of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Abstract. The mid-17th century is characterized by a cluster of explosive volcanic eruptions in the 1630s and 1640s, deteriorating climatic conditions culminating in the Maunder Minimum as well as political instability and famine in regions of Western and Northern Europe as well as China and Japan. This contribution investigates the sources of the eruptions of the 1630s and 1640s and their possible impact on contemporary climate using ice-core, tree-ring and historical evidence, but will also look into the socio-political context in which they occurred and the human responses they may have triggered. Three distinct sulfur peaks are found in the Greenland ice core record in 1637, 1641–42 and 1646. In Antarctica, only one unambiguous sulfate spike is recorded, peaking in 1642. The resulting bipolar sulfur peak in 1641–1642 can likely be ascribed to the eruption of Mount Parker (6° N, Philippines) on December 26, 1640, but sulfate emitted from Koma-ga-take (42° N, Japan) volcano on July 31, 1641, has potentially also contributed to the sulphate concentrations observed in Greenland at this time. The smaller peaks in 1637 and 1646 can be potentially attributed to the eruptions of Hekla (63° N, Iceland) and Shiveluch (56° N, Russia), respectively. To date, however, none of the candidate volcanoes for the mid-17th century sulphate peaks have been confirmed with tephra preserved in ice cores. Tree-ring and written sources point to severe and cold conditions in the late 1630s and early 1640s in various parts of Europe, and to poor harvests. Yet the early 17th century was also characterized by widespread warfare across Europe – and in particular the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), rendering any attribution of socio-economic crisis to volcanism challenging. In China and Japan, historical sources point to extreme droughts and famines starting in the late 1630s, and thus preceding the eruptions by some years. The case of the eruption cluster in the late 1630s and early 1640s and the climatic and societal conditions recorded in its aftermath thus offer a textbook example of difficulties in (i) unambiguously distinguishing volcanically induced cooling, wetting or drying from natural climate variability, and (ii) attributing political instability, harvest failure and famines solely to volcanic climatic impacts. This example shows that the impacts of past volcanism must always be studied within the contemporary socio-economic contexts, but that it is also time to most past reductive framings and sometimes reactionary oppositional stances in which climate (and environment more broadly) either is or is not deemed an important contributor to major historical events.
Markus Stoffel et al.
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on cp-2021-148', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Jan 2022
Major comments:
The article by Stoffel et al. skilfully merges volcanology, palaeoclimatology and history in a convincing way. I can fully endorse its publication after some, relative minor, revisions. This multi-disciplinary team has truly put together a state-the-art-art work by assessing the (potential) impacts, and their difference in space and time, of a number of mid-17th century volcanic eruptions, some of which have attracted relatively little interest in earlier scholarship. A major strength is the inclusion of historical data from both Europe, China, and Japan. Obviously, only parts of Europe can be adequately covered. This spatial limitation could be more explicitly stated in the article. Furthermore, it would be an advantage if the treatment of China – and especially of Japan – could be more extensive. It would place Europe and Eastern Asia on a more equal footing in the article.In the revision, the authors could check the figures and see to it that they all have the same style and fonts et cetera. For example, it appears to me as the colour scale of Figure 5 and Figure 6 differs despite that it would be better to have the same scale. Moreover, the quality of some of the figures – at least now in the pre-print – appears to have a low quality/resolution. The manuscript also needs proof-reading – this includes the reference list too – and there are inconsistencies in the list of affiliations as well (for example, the affiliation to Trinity Collage Dublin is given in two different ways).
Minor comments:
Line 25: I am not sure if actually the term “deteriorating” is adequate here. The climate was at least as cold around 1600.Line 35: What is meant with “severe” here as it cannot be a synonym to “cold” stated separately?
Line 39: Is it possible to be more precise in years?
Line 49. Also cite here: Solomina, O. N., Bradley, R. S., Jomelli, V., Geirsdottir, A., Kaufman, D. S., Koch, J., McKay, N. P., Masiokas, M., Miller, G., Nesje, A., Nicolussi, K., Owen, L. A., Putnam, A. E., Wanner, H., Wiles, G., and Yang, B.: Glacier fluctuations during the past 2000 years, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 149, 61–90, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.04.008, 2016
Lines 52–52: This cooling presumably refers to the 17th century w.r.t. 1961–1990? Not the entire multi-centennial Little Ice Age was so cold. You could alternatively cite Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2017) that the 17th century likely was 0.5–1°C colder than this reference interval. Reference: Christiansen, B., and Ljungqvist, F.C., ”Challenges and perspectives for large-scale temperature reconstructions of the past two millennia”., Reviews of Geophysics, 55 (2017): 40–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016RG000521
Line 61: I presume that you with the “Little Ice Age” here mean the late 17th century only? It should be rephrased.
Line 66: “Thirty Years War” should be “Thirty Years’ War”.
Line 68: A better reference than Parker (2013) here is Parker (2006): Parker, G., 2006. The Thirty Years’ War. Routledge, London.
Lines 71–72: Is “Portugal rebels” right here?
Line 118–120: This very short paragraph could be merged with another paragraph.
Line 249: “Jamtland” should be “Jämtland”.
Line 271: Unclear what eruption “rank 4” refers to here.
Line 315: Consider to rephrase this slightly. Catholic France fought on the “Protestant” side.
Line 348: As grain price data are available for Paris, maybe you could quantify the price increase?
Line 362: “arrival” is better here than “rise”. And “bulk” better than “heavy”.
Line 395: Maybe a citation to some work by Astrid E. J. Ogilvie is better here than to Parker (2013)?
Line 508: Other estimates of the number of deaths in the Thirty Years’ War are even higher. See, e.g.: Wilson, Peter H. (2009). Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War. Allen Lane.
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Markus Stoffel, 17 Feb 2022
Dear editor, dear Anonymous Referee #1,
Thank you very much for the careful reading of the paper and the insightful feedback and suggestions. We would like to respond to your review below by adding our responses in italics, the replies are always proceeded by “>>>” to facilitate reading.
Thank you very much once again for the careful reading and suggestions,
Markus Stoffel, in the name of all co-authors
*************************************************************************
Major comments:
The article by Stoffel et al. skilfully merges volcanology, palaeoclimatology and history in a convincing way. I can fully endorse its publication after some, relative minor, revisions. This multi-disciplinary team has truly put together a state-the-art-art work by assessing the (potential) impacts, and their difference in space and time, of a number of mid-17th century volcanic eruptions, some of which have attracted relatively little interest in earlier scholarship. A major strength is the inclusion of historical data from both Europe, China, and Japan. Obviously, only parts of Europe can be adequately covered. This spatial limitation could be more explicitly stated in the article. Furthermore, it would be an advantage if the treatment of China – and especially of Japan – could be more extensive. It would place Europe and Eastern Asia on a more equal footing in the article.>>> Thank you very much for this input. We agree completely with you that the sources that we use can at best provide a snapshot of what is available. While doing the review of existing sources – certainly incomplete –, we also tried to cover the various regions in the best possible way without making the paper longer than it already is. We suggest to address this point as follows in the revised text: “Owing to the extensive number of historical sources existing in the 17th century, this only some sources and parts of Europe and Eastern Asia can be adequately covered in the following sections.”
In the revision, the authors could check the figures and see to it that they all have the same style and fonts et cetera. For example, it appears to me as the colour scale of Figure 5 and Figure 6 differs despite that it would be better to have the same scale. Moreover, the quality of some of the figures – at least now in the pre-print – appears to have a low quality/resolution. The manuscript also needs proof-reading – this includes the reference list too – and there are inconsistencies in the list of affiliations as well (for example, the affiliation to Trinity Collage Dublin is given in two different ways).
>>> We have been working on the style and fonts of the illustrations and also checked the quality of the illustrations. Regarding the color schemes between Figure 5 and 6, we prefer to leave them as they are as different temperature ranges are covered and therefore the scales are also different.
>>> We now resolved the problem of inconsistencies in the affiliation to Trinity College Dublin. Thank you for pointing this out to us.
>>> The reference list has been checked and inconsistencies removed. And the paper was proof-read by a native speaker.
Minor comments:
Line 25: I am not sure if actually the term “deteriorating” is adequate here. The climate was at least as cold around 1600.>>> We removed the term “deteriorating”
Line 35: What is meant with “severe” here as it cannot be a synonym to “cold” stated separately?
>>> Agree, We now only use “cold” and have removed “severe and”
Line 39: Is it possible to be more precise in years?
>>> Yes, we now provide years as follows: “”
Line 49. Also cite here: Solomina, O. N., Bradley, R. S., Jomelli, V., Geirsdottir, A., Kaufman, D. S., Koch, J., McKay, N. P., Masiokas, M., Miller, G., Nesje, A., Nicolussi, K., Owen, L. A., Putnam, A. E., Wanner, H., Wiles, G., and Yang, B.: Glacier fluctuations during the past 2000 years, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 149, 61–90, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.04.008, 2016
>>> We added this reference.
Lines 52–52: This cooling presumably refers to the 17th century w.r.t. 1961–1990? Not the entire multi-centennial Little Ice Age was so cold. You could alternatively cite Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2017) that the 17th century likely was 0.5–1°C colder than this reference interval. Reference: Christiansen, B., and Ljungqvist, F.C., ”Challenges and perspectives for large-scale temperature reconstructions of the past two millennia”., Reviews of Geophysics, 55 (2017): 40–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016RG000521
>>> Thank you for this valuable suggestion We have changed the number and added the reference.
Line 61: I presume that you with the “Little Ice Age” here mean the late 17th century only? It should be rephrased.
>>> That’s true, we rephrased the sentence as follows: “”
Line 66: “Thirty Years War” should be “Thirty Years’ War”.
>>> Done
Line 68: A better reference than Parker (2013) here is Parker (2006): Parker, G., 2006. The Thirty Years’ War. Routledge, London.
>>> Thank you, we adjusted the reference accordingly.
Lines 71–72: Is “Portugal rebels” right here?
>>> We have changed the text as follows as the original text may not have been clear: “Moreover, the period was characterized by civil wars including the Scottish Revolution (1637–1644), the Croquant (1637) and the Nu-pieds (1639) revolts in France, the Catalan Revolt (1640–1659), the Portuguese Revolution (1640, continuing to 1668 as the War of Restoration), the Irish Rebellion (1641–1642) and English Civil War (1642–1651) (Parker 2013).”
Line 118–120: This very short paragraph could be merged with another paragraph.
>>> Agree, done
Line 249: “Jamtland” should be “Jämtland”.
>>> Changed
Line 271: Unclear what eruption “rank 4” refers to here.
>>> rank 4 signifies simply that 1633 was the fourth-coldest year in the reconstruction. It occurred in the absence of volcanic activity.
Line 315: Consider to rephrase this slightly. Catholic France fought on the “Protestant” side.
>>> Done
Line 348: As grain price data are available for Paris, maybe you could quantify the price increase?
>>> We have added more information as follows: “In neighboring France, the grape harvest between 1640 and 1643 began a full month later than usual and wheat prices surged from 12 to 20 pounds (per setier, that is about 7 liters) between 1641 and 1642 (Baulant, 1968), indicating poor cereal harvests, especially also in eastern France.”.
Line 362: “arrival” is better here than “rise”. And “bulk” better than “heavy”.
>>> Thank you for these suggestions, we have changed the text accordingly
Line 395: Maybe a citation to some work by Astrid E. J. Ogilvie is better here than to Parker (2013)
>>> We have added Ogilvie’s 1984 chapter in the Reidel (Dordrecht) book edited by N.-A. Morner and W. Karlen (Climate changes on a yearly to millennial basis)
Line 508: Other estimates of the number of deaths in the Thirty Years’ War are even higher. See, e.g.: Wilson, Peter H. (2009). Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War. Allen Lane.
>>> Thank you for this feedback. We have adjusted the numbers accordingly.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Markus Stoffel, 17 Feb 2022
-
RC2: 'Comment on cp-2021-148', Joseph Manning, 03 Feb 2022
Recent advances in Paleoclimate proxy data resolution, and in particular the. advances in ice core Geochemistry that allows for far more precision in the dating of explosive volcanic eruptions have now allowed climate historians to integrate this more precise climate data with precise, annual or sub-annual, historical records. This is creating, not the old climate determinist historians, still so often criticized, but a new climate history that integrates more spatially and temporally precise climate records with specific kinds of human responses. This kind of work requires a large, specialized team, of scholars. This article represents the very best of the new climate history. It is a model to be followed.
The paper shows how volcanically forced cooling interacts with natural climate variability and societies under various kinds of stress. It is global in its coverage, treating northern, western and central Europe, and China and Japan as well, during the Little Ice Age (LIA), about which much has already been written. The general conclusion that it would be wrong to simply isolate volcanic eruptions, even a cluster of eruptions as here, or the Maunder Minimum, as the driving force of abrupt climate change and teh various societal responses across a wide range of societies. Both the societies treated here and the global climate system were far more complex, and it is this complexity that is highlighted. Indeed the conclusion here is that it is, at minimum, difficult to directly attribute to the mid-17th century eruptions any major role.
LINES 470-471- it would be useful to consider Fabian Drixler, Mabiki Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660-1950. California, 2013 on causes of infanticide in Japan
LINE 480- Better to cite as East African Monsoon (EAM)?
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Markus Stoffel, 06 Feb 2022
Der RC2, dear Joe,
Thank you very much for the feedback on the paper and the kind word. We have added the reference of Drixler (2013) referring to infanticide in Japan and changed African to East African Monsoon.
Kind regards,
Markus Stoffel, in the name of all co-authors
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Markus Stoffel, 06 Feb 2022
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on cp-2021-148', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Jan 2022
Major comments:
The article by Stoffel et al. skilfully merges volcanology, palaeoclimatology and history in a convincing way. I can fully endorse its publication after some, relative minor, revisions. This multi-disciplinary team has truly put together a state-the-art-art work by assessing the (potential) impacts, and their difference in space and time, of a number of mid-17th century volcanic eruptions, some of which have attracted relatively little interest in earlier scholarship. A major strength is the inclusion of historical data from both Europe, China, and Japan. Obviously, only parts of Europe can be adequately covered. This spatial limitation could be more explicitly stated in the article. Furthermore, it would be an advantage if the treatment of China – and especially of Japan – could be more extensive. It would place Europe and Eastern Asia on a more equal footing in the article.In the revision, the authors could check the figures and see to it that they all have the same style and fonts et cetera. For example, it appears to me as the colour scale of Figure 5 and Figure 6 differs despite that it would be better to have the same scale. Moreover, the quality of some of the figures – at least now in the pre-print – appears to have a low quality/resolution. The manuscript also needs proof-reading – this includes the reference list too – and there are inconsistencies in the list of affiliations as well (for example, the affiliation to Trinity Collage Dublin is given in two different ways).
Minor comments:
Line 25: I am not sure if actually the term “deteriorating” is adequate here. The climate was at least as cold around 1600.Line 35: What is meant with “severe” here as it cannot be a synonym to “cold” stated separately?
Line 39: Is it possible to be more precise in years?
Line 49. Also cite here: Solomina, O. N., Bradley, R. S., Jomelli, V., Geirsdottir, A., Kaufman, D. S., Koch, J., McKay, N. P., Masiokas, M., Miller, G., Nesje, A., Nicolussi, K., Owen, L. A., Putnam, A. E., Wanner, H., Wiles, G., and Yang, B.: Glacier fluctuations during the past 2000 years, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 149, 61–90, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.04.008, 2016
Lines 52–52: This cooling presumably refers to the 17th century w.r.t. 1961–1990? Not the entire multi-centennial Little Ice Age was so cold. You could alternatively cite Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2017) that the 17th century likely was 0.5–1°C colder than this reference interval. Reference: Christiansen, B., and Ljungqvist, F.C., ”Challenges and perspectives for large-scale temperature reconstructions of the past two millennia”., Reviews of Geophysics, 55 (2017): 40–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016RG000521
Line 61: I presume that you with the “Little Ice Age” here mean the late 17th century only? It should be rephrased.
Line 66: “Thirty Years War” should be “Thirty Years’ War”.
Line 68: A better reference than Parker (2013) here is Parker (2006): Parker, G., 2006. The Thirty Years’ War. Routledge, London.
Lines 71–72: Is “Portugal rebels” right here?
Line 118–120: This very short paragraph could be merged with another paragraph.
Line 249: “Jamtland” should be “Jämtland”.
Line 271: Unclear what eruption “rank 4” refers to here.
Line 315: Consider to rephrase this slightly. Catholic France fought on the “Protestant” side.
Line 348: As grain price data are available for Paris, maybe you could quantify the price increase?
Line 362: “arrival” is better here than “rise”. And “bulk” better than “heavy”.
Line 395: Maybe a citation to some work by Astrid E. J. Ogilvie is better here than to Parker (2013)?
Line 508: Other estimates of the number of deaths in the Thirty Years’ War are even higher. See, e.g.: Wilson, Peter H. (2009). Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War. Allen Lane.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Markus Stoffel, 17 Feb 2022
Dear editor, dear Anonymous Referee #1,
Thank you very much for the careful reading of the paper and the insightful feedback and suggestions. We would like to respond to your review below by adding our responses in italics, the replies are always proceeded by “>>>” to facilitate reading.
Thank you very much once again for the careful reading and suggestions,
Markus Stoffel, in the name of all co-authors
*************************************************************************
Major comments:
The article by Stoffel et al. skilfully merges volcanology, palaeoclimatology and history in a convincing way. I can fully endorse its publication after some, relative minor, revisions. This multi-disciplinary team has truly put together a state-the-art-art work by assessing the (potential) impacts, and their difference in space and time, of a number of mid-17th century volcanic eruptions, some of which have attracted relatively little interest in earlier scholarship. A major strength is the inclusion of historical data from both Europe, China, and Japan. Obviously, only parts of Europe can be adequately covered. This spatial limitation could be more explicitly stated in the article. Furthermore, it would be an advantage if the treatment of China – and especially of Japan – could be more extensive. It would place Europe and Eastern Asia on a more equal footing in the article.>>> Thank you very much for this input. We agree completely with you that the sources that we use can at best provide a snapshot of what is available. While doing the review of existing sources – certainly incomplete –, we also tried to cover the various regions in the best possible way without making the paper longer than it already is. We suggest to address this point as follows in the revised text: “Owing to the extensive number of historical sources existing in the 17th century, this only some sources and parts of Europe and Eastern Asia can be adequately covered in the following sections.”
In the revision, the authors could check the figures and see to it that they all have the same style and fonts et cetera. For example, it appears to me as the colour scale of Figure 5 and Figure 6 differs despite that it would be better to have the same scale. Moreover, the quality of some of the figures – at least now in the pre-print – appears to have a low quality/resolution. The manuscript also needs proof-reading – this includes the reference list too – and there are inconsistencies in the list of affiliations as well (for example, the affiliation to Trinity Collage Dublin is given in two different ways).
>>> We have been working on the style and fonts of the illustrations and also checked the quality of the illustrations. Regarding the color schemes between Figure 5 and 6, we prefer to leave them as they are as different temperature ranges are covered and therefore the scales are also different.
>>> We now resolved the problem of inconsistencies in the affiliation to Trinity College Dublin. Thank you for pointing this out to us.
>>> The reference list has been checked and inconsistencies removed. And the paper was proof-read by a native speaker.
Minor comments:
Line 25: I am not sure if actually the term “deteriorating” is adequate here. The climate was at least as cold around 1600.>>> We removed the term “deteriorating”
Line 35: What is meant with “severe” here as it cannot be a synonym to “cold” stated separately?
>>> Agree, We now only use “cold” and have removed “severe and”
Line 39: Is it possible to be more precise in years?
>>> Yes, we now provide years as follows: “”
Line 49. Also cite here: Solomina, O. N., Bradley, R. S., Jomelli, V., Geirsdottir, A., Kaufman, D. S., Koch, J., McKay, N. P., Masiokas, M., Miller, G., Nesje, A., Nicolussi, K., Owen, L. A., Putnam, A. E., Wanner, H., Wiles, G., and Yang, B.: Glacier fluctuations during the past 2000 years, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 149, 61–90, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.04.008, 2016
>>> We added this reference.
Lines 52–52: This cooling presumably refers to the 17th century w.r.t. 1961–1990? Not the entire multi-centennial Little Ice Age was so cold. You could alternatively cite Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2017) that the 17th century likely was 0.5–1°C colder than this reference interval. Reference: Christiansen, B., and Ljungqvist, F.C., ”Challenges and perspectives for large-scale temperature reconstructions of the past two millennia”., Reviews of Geophysics, 55 (2017): 40–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016RG000521
>>> Thank you for this valuable suggestion We have changed the number and added the reference.
Line 61: I presume that you with the “Little Ice Age” here mean the late 17th century only? It should be rephrased.
>>> That’s true, we rephrased the sentence as follows: “”
Line 66: “Thirty Years War” should be “Thirty Years’ War”.
>>> Done
Line 68: A better reference than Parker (2013) here is Parker (2006): Parker, G., 2006. The Thirty Years’ War. Routledge, London.
>>> Thank you, we adjusted the reference accordingly.
Lines 71–72: Is “Portugal rebels” right here?
>>> We have changed the text as follows as the original text may not have been clear: “Moreover, the period was characterized by civil wars including the Scottish Revolution (1637–1644), the Croquant (1637) and the Nu-pieds (1639) revolts in France, the Catalan Revolt (1640–1659), the Portuguese Revolution (1640, continuing to 1668 as the War of Restoration), the Irish Rebellion (1641–1642) and English Civil War (1642–1651) (Parker 2013).”
Line 118–120: This very short paragraph could be merged with another paragraph.
>>> Agree, done
Line 249: “Jamtland” should be “Jämtland”.
>>> Changed
Line 271: Unclear what eruption “rank 4” refers to here.
>>> rank 4 signifies simply that 1633 was the fourth-coldest year in the reconstruction. It occurred in the absence of volcanic activity.
Line 315: Consider to rephrase this slightly. Catholic France fought on the “Protestant” side.
>>> Done
Line 348: As grain price data are available for Paris, maybe you could quantify the price increase?
>>> We have added more information as follows: “In neighboring France, the grape harvest between 1640 and 1643 began a full month later than usual and wheat prices surged from 12 to 20 pounds (per setier, that is about 7 liters) between 1641 and 1642 (Baulant, 1968), indicating poor cereal harvests, especially also in eastern France.”.
Line 362: “arrival” is better here than “rise”. And “bulk” better than “heavy”.
>>> Thank you for these suggestions, we have changed the text accordingly
Line 395: Maybe a citation to some work by Astrid E. J. Ogilvie is better here than to Parker (2013)
>>> We have added Ogilvie’s 1984 chapter in the Reidel (Dordrecht) book edited by N.-A. Morner and W. Karlen (Climate changes on a yearly to millennial basis)
Line 508: Other estimates of the number of deaths in the Thirty Years’ War are even higher. See, e.g.: Wilson, Peter H. (2009). Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War. Allen Lane.
>>> Thank you for this feedback. We have adjusted the numbers accordingly.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Markus Stoffel, 17 Feb 2022
-
RC2: 'Comment on cp-2021-148', Joseph Manning, 03 Feb 2022
Recent advances in Paleoclimate proxy data resolution, and in particular the. advances in ice core Geochemistry that allows for far more precision in the dating of explosive volcanic eruptions have now allowed climate historians to integrate this more precise climate data with precise, annual or sub-annual, historical records. This is creating, not the old climate determinist historians, still so often criticized, but a new climate history that integrates more spatially and temporally precise climate records with specific kinds of human responses. This kind of work requires a large, specialized team, of scholars. This article represents the very best of the new climate history. It is a model to be followed.
The paper shows how volcanically forced cooling interacts with natural climate variability and societies under various kinds of stress. It is global in its coverage, treating northern, western and central Europe, and China and Japan as well, during the Little Ice Age (LIA), about which much has already been written. The general conclusion that it would be wrong to simply isolate volcanic eruptions, even a cluster of eruptions as here, or the Maunder Minimum, as the driving force of abrupt climate change and teh various societal responses across a wide range of societies. Both the societies treated here and the global climate system were far more complex, and it is this complexity that is highlighted. Indeed the conclusion here is that it is, at minimum, difficult to directly attribute to the mid-17th century eruptions any major role.
LINES 470-471- it would be useful to consider Fabian Drixler, Mabiki Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660-1950. California, 2013 on causes of infanticide in Japan
LINE 480- Better to cite as East African Monsoon (EAM)?
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Markus Stoffel, 06 Feb 2022
Der RC2, dear Joe,
Thank you very much for the feedback on the paper and the kind word. We have added the reference of Drixler (2013) referring to infanticide in Japan and changed African to East African Monsoon.
Kind regards,
Markus Stoffel, in the name of all co-authors
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Markus Stoffel, 06 Feb 2022
Markus Stoffel et al.
Markus Stoffel et al.
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