1540 European drought

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 1540 drought in Europe was a climatic event in Europe. In various palaeoclimatic analyses the temperature and precipitation regimes were reconstructed and compared to present-day conditions.

On the basis of historical records Wetter et al. (2014)[1] derived that during an eleven-month period there was little rain in Europe, possibly qualifying as a megadrought.[2] These conclusions however were questioned by Büntgen et al. (2015)[3] on the basis of additional data (tree rings).

Orth et al. (2016)[4] concluded that in summer 1540 the mean temperature was above the 1966-2015 mean and with a probability of 20% exceeded that of the 2003 summer.

Description[]

The  [de]in the  [de] was created to host the "Once-in-a-millennium wine" of 1540

The Swiss historian Christian Pfister described the events of 1540 in a newspaper interview:[5]

For eleven months, there was practically no rain, „temperatures were 5–7 °C (9.0–12.6 °F) above the normal values for the 20th century, in many places summer temperatures would have exceeded 40 °C (104 °F). Many forests in Europe went up in flames, choking smoke darkened the sun, not a single thunderstorm was reported in summer 1540. Water was already scarce in May, wells and springs dried up, mills stood still, people starved, animals were slaughtered.“[5] Estimates are that in 1540 half a million people died, mostly due to diarrhoeal diseases.
„Everything began in northern Italy, with a winter that felt like a July. Not a single drop fell from October 1539 to early April 1540. Then the drought advanced north.“[5] July brought such an „ember-like heat that churches made prayers while the Rhine, Elbe and Seine could be crossed on a dry foot. Where there was still water, the warm broth acquired a green colour,“ Dead fish floated belly-up. „Water levels in Lake Constance sunk to record low levels, Lindau actually became connected to the mainland. Soon the surface water had completely evaporated, soils broke up, some dry cracks were so wide that a foot would fit into them.“
„In Alsace fruit trees bloomed twice, in Lindau it was actually enough for a second cherry harvest. At Lake Constance wine soon became cheaper than water, and in Limoges winemakers were harvesting roasted grapes, from which they obtained sherry-like wine, which...made one quickly drunk.“[5]

From the city Münden there is a description of how year 1540 of the ducal wine vineyard at  [de] was “so excellent“ that it was preferred to foreign wine.[6]

In the Swiss village „ [de] desperate people went over 500 m up and down in elevation every day, only to fill a few barrels of water in Lake Thun.“[7]

Literature[]

  • Rüdiger Glaser: Klimageschichte Mitteleuropas – 1200 Jahre Wetter, Klima, Katastrophen, Darmstadt 2001, (3. Auflage 2008) S. 108

References[]

  1. ^ Wetter, O. et al.: The year-long unprecedented European heat and drought of 1540 – a worst case. In: Climatic Change, Juni 2014, doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1184-2.
  2. ^ Matthews, J. A.: Megadrought. Encyclopedia of Environmental Change. doi:10.4135/9781446247501.n2421.
  3. ^ Büngten et al., (2015): Commentary to Wetter et al. (2014): Limited tree-ring evidence for a 1540 European ‘Megadrought’; Climatic Change, July 2015, Volume 131, Issue 2, pp 183–190, doi:10.1007/s10584-015-1423-1.
  4. ^ Orth et al. (2016): Did European temperatures in 1540 exceed present-day records?, 15 November 2016, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 11, Number 11, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114021
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Andreas Frey (2018-08-11). "Europas vernichtende Jahrtausenddürre". Spektrum.de. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
  6. ^ : Geschichte der Stadt Münden nebst Umgebung mit besonderer Hervorhebung der Begebenheiten des dreißigjährigen und siebenjährigen Krieges, 1878, S. 46.
  7. ^ Andreas Frey (2018-08-04). "Elf Monate ohne Regen: Die Angst vor der Megadürre des Jahres 1540 geht um". NZZ. Retrieved 2018-08-12.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""