In the context of a Junior Research Group („The Dantean Anomaly 1309-1321 – Rapid Climate Change and Late Medieval Europe in a Global Perspective“), funded by the Volkswagen Foundation as a so called Freigeist Fellowship, three sub-projects cooperate to create a dense history of a phase of rapid climate change and its socio-economic consequences. These three sub-projects focus on Northern Italy, Burgundy and Central Europe. We are about to prepare a fourth sub-project on a climate history of the Middle East in the same time.
All sub-projects will have a common ground in roughly comparable data from narrative sources for a long period (1200-1400), in which we will integrate a more detailed study of the Anomaly phase 1309-1321. This study will be based on archival material of administrative character which is available for this period in a serial form; scientific data will used to complete and correct the information from historical sources.
Visualization of the ‚Pfister-Indices‘ (Image by: Martin Bauch).
Data from the long period (1200-1400) are generated from narrative sources: Textual evidence concerned with meteorological and other extreme events will be turned by comparison and source-critical interpretation in an index value (+3 to -3) for temperature and precipitation, a so called Pfister climate index (see image to the right). These indices will be available for each season.
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Quelle: http://dhdhi.hypotheses.org/2873
