Course News:
April 25: here's a link to the resource we'll use in today's group work.
April 23: First, click here to read the article by J. R. McNeill.
Second, here's our first painting for today's group work, here's the second, and here's the third.
Group 1: find examples of resilience and adaptation in each of these very different paintings.
Group 2: find examples of vulnerability in each painting.
April 4: To read my article, "Climate Change, Whaling, and Conflict in the Seventeenth-Century Arctic," click here.
April 2: To read the Sam White Washington Post article, click here.
March 25: Here are instructions and resources for this week's group work:
1. Please get into three groups.
2. Use the Old World Drought Atlas, the New World Drought Atlas, the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas, the Central England Temperature Series, and/or NASA's GISS Surface Temperature Analysis to find historical extremes in annual or seasonal precipitation or temperature.
3. Now, think of historical events before 1950 that appear to correlate with these extremes. Try to find as many events as you can.
4. Do your best to explain apparent correlations between extreme weather and these events. Do similar events coincide with similar weather? Can you think of a theory that might explain why?
5. Finally, consider what you would need to know – what you would need to find – to conclusively establish causal relationships between weather and historical events that appear to be correlated.
At the end of group work, you'll give a short summary of: a) the database(s) you used; b) the weather extremes you identified; c) the historical events you chose; d) the explanations you theorized, and finally e) the additional information you'd need to establish causation.
March 21: Your primary source essay rough draft is now due on April 2nd, and your final draft is due on April 30th. Presentations on your rough drafts will begin on April 4th.
March 18: If you can't find my article, "Climate Change and Society from the Fifteenth Through the Eighteenth Centuries," click here.
March 14: Here are the instructions for today's group work:
Group 1 will argue that the calamities that befell Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth century primarily had a climatic cause: the coming of the Little Ice Age and the onset of its first great cold wave, the Spörer Minimum.
Group 2 will argue that those calamities primarily had a biological cause: the evolving pathogens responsible for rinderpest, the bubonic plague, and other deadly diseases.
Group 3 will argue that these disasters primarily had a social origin: economic, demographic, political, military, or cultural.
What you are looking for is the prime mover behind these great events. You're not just hunting for a cause, but rather the main cause.
February 20: To read McAnany and Negrón, “Bellicose rulers and climatological peril?", click here.
February 19: Remember: your annotated bibliographies are due on February 28th.
February 11: Remember: your Collapse historiography essays are due tomorrow!
January 21: You can now download our lecture PowerPoints.
January 17: Here are the instructions and links for today's group work:
Group 1: Tree Rings
Group 2: Ship Logs
Group 3: Model Simulations
January 8: You can access your Palgrave Handbook of Climate History readings here.
January 7: A revised syllabus is now available.
October 30: A draft syllabus is now online.
April 23: First, click here to read the article by J. R. McNeill.
Second, here's our first painting for today's group work, here's the second, and here's the third.
Group 1: find examples of resilience and adaptation in each of these very different paintings.
Group 2: find examples of vulnerability in each painting.
April 4: To read my article, "Climate Change, Whaling, and Conflict in the Seventeenth-Century Arctic," click here.
April 2: To read the Sam White Washington Post article, click here.
March 25: Here are instructions and resources for this week's group work:
1. Please get into three groups.
2. Use the Old World Drought Atlas, the New World Drought Atlas, the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas, the Central England Temperature Series, and/or NASA's GISS Surface Temperature Analysis to find historical extremes in annual or seasonal precipitation or temperature.
3. Now, think of historical events before 1950 that appear to correlate with these extremes. Try to find as many events as you can.
4. Do your best to explain apparent correlations between extreme weather and these events. Do similar events coincide with similar weather? Can you think of a theory that might explain why?
5. Finally, consider what you would need to know – what you would need to find – to conclusively establish causal relationships between weather and historical events that appear to be correlated.
At the end of group work, you'll give a short summary of: a) the database(s) you used; b) the weather extremes you identified; c) the historical events you chose; d) the explanations you theorized, and finally e) the additional information you'd need to establish causation.
March 21: Your primary source essay rough draft is now due on April 2nd, and your final draft is due on April 30th. Presentations on your rough drafts will begin on April 4th.
March 18: If you can't find my article, "Climate Change and Society from the Fifteenth Through the Eighteenth Centuries," click here.
March 14: Here are the instructions for today's group work:
Group 1 will argue that the calamities that befell Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth century primarily had a climatic cause: the coming of the Little Ice Age and the onset of its first great cold wave, the Spörer Minimum.
Group 2 will argue that those calamities primarily had a biological cause: the evolving pathogens responsible for rinderpest, the bubonic plague, and other deadly diseases.
Group 3 will argue that these disasters primarily had a social origin: economic, demographic, political, military, or cultural.
What you are looking for is the prime mover behind these great events. You're not just hunting for a cause, but rather the main cause.
February 20: To read McAnany and Negrón, “Bellicose rulers and climatological peril?", click here.
February 19: Remember: your annotated bibliographies are due on February 28th.
February 11: Remember: your Collapse historiography essays are due tomorrow!
January 21: You can now download our lecture PowerPoints.
January 17: Here are the instructions and links for today's group work:
Group 1: Tree Rings
- A microscope slide and a cross-section of a young American Basswood stem. Find the part of the slide that shows tree rings. Use the cross-section I’ve given you as a guide. After finding the tree rings, answer this question: what do they show us? You may need to look up something about this tree.
- A cross-section of a much older oak tree. Tell me: what data can we get from this cross-section? What does this particular cross-section suggest about the history of climate during the life of the tree?
- The North American Drought Atlas and the Old World Drought Atlas show Palmer Drought Severity Indices based on tree rings. Play around with these tools, and then consider how we might use them to link climate change to human history. Think carefully about their potential and their limitations, based on what we’ve learned in our readings.
Group 2: Ship Logs
- A ship logbook kept aboard an English warship in and around the English Channel, from 1686-1689. I’m giving you only entries from August to December, 1688.
- A recent guide to nautical terms used in the seventeenth century. Terms about wind velocity are translated into the modern Beaufort wind force scale. Use both the logbook entries and – if necessary – the dictionary to tell me: what information about weather trends can we get from this logbook? What exactly does the logbook reveal about weather in late 1688? Consider making a chart of weather records in the logbook.
- I’ve also given you a sketch of the landing of William of Orange on the English coast in November 1688. Tell me: what’s this all about? Can we link the event to the weather trends in the ship logbook? Are there any other human events described in the logbook that we may consider linking to weather?
- Finally, how can you imagine that we might connect possible relationships between weather and human activities to climate change?
Group 3: Model Simulations
- Visit the Climate Reanalyzer, a powerful online resource hosted by the University of Maine. Now, figure out: what is climate reanalysis? Why is it so handy?
- Next, visit the Environmental Change Model at the Climate Reanalyzer. At the top, the Global ΔT slider allows you to explore how Earth changes as its average global temperature changes, both in the distant past – during the Last Glacial Maximum – and in the projected future. Tell me: what are some of the biggest changes you can identify? How can you imagine that human populations might have responded – or might soon respond – to these environmental changes?
- Explain the limitations of the Environmental Change Model. How useful is this resource, really? Think carefully about feedbacks.
- If you have time left, scroll through the Climate Reanalyzer and find one simulation that you think could be especially handy for attempts to connect climate change to human history.
January 8: You can access your Palgrave Handbook of Climate History readings here.
January 7: A revised syllabus is now available.
October 30: A draft syllabus is now online.
