Book Review: Pfister, C.; Wanner, H. Climate and Society in Europe: The Last Thousand Years; Haupt: Berne, Switzerland, 2021; ISBN: 978-3-258-08234-9

Abstract

The book Climate and Society in Europe: The Last Thousand Years, through an appropriate interdisciplinary approach, identifies and analyses the nexus between past and present climatic variability (opening also a window on the future) but also its impact on environmental contexts, on historical events and on the becoming of European societies in the last millennium. This relevant publication is a must not only for scholars but also for any reader who is interested in the study of climate and its history and is curious to find out how much climate change has had an impact on the history of human societies in Europe. Climate and Society in Europe: The Last Thousand Years, written by two of the leading climate scientists in Europe, achieves an advanced goal through an innovative methodological approach, harmoniously managing to connect the historical climate sciences with the natural climate sciences, thus obtaining new and significant insights into both branches of knowledge. The authors paint an exhaustive picture of the relationships between climatic variability (long and short term) and historical and social aspects in Europe, producing a clear and intriguing text even for non-insiders, with an excellent iconographic apparatus and numerous in-depth inserts.

1. Introduction

The book [1], through a truly interdisciplinary approach, connects the historical climate sciences with the natural climate sciences, thus obtaining new and significant insights into both branches of knowledge. This is a new sober, objective and well documented work, on the history of climate, which is characterized by an engaging style, a rich iconographic apparatus and several in-depth inserts, written by two of the leading climate scientists in Europe: Christian Pfister, Professor Emeritus of Economic, Social and Environmental History at the University of Bern, Switzerland, who was the founding president of the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH), and Heinz Wanner, Professor Emeritus of Geography and Climatology, who was co-chair of the international project Past Global Changes (PAGES) and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The two scientists also benefited from contributions from fellow colleagues working at the renowned Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (University of Bern). The book, which introduces the reader to a fascinating journey into the history of climate in the last millennium, is highly recommended for historians and scientists (biologists, climatologists, geologists, etc.), but is also accessible to students, as well as to a vast audience of readers with intellectually lively interests and who want to appropriately expand their knowledge.

For the first time, an extended synthesis in the book is presented through the said approach of climate and its effects on anthropogenic societies over the past 1000 years. This approach highlights the potential of a holistic view of climate research, in which the various disciplines that study the climate, from the physical sciences to the geographical, from the biological to the historical, from the earth sciences to the social, interact and interpenetrate to obtain not only a better picture, but to open up new fields of investigation. Climate events, especially extreme ones, have had and continue to have their impact and repercussions, necessarily influencing the life of human societies, their rise and decline, the course of history and environmental changes. The authors, with great soundness, lead readers through the last millennium, showing them how significant climate changes have certainly not been lacking, but at the same time pointing the finger toward the unprecedented impacts produced by current climate trends that humanity, in the near future, will have to learn to manage. This research is extremely current and future-oriented, because it is essential to reconstruct the climatic impacts on natural and anthropogenic environments, studying the past, to understand the present and create reliable models for the future. Pfister and Wanner’s research highlights past vulnerabilities and the impacts of climate change on anthropogenic societies. The results obtained from the history of the climate, in particular those relating to extreme events, contribute to improving the assessment of dangers and risks, broadening the statistical basis for such analyses. The long-term trend of temperatures over the last 1000 years, reconstructed by the authors, was based on models and biological/non-biological proxy data relating to natural environments. The possible causes of climate fluctuations are linked to important driving factors. This perspective was completed through reconstructions of seasonal weather–climatic conditions based on documentary sources. All this allowed the authors to interpret the developments of the demographic, economic and cultural phenomena of the last 1000 years.

It would be desirable, in a continuation of the research, to examine the most significant case studies relating to extreme events that triggered serious natural disasters, as initially foreseen by the cited authors.

2. Discover the Book

The book, conceived as a synthesis between the two distinct approaches of the natural sciences and the social sciences, follows the common thread through specific best-case examples. The work consists of eleven chapters, divided into sections. The introduction (Chapter 1) shows not only the different perspectives of the natural sciences and human sciences in approaching the study of climate, but how they can complement each other in the analysis of the relationships between climate change and human societies in the last millennium. Particular attention is paid to the global climate system and its multiple functioning mechanisms. The compelling story of the discovery and investigation in the Austrian valley of Ötztal of Iceman Ötzi, who remained hidden for 5250 years and was unexpectedly found in 1991, becomes the case study for introducing the climatic history of the Holocene natural climate variability. It then focuses on the last 1000 years of the Holocene and its fluctuations in the hot/cold sense, up to the modern anthropogenic warming (Chapter 2, Ötzi’s wake-up call). The great volcanic eruptions in the tropics affect both the climate system (causing a distinct global weather anomaly) and human history, as evidenced by the case study of the Indonesian volcano Tambora, which with its eruption in 1815 had significant effects on the global climate system and regional climates, triggering the last great famine in Western and Central Europe (Chapter 3, The long arm of Tambora). An overview of the evolution of the understanding of time over the past 1000 years is given. Based on the rediscovery of Greek science, mediated mainly through the Islamic world, medieval clergyman began to acquire the perception of a cosmos that could be investigated by human reason. The long itinerary relating to the perception of time unravels from the chronicles, often based on eyewitness reports, preserved in the archives of societies, characterized by an eschatological, if not apocalyptic vision of extreme events, seen as divine punishments, up to the use of instruments, appropriately calibrated and standardized, arriving then at modern satellite studies to support increasingly sophisticated models (chapter 4, From weather narratives to climate science). The main types and continuous series of indirect evidence (proxy data), found in the archives of nature and society (textual and pictorial records made by past society, man-made sources [2]), are discussed and outlined in more detail. The ample variety of these data allows reliable estimates of temperature and precipitation indices to be made prior to the start of instrumental measurements, but also has limitations (chapter 5, Reconstructing past climate). A millennium overview of the spatial dynamics of Europe’s current climate is made using selected temporal proxy datasets that exhibit limited space–time resolution. These results integrate the findings of a simulation with a state-of-the-art model of the Earth system driven by classical forcings, such as total solar radiation, greenhouse gases, volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols and changes in land use (chapter 6, European climate—present and past). Based on data from nature archives, the development of the climate over the last 1000 years is outlined, focusing mainly on multi-decade driving factors (especially solar activity and volcanic eruptions) that trigger perennial variations. Furthermore, the discussion of the role of internal variability is addressed, reconsidering the dynamics of the last 1000 years on the basis of a simulation. A high-resolution picture of seasonal temperatures (based on Pfister indices for Western and Central Europe) over the millennium prior to the transition to rapid warming in 1988 is presented (chapter 7, The High Medieval Period 1000–1300 AD, and 8, The Boreal Little Ice Age and the Short Twentieth Century). The climate of the High Medieval Period (HMP), from 1000 to 1300 AD, shows two warm periods separated by a cold 12th century (chapter 7). The Boreal Little Ice Age (BLIA) involved extensive glacier advancements (late 14th, late 16th, mid 17th, late 18th and mid 19th centuries, chapter 8). The interactions between the course of human history, climate and the dynamics of the natural environment were analyzed. The climatic reconstructions based on seasonal proxies and instrumental measurements have made it possible to highlight the significant impact of the climate on the demographic trends of the population and the economy before the advent of modern industrialized civilization (chapter 9, Weather, climate, and the human world). The complex phase of transition from the HMP to the BLIA is characterized by being a period of predominantly cold winters, which can be interpreted as the product of characteristic signals of medium- to long-term climatic fluctuations. A careful overview is provided of the possible reasons for these characteristics and on their environmental (especially on glaciers) and social impact (chapter 10, European climate over the last millennium). No less intriguing is the final chapter. Regarding the European context, the crucial transition from slow to rapid warming is outlined. It also traces the history of the pioneering discovery of the greenhouse effect and the subsequent controversies triggered in the scientific field. The balanced and clear presentation of the “greenhouse” effect, without ever being excessively technical, focuses mainly on the mechanisms and effects of anthropogenic warming, as well as on the possible future scenarios of its impact on the planet, thanks to the use of possible analogous cases from the last 1000 years (chapter 11, From slow-going to rapid warming). The annex includes the endnotes; a separate alphabetical list of references, particularly rich and extensive, very useful for further information and especially for those who are not initiated into the scientific literature on the subject; a reasoned bibliographic selection of documentary sources; a very useful index; and, finally, the credits relating to the iconographic apparatus.

In my opinion, this book has the remarkable virtue of effectively contributing to overcoming the dichotomy between different scientific cultures, that is, the natural sciences and the humanities [3,4], by applying the beneficial results of an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to climate history.

The truly interdisciplinary approach, used with much discernment by the authors of this book, allows them to point out the complex interrelationships between climate and society in the last millennium.

The reading of this engaging book brings out in all its evidence the observation that climate change has particularly influenced the environmental and human dynamics in the European continent over the course of many centuries, and this constitutes not only an object of reflection, but above all, an important warning also for current and future generations.

In the continuation of the research, in my opinion, it will be necessary to focus more on the history of the Mediterranean climate, still little investigated, in order to make the Central European vision that has dominated until now less predominant. This is truly the challenge that future studies on the European climate will have to face, which can disregard a deeper knowledge of such a complex area, but is important to better understand and predict the future effects of global warming, induced by recent climate changes, in the Mediterranean region of our continent and their geoenvironmental and geopolitical implications. Global warming is expressed in some characteristics, including the increase in hydroclimatic extremes such as large cyclonic storm, floods, changes in precipitation (e.g., increment in frequency of heavy precipitation events) and evapotranspiration, landslides and/or debris/mudflows [5]. The interactive relationship with continuing global warming and the increasing disaster recurrence (expected to be more frequent and intense during the future decades of the 21st century, with enormous socioeconomic impact) is crucially important to implementing an effective strategy to identify future slope stability issues, for the development of sustainable environmental planning for mitigation actions, and for geologic analyses of disaster hazards and risk management, which can reduce exposure and vulnerability to weather and climate events [6]. In the Mediterranean region, rainfall, essential for supporting agriculture, the economy, and human supply, shows a winter decline, linked to global warming, making this area an important hot spot for climate change in the coming decades [7], fearing the future dangers of drought, desertification, salinization, and wood fires. The increment in the frequency of heavy precipitation and cyclonic events, on the other hand, make it probable that extreme weather events and related nature-induced disasters [8,9,10,11], such as flash floods and landslides, will increase.

In conclusion, this book is a must-read, but it should be read and meditated upon above all by the new generations, because the real future of epochal change is entrusted to their awareness, aimed at achieving the objectives of social inclusion and environmental sustainability, as given in the 2030 Agenda, which undoubtedly are not only achievable, but necessary and very urgent.