1473 heat and drought in Europe

Natural disaster in Europe The 1473 heat and drought in Europe was a climatic extreme. The heatwave and drought in 1473–1474 lasted 14 months, affecting Western, Central and Eastern Europe as well as Southern Scandinavia, Ireland, Northern Italy and parts of Spain. This year was the culmination of several years of heat and drought between 1471 and 1474. In terms of its duration and geographical extent, it was probably the most widespread and extreme period of heat and drought in Europe in the past millennium. The weather patterns and their effects were reconstructed based on consistent reports in contemporary historical documents. The countries affected today are: Southern Sweden, Denmark, England, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, western Russia, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Serbia and parts of Spain.Camenisch Chantal Brázdil Rudolf Kiss Andrea Pfister Christian Wetter Oliver Rohr Christian Contino Antonio Retsö Dag 2020-02-10 Extreme heat and drought in 1473 and their impacts in Europe in the context of the early 1470s https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-020-01601-0 Regional Environmental Change en 20 1 19 10.1007/s10113-020-01601-0 2020REnvC..20...19C 1436-378X Data and methods Detailed evidence on weather patterns in 1473 is available in historical documents. Historical climatology deals with the reconstruction of weather and climate, as well as their effects on societies based on documentary evidence, primarily from chronicles. The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History provides an overview of the available methods and data, summarising climatic and socio-economic developments by era and continent.White Sam The Palgrave handbook of climate history Pfister Christian Mauelshagen Franz 2018 Palgrave Macmillan 978-1-137-43020-5 London Here are some basic considerations to take into account: Dating in the 15th century follows the Julian calendar. To align with the Gregorian calendar, nine days must be added to a Julian date. The evidence is obtained from contemporary documents, primarily chronicle weather reports. Narrative data often contain indirect information on temperature conditions (known as proxy data), such as observations of cultivated plants (known as phenology) in the warm season, as well as observations of frozen waters, snow cover, and occasional spring vegetation in the cold season. These narrative and proxy data are summarized in the form of a seasonal index named Pfister index.Mauelshagen Franz Klimageschichte der Neuzeit: 1500-1900 2010 WBG 978-3-534-21024-4 Geschichte kompakt Darmstadt The Pfister index is the most commonly used temperature and precipitation index. It comprises seven classes on a scale from -3 to +3, indicating deviations from a 20th-century reference period. Seasonal Pfister indices for Central Europe are available for the period 1000–1999.Pfister Christian Wanner Heinz 2021 Climate and Society in Europe. The last thousand years. Digital Appendix. Version 2, December 2023 https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/handle/20.500.12422/173670 Bern Open Repository and Information System 10.48350/191962 Description Weather conditions and temperature Parts of Spain remained largely dry during the winter half‑year of 1472–1473, with the area around Seville experiencing drought from September 1472 to May 1473. Camenisch Chantal Brázdil Rudolf Kiss Andrea Pfister Christian Wetter Oliver Rohr Christian Contino Antonio Retsö Dag 2020-02-10 Extreme heat and drought in 1473 and their impacts in Europe in the context of the early 1470s https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-020-01601-0 Regional Environmental Change en 20 1 19 10.1007/s10113-020-01601-0 2020REnvC..20...19C 1436-378X The winter of 1473 was 'rainy' in Metz and 'without snow or ice' in Basel. In the environment of this town cherry trees began to blossom in early March (Gregorian Calendar) which points to high temperatures in the preceding weeks. April was hot. The vines began to blossom at the beginning of May. The heat was almost unbearable in this month. By the beginning of June, the cherries were ripe, followed by the grapes a month later. Wheat was harvested during the same period. White grapes were picked in Metz starting on 13 August Gregorian Calendar.Litzenburger Laurent https://books.openedition.org/edul/4482 Une ville face au climat: Metz à la fin du Moyen Âge, 1400-1530 2015 Éditions de l’Université de Lorraine 978-2-38451-115-0 Archéologie, espaces, patrimoines Nancy fr Red Pinot Noir grapes were picked in Beaune starting on 5 September.Labbé Thomas Pfister Christian Brönnimann Stefan Rousseau Daniel Franke Jörg Bois Benjamin 2019-08-29 The longest homogeneous series of grape harvest dates, Beaune 1354–2018, and its significance for the understanding of past and present climate https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1485/2019/ Climate of the Past English 15 4 1485–1501 10.5194/cp-15-1485-2019 2019CliPa..15.1485L free 1814-9324 Overall, vegetation development began 4–5 months early, as in the 1540 European drought. In autumn, the cherry trees blossomed again. In November, the cherries ripened for the second time. In December, flowers bloomed in Basel amid 'spring-like' temperatures. The following winter, in 1474, was again rainy and frost-free in eastern France and the Baltic Sea was ice-free early on. The 'high mountains' visible from Basel — presumably the peaks of the Black Forest, which are between 1,200 and 1,500 meters high, remained snow-free throughout the winter, as Basel lawyer Johannes Knebel noted in his diary. Snowfall on 2 March 1474 brought an end to the longest warm and dry period recorded until 2024, which had lasted 14 months.Pfister Christian Climate and society in Europe - the last thousand years Wanner Heinz 2021 Haupt Verlag 978-3-258-08234-9 1st Berne Maps of estimated temperatures Spatial reconstruction of temperatures in Europe for the year 1473. Brown‑red shading indicates positive, and blue shading negative temperature anomalies relative to the 1961–1990 climatological baseline. The map is derived from a data‑assimilation (Reanalysis) approach that integrates climate model simulations with documentary evidence and tree‑ring proxy records.Valler Veronika Franke Jörg Brugnara Yuri Samakinwa Eric Hand Ralf Lundstad Elin Burgdorf Angela-Maria Lipfert Laura Friedman Andrew Ronald Brönnimann Stefan 2024-01-05 ModE-RA: a global monthly paleo-reanalysis of the modern era 1421 to 2008 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02733-8 Scientific Data en 11 1 10.1038/s41597-023-02733-8 2052-4463 10770343 38182596 Precipitation Some concerned chroniclers recorded the beginning and end of the period without significant precipitation. Parts of Spain, including the Seville area, were largely dry during the winter months of 1472–73. In Zierikzee in the Netherlands, there was no rain from May to October. The drought in Bohemia lasted three and a half months, from 2 May to 20 November in Wroclaw (then called Breslau) and during the nine weeks from 29 June to mid-September in Basel. The year 1473 marked the culmination of a series of warm winters and hot, dry summers spanning from 1471 to 1474. This multi-year heat surge is unique within the context of the European Little Ice Age, which spanned from 1340 to around 1900. It was probably triggered by dry spring periods which severely dried out the soil, thereby amplifying the effect of summer solar radiation.Seneviratne Sonia I. Corti Thierry Davin Edouard L. Hirschi Martin Jaeger Eric B. Lehner Irene Orlowsky Boris Teuling Adriaan J. 2010 Investigating soil moisture–climate interactions in a changing climate: A review https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0012825210000139 Earth-Science Reviews en 99 3–4 125–161 10.1016/j.earscirev.2010.02.004 2010ESRv...99..125S Hydrological and ecological effects In late summer, deciduous trees in the Basel area shed their leaves and looked 'like Christmas'. Springs, streams, and smaller rivers dried up completely; larger rivers, such as the Moselle, dwindled to trickles; and shallow watercourses in the Netherlands stank terribly. Meandering large rivers such as the Rhine and the Danube could be crossed on foot in places. Rivers in Poland, Ukraine and western Russia also had low water levels.Przybylak Rajmund Oliński Piotr Koprowski Marcin Filipiak Janusz Pospieszyńska Aleksandra Chorążyczewski Waldemar Puchałka Radosław Dąbrowski Henryk Paweł 2020-04-01 Droughts in the area of Poland in recent centuries in the light of multi-proxy data https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/16/627/2020/ Climate of the Past English 16 2 627–661 10.5194/cp-16-627-2020 free 2020CliPa..16..627P 1814-9324 Large swarms of migratory locusts plagued Europe in the following years.The dance of death in late Medieval and Renaissance Europe: environmental stress, mortality and social response 2021 Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 978-1-032-08339-1 Kiss Andrea First issued in paperback Routledge environmental humanities London New York Pribyl Kathleen Scientific discussion An investigation of stalagmites (Speleothem) in north-eastern Hungary concludes that the 1470s were a warm, dry period.Siklósy Zoltan 2009 Reconstruction of climate variation for the last millennium in the Bükk Mountains, northeast Hungary, from a stalagmite record, Idöjárás Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, 113/4, pp. 245–263 Idöjárás Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service 113 4 245–263 In 2015, American climatologist Edward Cook and 54 colleagues published a synthesis of severe droughts in Africa and Eurasia: This study is primarily based on data from tree rings (Palaeoclimatology). The spatial extent of the 1473 drought largely coincides with contemporary weather reports. The authors mention a 15th-century mega-drought in north-central Europe, during which the most intense phase of drought lasted 37 years, from 1437 to 1473.Cook Edward R. Seager Richard Kushnir Yochanan Briffa Keith R. Büntgen Ulf Frank David Krusic Paul J. Tegel Willy van der Schrier Gerard Andreu-Hayles Laia Baillie Mike Baittinger Claudia Bleicher Niels Bonde Niels Brown David 2015-11-06 Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era Science Advances en 1 10 e1500561 10.1126/sciadv.1500561 2375-2548 4640589 26601136 2015SciA....1E0561C Socio-economic and health impacts Most mills stopped working, causing shortages of flour and bread. In some areas, the supply of drinking water also dried up. Widespread forest, bush and settlement fires broke out. Forest fires were very common and, since there was insufficient water to put them out, especially destructive. Numerous beekeeping trees and most spring crops died due to drought.Przybylak Rajmund Oliński Piotr Koprowski Marcin Szychowska-Krąpiec Elżbieta Krąpiec Marek Pospieszyńska Aleksandra Puchałka Radosław 2023-11-21 The climate in Poland (central Europe) in the first half of the last millennium, revisited https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/19/2389/2023/ Climate of the Past English 19 11 2389–2408 10.5194/cp-19-2389-2023 free 1814-9324 Northern Italy and parts of Spain experienced crop failures and famines following long periods of drought in autumn and winter. In Spain, 'conversos' were scapegoated for the misery and burned at the stake. Numerous deaths in the Netherlands, England and Hungary were attributed to the heat and/or associated infectious diseases ('pestis'). These were probably cases of dysentery. "In the year 1473, on August 9th /18th , there was a procession against sudden death, as well as for rain during a dry and hot period. No one living in these lands remembered such an excessively hot time, with no rain, causing the grapes on the stalks to wither and spoil almost entirely. The drought was deadly throughout the summer, with accounts stating more men died than women.Bernhard Rorbach 1884 Liber Gestorum. Quellen zur Frankfurter Geschichte Quellen zur Frankfurter Geschichte, ed. Carl Jüger 218 “These illnesses appear to have included episodes of acute fever characterized by pronounced hyperthermia, severe thirst, and inflammatory responses. In addition, bacterial dysentery—transmitted through contaminated water and flies—was widespread and particularly lethal for young children.Pribyl Kathleen 2020-06-12 A survey of the impact of summer droughts in southern and eastern England, 1200–1700 https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/16/1027/2020/ Climate of the Past English 16 3 1027–1041 10.5194/cp-16-1027-2020 free 2020CliPa..16.1027P 1814-9324 Following the extreme heat and drought of the summer of 1719, an epidemic of dysentery in France killed 450,000 people, equivalent to 2% of the population at the time.Lachiver Marcel Les années de misère: la famine au temps du Grand Roi ; 1680 - 1720 1991 Fayard 978-2-213-02799-9 Paris Literature Chantal Camenisch, Rudolf Brázdil, Andrea Kiss et al.: Extreme heat and drought in 1473 and their impacts in Europe in the context of the early 1470s, in: Regional Environmental Change (2020) 20:19 (doi:10.1007/s10113-020-01601-0) Christian Pfister, Heinz Wanner, Climate and Society in Europe. The last thousand years. Bern, Haupt 2021. ISBN 978-3-258-08234-9. References Category:Weather events in Europe Category:Droughts in Europe Category:1473 in Europe