Climatic, weather and socio-economic conditions corresponding with the mid-17th century eruption cluster

Abstract

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.

Recession or resilience? Long-range socioeconomic consequences of the 17th century volcanic eruptions in northern Fennoscandia

“…Also, the peasants likely had less grain for storing because of the raised taxes and other financial burdens of wartime, which may have negatively influenced individual coping capacity. Furthermore, the wartime may have also influenced agricultural productivity, which relied on man-and horsepower (Stoffel et al, 2022). During the years 1638-1649, altogether 4155 men were shipped from the study area to fight the war on the continent (Lappalainen, 1987).…”

“…Besides rich documentary material, the 17th century also provides good temporal scope for a longitudinal study, as it witnessed three eruptions with comparable volcanic stratospheric sulfur injection (VSSI) from the 1600 Huaynaputina (Peru), the 1640/1641 Koma-ga-take-Parker (Japan-Philippines), and the 1695 unidentified tropical (Briffa et al, 1998;Sigl et al, 2015;Toohey and Sigl, 2017;Stoffel et al, 2022;White et al, 2022) eruptions. In fact, reconstructions based on sulfate records from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores indicate that the three eruption events are comparable not only in terms of the estimated VSSI, but also regarding global mean aerosol optical depth and global radiative forcing (Toohey and Sigl, 2017).…”

New perspectives on historical climatology

“…This shift reflects advances in dating techniques and high‐resolution paleoclimatology that highlight the role of volcanic forcing in the cooling of the Little Ice Age (LIA) and other episodes of historical climate variability (Sigl et al, 2015; Toohey & Sigl, 2017). Moreover, volcanic eruptions and climate impacts represent discrete and sudden global events, which draw attention to their societal consequences and provides synchronic and diachronic comparisons of societal vulnerability and resilience (e.g., D'Arrigo et al, 2020; Guillet et al, 2020; Huhtamaa et al, 2022; Stoffel et al, 2022). Furthermore, attempts to reconstruct volcanic eruptions and better understand their influence on climate—as in the PAGES Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) working group—have encouraged new forms of integration between historical research and earth and atmospheric sciences.…”

Disaster, demographics, and vulnerability: Interrogating the long‐term effects of an extreme weather event

“…Usefully, there is increasing recognition of the importance in geography and other social sciences of the historical dimension of disasters: The literature on causation and consequences in the near and long-term has broadened to encompass economic (Boustan et al, 2020), geographical and geomorphological (Giacona et al, 2019;Huhtamaa et al, 2021;Stoffel et al, 2021;Williams et al, 2022), emotional (McKinnon & Cook, 2020), sociological and political variables (Jeffers, 2014(Jeffers, , 2021Nash et al, 2019;Van Bavel et al, 2020;Walshe et al, 2020).…”