Dark Ages Cold Period

A literature review and directions for future research

Dados Bibliográficos

ID14915249
AutoresSamuli Helama (0000-0002-9777-3354, Natural Resources Institute Finland, autor correspondente), P D Jones (0000-0001-5032-5493, University of East Anglia), Keith R Briffa (0000-0003-3323-3639, University of East Anglia)
Ano2017
Volume27
Fascículo10
Páginas1600-1606
Data de publicação2017-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Holocene (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0959-6836 • E-ISSN: 1477-0911
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0959683617693898
OpenAlexW2594579656
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas73
Referências citadas64

Several late Quaternary studies have recorded cold and disturbed climates centred during the mid-first millennium AD and discussed these conditions under the term ‘Dark Ages Cold Period’ (DACP). A review of 114 palaeoclimate papers indicated that cold climates were common in the Northern Hemisphere between AD 400 and 765. There are also suggestions that some regions may have been relatively wet during the DACP, while those around the Mediterranean and the China/Tibetan Plateau indicate coinciding droughts. A set of environmental responses, however, indicate a delayed DACP interval (AD 509–865) postdating the actual climate signal. Previously, the DACP has been linked with the North Atlantic ice-rafting event at about 1400 years ago, while some evidence suggests an involvement of the North Atlantic Oscillation and/or El Niño–Southern Oscillation. More recently, another proposed phase of widespread cooling, the ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age’ (LALIA), overlaps with the DACP and has been tentatively linked with volcanic aerosol and solar irradiance variations reinforcing the climatic downturn since AD 536. Importantly, a higher number of proxy records extending over the first millennium AD is required for more rigorous assessments of climate variability and the forcing during these centuries and to disentangle the DACP and LALIA fingerprints in the proxy data, particularly to determine whether the DACP and the LALIA are distinct features. Also a richer network of both climate and environmental proxies is needed to evaluate the human–environment interactions, during the historical Migration Period, and thus through the DACP

Archaeology · Climate change · Climatology · Geography · Holocene · Little ice age · Mediterranean climate · Northern Hemisphere · Paleoclimatology · Physical geography · Southern Hemisphere · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Tree-ring climate responses · Geology · Oceanography