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Reply to 'Limited Late Antique cooling'

Nature Geoscience volume 10, page 243 (2017)Cite this article

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Büntgen et al . reply — We agree with Helama et al. in their call for further research into the climate of the first half of the Common Era. However, we argue that they underestimate the combined efficacy of environmental, archaeological and historical indicators in establishing a prolonged period of cold summers across much of the Northern Hemisphere landmass between 536 and about 660 ad, which we term the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA)1.

Although corresponding to the period of highest volcanic2 and lowest solar3 activity during the first half of the Common Era, Eurasia's LALIA1,4,5,6 was probably not uniform in space and time, because of the dominant role of internal climate variability. Externally forced climate model simulations for the past two millennia are needed to provide insight into the physical mechanisms of positive feedback loops between ocean, sea-ice and atmosphere, which possibly prolonged the volcanically forced, sharp onset of the LALIA that disrupted civilizations across the Northern Hemisphere. Summer cooling during the later part of the LALIA was possibly amplified by another — as yet unattributed — eruption in 6262.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK

    Ulf Büntgen, Paul J. Krusic & Clive Oppenheimer

  2. Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, CH-8903, Switzerland

    Ulf Büntgen & Frederick Reinig

  3. Global Change Research Institute CAS and Masaryk University Brno, Brno, 61300, Czech Republic

    Ulf Büntgen

  4. Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia

    Vladimir S. Myglan & Alexander V. Kirdyanov

  5. Department of History, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden

    Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist

  6. Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden

    Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist

  7. Initiative for the Science of the Human Past (SoHP), Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Michael McCormick

  8. Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies, Princeton, 08540, USA

    Nicola Di Cosmo

  9. Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, CH-5232, Switzerland

    Michael Sigl

  10. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 20146, Germany

    Johann Jungclaus

  11. Institute for Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, D-21502, Germany

    Sebastian Wagner

  12. Navarino Environmental Observatory, Messinia, GR-240001, Greece

    Paul J. Krusic

  13. Department of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, 55099, Germany

    Jan Esper

  14. University of Lausanne, Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland

    Jed O. Kaplan

  15. Department of Linguistics and Information Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland

    Michiel A.C. de Vaan

  16. Department of Geography, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, D-35390, Germany

    Jürg Luterbacher

  17. Laboratory for Ion Beam Physics, ETHZ, Zurich, CH-8093, Switzerland

    Lukas Wacker

  18. Chair of Forest Growth, Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg, D-79104, Germany

    Willy Tegel

  19. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, 119017, Russia

    Olga N. Solomina

  20. Institute of Geography, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria

    Kurt Nicolussi

  21. VN Sukachev Institute of Forest SB RAS, Krasnoyarsk, RU-660036, Russia

    Alexander V. Kirdyanov

Authors
  1. Ulf Büntgen
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  2. Vladimir S. Myglan
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  3. Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist
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  6. Michael Sigl
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  7. Johann Jungclaus
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  8. Sebastian Wagner
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  9. Paul J. Krusic
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  10. Jan Esper
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  11. Jed O. Kaplan
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  12. Michiel A.C. de Vaan
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  13. Jürg Luterbacher
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  14. Lukas Wacker
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  15. Willy Tegel
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  16. Olga N. Solomina
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  17. Kurt Nicolussi
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  18. Clive Oppenheimer
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  19. Frederick Reinig
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  20. Alexander V. Kirdyanov
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ulf Büntgen.

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Büntgen, U., Myglan, V., Ljungqvist, F. et al. Reply to 'Limited Late Antique cooling'. Nature Geosci 10, 243 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2927

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