History detective helps scientists rewrite climate records

Volcano-440x124
09 Jul 2015 09:00:00.000

PA 104/15

A University of Nottingham historian has helped resolve a global debate about scientific evidence for ancient extreme climate events by examining medieval manuscripts and other historical sources.

In a paper published in the world-leading scientific journal, Nature, Dr Conor Kostick’s research into medieval evidence for climate events has allowed scientists to pinpoint the exact relationship between historical volcanic activity and severe winters. 

Climate science has made major steps forward in recent years as data collection from natural sources such as tree-rings, ice cores and mineral cave formations has become more and more sophisticated. Much can be learned about the Earth’s changing climate from analysing the chemicals found in ice cores, for example, and a crucial phenomenon affecting climate is volcanic eruption.

Click here for full story

Rewriting climate history 

Scientists know that a major volcanic eruption can have significant cooling effects because its smoke plume injects sulphur particles into the atmosphere which reflects sunlight away from the planet. But w
hat is the past history of such volcanic climate forcing? Most climate scientists believe it played a part in creating some of the cold years faced by our predecessors, such as 536 CE when a cloud covered Europe for a year, with disastrous consequences.


But the exact relationship between historical volcanic activity and severe winters has been confused by the fact that for various reasons, dating errors can accumulate as scientists attempt to count the layers of ice in their cores.

Now though, a team of ice-core experts has dug a new Arctic core and used new techniques to establish with great precision the dating of each ice layer. The results of their work shows that our previous ice-core dates for the period before about 1000 CE (and therefore for volcanic activity) are wrong by about seven years. With the new data it becomes evident that for certain years, such as 79, 536, 626 and 939 CE, volcanoes did indeed cause severe cold to develop over Europe.

Medieval evidence

Dr Conor Kostick said: ‘When Michael Sigl from the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada and his team learned of my work on extreme medieval climate events, they asked could I find ‘tie-points’ - years in which the historical sources suggest volcanic activity. Thanks to my Nottingham Advanced Research Fellowship and my subsequent Marie Curie Fellowship I have been able to assemble a great deal of relevant evidence for unusual climate events in the medieval period.

“I looked through my data and gave them a list of events, based not just upon obvious reports, such as eyewitness accounts of the eruption of Vesuvius in 472 CE, but also on more subtle evidence such as reports of the sun being dim, or discoloured. And the beauty of what happened next is that these examples formed a perfect match with the new ice-core data, even though I hadn’t seen their data and had no idea which years they were interested in.”

The resulting revision of the global history of volcanic aerosol forcing will be very important to researchers working in the climate sciences, historians and archaeologists. The major compilation of historical data published with the paper will also be a valuable asset in its own right.

Dr Conor Kostick has been awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award for early career researchers.

The full research paper published by Nature is available here.

— Ends —

Our academics can now be interviewed for broadcast via our Media Hub, which offers a Globelynx fixed camera and ISDN line facilities at University Park campus. For further information please contact a member of the Communications team on +44 (0)115 951 5798, email mediahub@nottingham.ac.uk or see the Globelynx website for how to register for this service.

For up to the minute media alerts, follow us on Twitter

Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with campuses in China and Malaysia modelled on a headquarters that is among the most attractive in Britain’ (Times Good University Guide 2014). It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK among graduate employers and the winner of ‘Research Project of the Year’ at the THE Awards 2014. It is ranked in the world’s top one per cent of universities by the QS World University Rankings, and 8th in the UK by research power according to REF 2014.

The University of Nottingham in Malaysia (UNMC) is holding events throughout 2015 to celebrate 15 years as a pioneer of transnational education. Based in Semenyih, UNMC was established as the UK's first overseas campus in Malaysia and one of the first world-wide.

Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest-ever fundraising campaign, is delivering the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. More news…


Story credits

More informationis available from Dr Conor Kostick in the School of History, University of Nottingham on +353 087 9836992, conor.kostick@nottingham.ac.uk

Additional resources

No additional resources for this article

Media Relations - External Relations

The University of Nottingham
YANG Fujia Building
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham, NG8 1BB

telephone: +44 (0) 115 951 5798
email: pressoffice@nottingham.ac.uk