Exhibit - Weather Extremes: Making and Breaking Records in Nottinghamshire

"This exhibition uses the materials held by the University of Nottingham's Manuscripts and Special Collections to explore the history of extreme weather events in Nottinghamshire and the surrounding areas. Key events in Nottinghamshire's weather history will be featured: floods, droughts, storms, extremes of temperature and other strange atmospheric happenings (some well-known, others long-forgotten). Archival sources reveal how extreme weather affected daily life in the city of Nottingham and the wider county, the impact it had on different groups in society, their responses to it and which events entered the public memory." 

For more information, see the project website at: http://www.lakesidearts.org.uk/exhibitions/event/3356/weather-extremes-making-and-breaking-records-in-nottinghamshire.html

CFP: Contributions from the Humanities and Social Sciences to Research on the Impact of Large Volcanic Eruptions (600–1800 AD)

The 5th Open Science Meeting of PAGES (http://www.pages-osm.org/), planned for May 2017 in Zaragoza, Spain, presents scholars in the humanities and natural sciences with an excellent opportunity for collaboration. Session 8 of this conference will focus on historical volcanic eruptions and their presumed impact (http://www.pages-osm.org/osm/sessions-osm). As part of a research project led undertaken by Martin Bauch (Darmstadt), the Max Weber Foundation is offering up to six grants of 600€ each to cover the conference fees and partially offset accommodation and travel costs.  For more information, see https://mittelalter.hypotheses.org/9210

How Did Climate and Humans Respond to Past Volcanic Eruptions?

The latest issue of Eos includes a news story about the first workshop of the Past Global Changes (PAGES) working group on Volcanoes in Climate and Society (VICS) at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in June.  At this meeting, members presented new work on reconstruction and climate impacts of volcanic eruption, climate modeling, and the influence of eruptions on human history.  Discusses focused on how to reconcile paleoclimate data with model results, how to integrate written history into climate reconstruction and impact studies, and how understanding past eruptions could inform impact predictions and preparedness.

VICS will hold its next workshop at the PAGES Open Science Meeting in Zaragoza, Spain, May 2017.

Politics of Climate Change: Climate Scientists React to Donald Trump’s Election

There are many uncertainties about US policies towards climate change following Trump’s election. But the gloomy outlooks among many seem warranted given the President-elect’s comments about pulling the US from the UN’s Paris Agreement on climate change and cutting federal spending on low-carbon energy. His appointment of climate contrarian Myron Ebell to head his EPA transition team is cause for even deeper concern. Carbon Brief has interviewed over 20 of the world’s top climate scientists for their reactions. None are particularly optimistic. Some speculate that although forward progress will be stalled, there will be no major cuts to science funding. Others expect much worse.  Despite voicing major concern, all admit that it is much too early to tell how the administration will act. Click here for the interviews.

New Interview: Bruce Campbell on the Little Ice Age and the Black Death

Bruce Campbell is a highly respected historian of medieval economic history whose research and teaching has bridged many disciplines in the sciences and humanities. In his long and distinguished career at Queen's University, Belfast, he has belonged to the Departments of Geography, Economic History, History, and the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology. Recently, he published a major new book: The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the Late-Medieval Worl. The book transforms how historians have understood the quintessential crisis of Western society - its apparent collapse in the fourteenth century - by rooting it in environmental forces that include climate change.

Professors Bathsheba Demuth, Dagomar Degroot, and Tim Newfield recently interviewed Professor Campbell at HistoricalClimatology.com. To read the interview, click here. 

PAGES Open Science Meeting (OSM) May 2017

Past Global Changes (PAGES) is holding an Open Science Meeting (OSM) in Zaragoza, Spain from May 9 to 13, 2017. This interdisciplinary event is an opportunity for climate historians and historical climatologists to meet and interact with researchers from the natural sciences. There are 33 sessions in total and the Climate History Network has organized two of them: “Historical Climate Reconstruction and Impacts of the Common Era” (Session #7), and “Volcanic Eruptions: The Thread Connecting Climate Records, Societal Change and Future Climate Projections?” (Session #8). Funding from the Max Weber Foundation is available to support up to six researchers selected to present in the latter session. Those interested in presenting at the OSM should submit a maximum of two abstracts and specify which session they would like to join. The deadline to submit an abstract is December 20, 2016. Click here for more information and details on registration and abstract submission.

Fourth Climate History Podcast - Anthropocene

In the fourth episode of the Climate History Podcast environmental historians John R. McNeill and Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University discuss the Anthropocene, a proposed geologic epoch distinguished by humanity’s profound alterations of Earth's environment. The concept is much debated and Professors McNeill and Degroot discuss contentious issues such as when the Anthropocene began, the concept’s value, and some criticisms that have been leveled at the proposed epoch. Click here to listen.