Millennium from 1708/1709

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Le lagon gelé en 1708 , by Gabriele Bella : The frozen lagoon in Venice in winter 1708

The millennium winter of 1708/1709 was an exceptionally cold winter in Europe from late 1708 to spring 1709 . The winter hit even countries with generally mild winters such as Portugal or Italy . Winter is considered the coldest in the past 500 years. The persistent cold caused crop failures , inflation and famine in many parts of Europe in the following year .

Emergence

Temperature anomaly winter 1708/1709

A strongly negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is assumed to be the main cause . Winter also fell during a time of low temperatures in the northern hemisphere , the Little Ice Age , which was caused by various factors, including volcanic activity. Reduced solar activity - the sun was in the Maunder minimum from 1645 to 1715 and showed few sunspots - could also have contributed to a limited extent via a somewhat lower radiation output. However, a regional influence of solar activity on the NAO is considered possible.

In English the term Great Frost , in German the Great Frost , has become formative for this event, in French the term under Grand Hiver , in German the Great Winter, has gone down in history.

Effects

France was particularly hard hit by the winter. The subsequent famine due to the failed crop yields caused an estimated 600,000 starvation deaths by the end of 1710.

The last frost night in the Trier area is said to have been on July 7th. The subsequent drought led to famine there. The lake froze in winter 1708/09 for the first time to complete. The Lake Constance froze over for the most part. A difficult winter is also reported from other regions of Europe. Based on reports from the Versailles court , it is known that even on the royal table the water froze.

The winter of 1708/09 was also devastating for the Swedish Army on their Russian campaign in Ukraine . The cold caused sudden winter storms and deep frosts in the Swedish army camp . Thousands of soldiers died, most of them during the winter offensive. In the worst cold night alone, 2000 Swedes are said to have frozen to death. The Russian troops were better prepared for the harsh climate, did not leave their camps and thus suffered fewer cold losses.

Others

The millennium winter inspired the Scotsman Al Stewart to write the song The Coldest Winter in Memory .

literature

  • Hans von Rudloff: The fluctuations and oscillations of the climate in Europe since the beginning of the regular instrument observations (1670). With a contribution about climatic fluctuations in historical times by Hermann Flohn . Die Wissenschaft , Vol. 122, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1967; Reprint by Vieweg & Teubner, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-663-06128-1 , pp. 121–125; limited preview in Google Book search.
  • Walter Lenke: Investigation of the oldest temperature measurements with the help of the severe winter 1708–1709, reports of the German Weather Service,> Volume 13, No. 92, Offenbach a. M. (1964), digitized version

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jürg Luterbacher, Daniel Dietrich, Elena Xoplaki, Martin Grosjean and Heinz Wanner: European Seasonal and Annual Temperature Variability, Trends, and Extremes Since 1500. In: Science. , Ed. 303, 2004, pp. 1499-1503
  2. ^ Walter Lenke: Investigation of the oldest temperature measurements with the help of the severe winter 1708–1709. Reports of the German Weather Service , No. 92, Offenbach am Main 1964.
  3. ↑ Mathew J. Owens, Mike Lockwood, Ed Hawkins, Ilya Usoskin, Gareth S. Jones, Luke Barnard, Andrew Schurer and John Fasullo: The Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age: an update from recent reconstructions and climate simulations . In: Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate . tape 7 , A33, 2017, doi : 10.1051 / swsc / 2017034 .
  4. ^ Georg Feulner: Are the most recent estimates for Maunder Minimum solar irradiance in agreement with temperature reconstructions? In: Geophysical Research Letters . August 2011, doi : 10.1029 / 2011GL048529 ( PDF ). , Press release: Study on the Little Ice Age: Low solar activity cools the climate only insignificantly. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, September 1, 2011, accessed on September 13, 2013 .
  5. ↑ AP Schurer et al. a .: Small influence of solar variability on climate over the past millennium . In: Nature Geoscience . 2015, doi : 10.1038 / NGEO2040 .
  6. ^ Mike Lockwood: Solar Influence on Global and Regional Climates . In: Surveys in Geophysics . 2012, chap. 6 , doi : 10.1007 / s10712-012-9181-3 ( HTML, en ).
  7. ^ Pain Stephanie: 1709: The year that Europe froze: New Scientist, February 7, 2009.
  8. ^ Gregory W. Monahan: Year of Sorrows. The great famine of 1709 in Lyon. Ohio State University Press, Columbus 1993, ISBN 0-8142-0608-5 , pp. 125-153.
  9. ↑ Ronald D. Gerste : How the weather makes history: Disasters and climate change from antiquity to today. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2015, Chapter January 1709: "The coldest winter in memory ..." , pp. 129-137; limited preview in Google Book search