News:
January 23: Here are the instructions for today's group work:
Group 1: The Paleoclimatological Context
Consider the climatic context in which the Vikings (or Norse) initially colonized the Arctic, then disappeared from North America and Greenland. Visit NOAA’s Paleoclimatology Data Map and see if you can find a climate proxies or reconstructions that shed light on climate change in the Arctic during the Norse expansion and decline. You may have to create a graph in Excel, for example - it depends on what you find. Summarize your findings. Do they differ from those in your readings?
Now, consider the descriptions in your readings of local and regional environmental responses to the big climatic trends that affected the Arctic. How might environments around Greenland have responded to the trends you’ve uncovered?
Group 2: Norse Vulnerability to Climate Change
Your job is to think about connections between environmental and societal change. Study your readings and find examples of Norse vulnerability in the face of climate change, especially in (but not necessarily limited to) Greenland. Be as detailed as you can be, and explain the nature of our evidence (documentary, archaeological, paleoclimatic) for these sources of vulnerability. Can you think of any other vulnerabilities that the Norse may have had that are not described in your readings?
Group 3: Norse Resilience and Adaptability
Your task is to consider how the Norse were resilient and adaptable amid climate changes that made a harsh environment even harder to deal with. Just like group 2, you'll want to be as detailed as possible, giving specific examples and explaining our evidence for them. Can you think of additional areas of resilience and adaptation that your readings did not cover?
January 22: on February 5th, from 2:30 to 4:00 in the Mortara Center, Valerie Trouet, one of the world's leading paleoclimatologists, is joining us from the University of Arizona to explain what studying the rings in trees can tell us about the history of past climate change. You can read about Trouet and her colleagues in this article. Refreshments will be provided. And here's a poster!
Group 1: The Paleoclimatological Context
Consider the climatic context in which the Vikings (or Norse) initially colonized the Arctic, then disappeared from North America and Greenland. Visit NOAA’s Paleoclimatology Data Map and see if you can find a climate proxies or reconstructions that shed light on climate change in the Arctic during the Norse expansion and decline. You may have to create a graph in Excel, for example - it depends on what you find. Summarize your findings. Do they differ from those in your readings?
Now, consider the descriptions in your readings of local and regional environmental responses to the big climatic trends that affected the Arctic. How might environments around Greenland have responded to the trends you’ve uncovered?
Group 2: Norse Vulnerability to Climate Change
Your job is to think about connections between environmental and societal change. Study your readings and find examples of Norse vulnerability in the face of climate change, especially in (but not necessarily limited to) Greenland. Be as detailed as you can be, and explain the nature of our evidence (documentary, archaeological, paleoclimatic) for these sources of vulnerability. Can you think of any other vulnerabilities that the Norse may have had that are not described in your readings?
Group 3: Norse Resilience and Adaptability
Your task is to consider how the Norse were resilient and adaptable amid climate changes that made a harsh environment even harder to deal with. Just like group 2, you'll want to be as detailed as possible, giving specific examples and explaining our evidence for them. Can you think of additional areas of resilience and adaptation that your readings did not cover?
January 22: on February 5th, from 2:30 to 4:00 in the Mortara Center, Valerie Trouet, one of the world's leading paleoclimatologists, is joining us from the University of Arizona to explain what studying the rings in trees can tell us about the history of past climate change. You can read about Trouet and her colleagues in this article. Refreshments will be provided. And here's a poster!
January 16: Here are the instructions and links for today's group work:
Group 1: Tree Rings
- A photograph of an old tree truck, sawed down quite recently near my home. Make a simple spreadsheet in which you number each ring, and list whether it’s narrow, average, or wide – let’s say on a scale of 1-3. Answer this question: What does this spreadsheet reveal about the life of the tree?
- Use NOAA’s Climate at a Glance tool to gain a sense of average annual temperature and precipitation in Washington, DC over the lifespan of the tree. We don’t know when the tree died, so you need to determine whether you can find any rough correlations between a spreadsheet of weather trends in Washington, DC, and the growth rate of the tree (visible in the rings). Answer this question: can you find any correlations? Why, in your opinion, or why not?
- Imagine you’re a dendrochronologist: the kind of paleoclimatologist who specializes in tree rings. Quickly read this page and then answer this question: what other information would you want to link the growth rate of trees near my home to the history of climate change in Washington, DC?
- The North American Drought Atlas and the Old World Drought Atlas show Palmer Drought Severity Indices based on tree ring evidence. Play around with these tools, and then answer one more question: how might we use these tools to link climate change to human history?
Group 2: Ship Logs
- A ship logbook kept aboard an English warship in and around the English Channel, from 1686-1689. I’m giving you only entries from August to December, 1688.
- A recent guide to nautical terms used in the seventeenth century. Terms about wind velocity are translated into the modern Beaufort wind force scale. Use both the logbook entries and – if necessary – the dictionary to tell me: what information about weather trends can we get from this logbook? What exactly does the logbook reveal about weather in late 1688? Consider making a chart of weather records in the logbook.
- I’ve also given you a sketch of the landing of William of Orange on the English coast in November 1688. Tell me: what’s this all about? Could we link the event to the weather trends in the ship logbook? Are there any other events described in the logbook that we may consider linking to the influence of weather?
- Finally, how can you imagine that we might connect possible relationships between weather and human activities to climatic trends?
Group 3: Model Simulations
- Visit the Climate Reanalyzer, a powerful online resource hosted by the University of Maine. Now, figure out: what is climate reanalysis? Why is it so handy?
- Next, visit the Environmental Change Model at the Climate Reanalyzer. At the top, the Global ΔT slider allows you to explore how Earth changes as its average global temperature changes, both in the distant past – during the Last Glacial Maximum – and in the projected future. Tell me: what are some of the biggest changes you can identify? How can you imagine that human populations might have responded – or might soon respond – to these environmental changes?
- Explain the limitations of the Environmental Change Model. How useful is this resource, really? Think carefully about feedbacks.
- If you have time left, scroll through the Climate Reanalyzer and find one simulation that you think could be especially handy for attempts to connect climate change to human history.
January 15: You can now download our first two lectures by clicking here. And you can find Maddie's office hours on our syllabus.
January 7: I've slightly revised our syllabus and uploaded a new version. Remember: you have three short readings for Thursday's class.
December 16: I've uploaded an updated version of our syllabus. Happy Holidays!
October 29: the draft syllabus for our Spring 2019 module is now online.
