A match of climate and history
Ancient Roman poetry and climate science may seem to have little in common, but a recent collaboration between a Harvard historian and European climate scientists highlights the potential for the two fields to illuminate each other and deepen the understanding of both nature’s and humankind’s past. Michael McCormick, the Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History, has collaborated with climate scientists three times in recent years, searching for witnesses to climate extremes gleaned from tree-ring data during the late Roman Empire and after, investigating the effect of volcanoes on climate and civilization during the time of Charlemagne, and, in an article soon to be published, looking at climate data and historical accounts in the centuries after the Roman Empire fell. McCormick said he recently brought to class a precipitation chart developed in his work with a European team on the climate of the first millennium, published online by the journal Science in January....