Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD
Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD
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DOI：
10.1038/ngeo2652
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发表时间：
2016-03-01
影响因子：
18.3
通讯作者：
Kirdyanov, Alexander V.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Buentgen, Ulf;Myglan, Vladimir S.;Kirdyanov, Alexander V.
气候变化在公元前半叶已被认为在欧洲（1，2）和亚洲（3，4）的社会重组中发挥了作用。特别是，第六世纪与文明的兴起和衰落（1-6），流行病（7，8），人类移民和政治动荡（8-13）相吻合。然而，我们对这一时期气候变化的规模和空间范围以及可能的原因和并发情况的了解仍然有限。在这里，我们使用来自俄罗斯阿尔泰山和欧洲阿尔卑斯山的树木年轮年表来重建过去两千年的夏季温度。我们发现，在公元536、540和547年的一系列大型火山爆发之后，出现了前所未有的、持续时间长的、空间同步的冷却（参考文献14），这可能是由海洋和海冰的反馈（15、16）以及太阳活动极小期（17）维持的。因此，我们确定从公元536年到大约660年的时间段为古代小冰期晚期。横跨北方的大部分地区，我们认为这一寒冷阶段被认为是一个额外的环境因素，有助于查士丁尼瘟疫的建立（7，8），东罗马帝国的转型和萨珊帝国的崩溃（1，2，5），亚洲草原和阿拉伯半岛的运动（8，11，12），斯拉夫语民族的传播（9，10）和中国的政治动荡（13）。
Climatic changes during the first half of the Common Era have been suggested to play a role in societal reorganizations in Europe(1,2) and Asia(3,4). In particular, the sixth century coincides with rising and falling civilizations(1-6), pandemics(7,8), human migration and political turmoil(8-13). Our understanding of the magnitude and spatial extent as well as the possible causes and concurrences of climate change during this period is, however, still limited. Here we use tree-ring chronologies from the Russian Altai and European Alps to reconstruct summer temperatures over the past two millennia. We find an unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling following a cluster of large volcanic eruptions in 536, 540 and 547 AD (ref. 14), which was probably sustained by ocean and sea-ice feedbacks(15,16), as well as a solar minimum(17). We thus identify the interval from 536 to about 660 AD as the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Spanning most of the Northern Hemisphere, we suggest that this cold phase be considered as an additional environmental factor contributing to the establishment of the Justinian plague(7,8), transformation of the eastern Roman Empire and collapse of the Sasanian Empire(1,2,5), movements out of the Asian steppe and Arabian Peninsula(8,11,12), spread of Slavic-speaking peoples(9,10) and political upheavals in China(13).