A major European study has examined huge amounts of historical tree ring data, and has found that there’s a link between the rise and fall of European civilizations — especially the Roman empire — and major shifts in the climate in which they were situated. The findings go back 2,500 years, and documents the conditions in which empires found prosperity, and in which declines came to pass.
The scientists are basing their findings on “data from 9,000 wooden artifacts from the past 2,500 years,” according to the BBC. Here’s more from their report:
They found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity, while political turmoil occurred during times of climate instability.”Looking back on 2,500 years, there are examples where climate change impacted human history,” co-author Ulf Buntgen, a paleoclimatologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape … “Distinct drying in the 3rd Century paralleled a period of serious crisis in the western Roman empire”
It’s interesting that the team draws a distinct correlation between the fall of the Roman empire and climatic variability: “Wet and warm summers occurred during periods of Roman and medieval prosperity. Increased climate variability from 250-600 AD coincided with the demise of the western Roman empire and the turmoil of the migration period,” the team reports in the BBC. “Distinct drying in the 3rd Century paralleled a period of serious crisis in the western Roman empire marked by barbarian invasion, political turmoil and economic dislocation in several provinces of Gaul.”
It cannot be understated how greatly climate conditions impact civilizations — and it should give us further cause for concern about ongoing man-caused climate change. Of course, the climate is warming, as opposed to cooling. But man is only really well-adapted to a pretty narrow range of temperatures — if it warms too much, and causes too much “economic dislocation” we may begin to see more parallels between the Roman Empire’s fall and that of the American one.
