An international team led by Ulf Büntgen from the Oeschger Centre has, for the first time ever, reconstructed annual-resolved European summer climate over the past 2,500 years. The results are based on measurements of annual tree-rings from thousands of sub-fossil, archaeological, historical and living tree samples. The researchers reconstructed the history of summer precipitation and temperature, extending the record more than 1,000 years further than previous studies into the past. Their study, published in the renowned journal Science, provides new evidence that agrarian wealth and overall economic growth may have been impacted by climate change. Tree rings reveal possible links between past climate variability and changes in human history. Climate change coincided with periods of socioeconomic, cultural and political turmoil associated with the Barbarian Migrations, the Black Death and Thirty Years’ War. "European summer climate during the Roman Era about 2,000 years ago, for example, was relatively warm and wet and characterized by less variability", said Ulf Büntgen. Increased climate variations from around 250 A.D. coincided with the demise of the Western Roman Empire. The authors, however, note that such comparative studies cannot be used to indicate a direct and simple relationship between climate variability and human history.
Read the article on the Science website
Ulf Büntgen on Swiss television
