Were I Get My Information

When you want to investigate whether extreme weather is more common these days or whether extreme weather is more extreme than it has been in the past you will  need to compare the past with present.

I will be using a number of articles  from journals such as Nature or Science. The focus of the articles I choose is about understanding (extreme) weather in the past and how much difference (or not) there is between the past and present. 

There will be attention for tree- ring dating. Every tree- ring  gives much information about things such as temperature, rainfall or droughts. When a tree suffers during a very dry summer you will be able to see it in the tree-rings. At the University of Arizona there is a research centre for tree- ring dating. http://ltrr.arizona.edu/

 

Other sources are the national meteorological institutions. Many of these institutions have been collecting data about climate and weather since the 1800’s. Most of the institutions have their own research centres and publish their findings. There are also specialised research institutions, an example is the National Drought Mitigation Centre at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln http://drought.unl.edu/ this institute makes the US Drought Monitor. Another specialised institute is the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. http://environment.yale.edu/climate/  They have made an interesting study about how many Americans believe that climate change is connected with extreme weather. The study is called: Extreme weather, climate & preparedness in the American mind

A completely different source of information are manuscripts and records of weather in the past. Romans, Greeks or medieval monks did not have all the resources and knowledge that we have today but with the tools they had they were able to make good impressions of the actual weather in their time. When a  monk in 1540 writes about the Rhine in Cologne almost being dry you can be sure that the weather was quite extreme. 

Many books about weather in the past have been written by the Dutch historical geographer Jan Buis. He writes about the weather during the last 1,000 year in the Netherlands. For his books he uses manuscripts of that time, which gives it many interesting insides and details of the period. The title is ‘’DUIZEND JAAR WEER, WIND EN WATER IN DE LAGE LANDEN’’ which means: One  thousand years of weather, wind and water in the Low Countries. http://duizendjaarweer.nl/duizend-jaar-weer/  At this moment it’s already six volumes but that number will grow to ten. Every year is described in great detail.

Another  very interesting book is ‘’ An Environmental History of the Middle Ages. This book is brand new and written by John Aberth. He also writes about weather in the middle ages but he also pays attention for what people in the middle ages thought about weather and climate. And it turns out that the modern day humans are not the first ones who were concerned with climate change or extreme weather.  During the middle ages people were already concerned about the human impact on the environment. 

The last interesting article about old manuscripts is written by scientists from universities in Portugal and Spain. These scientists have analysts old manuscripts from the 7^th  till early 11^th century which are written by Arabic meteorologists. They were actual scientists and that gives an unique inside into the weather of early medieval times. But even more surprising is what these early scientists wrote. They were writing about heavy snowfall and extreme cold in Bagdad. Not exactly the type of weather you would expect there.