Climate changes of 535–536

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Climate changes of 535–536 refers to several remarkable aberrations in world climate which took place in the years 535-536 CE. The Byzantine historian Procopius recorded of 536, "during this year a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness… and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear." Tree ring analysis by dendrochronologist Mike Baillie, of the Queen's University of Belfast, shows abnormally little growth in Irish oak in 536 and another sharp drop in 542, after a partial recovery.^{[citation needed]} Similar patterns are recorded in tree rings from Sweden and Finland, in California's Sierra Nevada and in rings from Chilean Fitzroya trees.

Further phenomena reported by a number of independent contemporary sources:

Low temperatures, even snow during the summer
Dark clouds, only a few hours of sunlight during the day
Summarily, there were reports of almost night-like darkness at midday
Floods in formerly dry regions
Crop failures

It has been conjectured that these changes were due to ashes or dust thrown into the air after the impact of a comet or meteorite, or after the eruption of a volcano (a phenomenon known as "volcanic winter").

A similar, lesser episode of climatic aberration was also observed in 1816, popularly known as the "Year Without a Summer", which has been connected to the explosion of the volcano Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia.

The 536 event and ensuing famine has been suggested as an explanation for the fact that Scandinavian elites sacrificed large amounts of gold at the end of the Migration Period, possibly to appease the angry gods and get the sunlight back.

1 Recent research
2 See also
3 Further reading
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Recent research

In 1984, Stothers postulated that this event may have been caused by the volcano Rabaul in what is now Papua New Guinea.^[1]

In 1999, David Keys in his book Catastrophe: A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World (supported by work of the American volcanologist Ken Wohletz), suggested that the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded at the time and caused the changes. (It is suggested that an eruption of Krakatoa attributed to the year 416 by the Javanese Book of Kings actually took place at this time – there is no other evidence of such an eruption in 416). He further speculated that the climate changes may have contributed to various developments, such as the emergence of the Plague of Justinian, the decline of the Avars, the migration of Mongolian tribes towards the West, the end of the Persian empire, the rise of Islam and the fall of Teotihuacán. In 2000, a 3BM Television production (for WNET and Channel Four) capitalized upon Key's book. (This documentary, under the name Catastrophe! How the World Changed, was broadcast in the U.S. as part of PBS's Secrets of the Dead series.) However, Keys and Wohletz' ideas are not widely accepted at this point.

[edit] See also

Kuwae, a Pacific volcano implicated in events surrounding the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

[edit] Further reading

Arjava, Antti, "The Mystery Cloud of 536 CE in the Mediterranean Sources", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 59: 73-94 (2005), ISBN 0-88402-311-7.
Axboe, Morten, "Amulet Pendants and a Darkened Sun", In Bente Magnus (ed.), Roman Gold and the Development of the Early Germanic Kingdoms. Stockholm 2001. ISBN 91-7402-310-1
Baillie, M.G.L., Slice Through Time, ISBN 0713476540, 1995, (Google Print, p. 93)
Baillie, Mike, Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters With Comets, 1999, ISBN 0-7134-8352-0
Farhat-Holzman, Laina, Climate Change, Volcanoes, and Plagues—the New Tools of History, Good Times, Thursday, January 23, 2003, (GlobalThink.Net Research Papers).
Gunn, Joel D. (ed.), The Years without Summer: Tracing A.D. 536 and its Aftermath, ISBN 1841710741.
Keys, David, Catastrophe: A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World, Ballantine Books, New York, 1999.
Levy, David (ed.), The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos, ISBN 0312254539, 2000, (Google Print, p. 186)
Winchester, Simon, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883, ISBN 0066212855, 2003.
Wohletz, Ken, Were the Dark Ages Triggered by Volcano-Related Climate Changes in the 6th Century?

[edit] Notes

^ R. B. Stothers - "Mystery cloud of AD 536" in Nature 307, 344 - 345 (26 January 1984); doi:10.1038/307344a0 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v307/n5949/abs/307344a0.html