Contextualizing Western Drought

Dr. Ruth Morgan, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University

At the 2016 American Society of Environmental History conference in Seattle, I joined Linda Nash(University of Washington), Char Miller (Pomona College), and Libby Robin (The Australian National University) to contextualize Western drought in environmental, historical and cultural terms. ‘Western drought’ in this instance referred to the region that the US Drought Monitor classifies as ‘West’, where some areas are still experiencing ‘exceptional’ drought conditions. Our discussion drew this Western experience into transnational conversation with histories of drought in Australia, further west across the Pacific. By providing a humanistic perspective of drought, the lens of environmental history complements the scientific study of climate conditions and offers valuable insights into how droughts have been understood and experienced over time. Read more

Climate Change and History Initiative Workshop

The Climate Change and History Research Initiative (CCHRI) of Princeton University is holding a workshop on palaeoclimatology and palynology from September 12 to 14, 2016. This workshop is geared towards younger scholars, such as junior faculty members and graduate students, from the humanities and social sciences. The focus of the workshop is on the reconstruction of past climates using natural archives such as sediments. Neil Roberts, of Plymouth University, and Warren Eastwood, of the University of Birmingham, will lead the workshop. Those interested should submit a statement of interest (up to 500 words), a CV, and a letter of recommendation to Jayne Bialkowski (jayne@princeton.edu) with the subject line titled“Application for Palynology Workshop.” The deadline is June 1, 2016 and successful applicants will be notified in early July. For more information click here.

E-Table of Contents for QSR Special Issue

A special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews titled “Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment, and Human Societies” has just been published. The editors, Alexandra Gogou, Adam Izdebski, and Karin Holmgren, have put together an e-table of contents that includes free links to all the research papers in the special issue. These links will remain active until Thursday, April 21, with the exception of two open access papers that will continue to be available.

The e-table of contents can be downloaded here.  

CHN Spring Newsletter Published

Nicholas Cunigan, our newsletter editor, has just published the Spring 2016 issue of our quarterly Climate History Newsletter. This issue contains some good news from our founders, an article that weighs the case for anthropogenic climate change that long predates industrialization, and an extensive list of recent publications in climate history. 

Download the newsletter by clicking here.

CHN Lunch on March 31 in Seattle

We are organizing an informal climate history lunch for next week's American Society for Environmental History conference in Seattle. We will meet on Thursday at 11:30 at Icon Grill, which is just a three-minute walk from the Westin Seattle. This will be a good chance to chat about some of our accomplishments over the past year, and to plan the future of our network and discipline. 

To give us a sense of the reservation we should make, please click here to tell us whether you can come. 

Inaugural PAGES Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) Workshop

The inaugural PAGES Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) workshop will be held at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, NY from June 6-8, 2016. The principal goals of the workshop are to (1) summarize the state of knowledge about radiative forcing from volcanic eruptions, (2) compare methods of studying and modeling climactic responses to radiative forcing and assess their consistency, (3) discuss the integration of historical documentary evidence with paleoclimate data and climate models, and (4) define future goals of the VICS working group based on the interests of the scientific community and potential stakeholders. For those interested in participating, abstracts can be submitted between March 18 and April 1 at https://conferences.geomar.de/event/VICS2016. Based on the level of interest, participants will be assigned either an oral or poster presentation. Limited travel support will be available for young scientists or researchers from underrepresented regions.

Upcoming MedCLIVAR Conference

This year’s MedCLIVAR conference will be held in Athens, Greece from September 26-30, 2016. The conference aims to address climate change in the Mediterranean region. The focus will be on the impacts and consequences of climate change to the region as well as the adaptation and policy solutions that have been put forth to address these changes. Presentations and papers will be multidisciplinary and timescales will range from historical climate studies to discussions of current issues. Some papers will even consider future climate scenarios. Abstract submissions open on April 3, 2016 and close on May 31, 2016. For more information, please see: http://www.medclivar2016conf.eu/index.php