HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY

This site shares interdisciplinary climate change research with scholars, journalists, students, policymakers, and the general public.
https://www.historicalclimatology.com/

We explain how cutting-edge scholarship about past climate change can shed new light on issues relevant to present and future warming. While we love climate science in all its forms, we emphasize climate change scholarship in disciplines other than the sciences, including: history, economics, political science, and law. We also feature research that links past, present, and future climate change to the human experience.

Have past climate changes caused some societies to collapse, while others succeeded? Did past societies perceive climate changes, and to what effect? Is climate change responsible for present-day conflict? Can we trust computer simulations of future climate change, and why? This site explores all of these questions, and many more.

We were founded in April 2010, and we started as a research blog.

Dr. Dagomar Degroot, now a professor of environmental history at Georgetown University, was in the middle of a months-long archival trip to Amsterdam. He founded HistoricalClimatology.com to share his progress through seventeenth-century ship logbooks: a hot new source for scholars of past climate change. By the end of 2010, HistoricalClimatology.com was on course to receive nearly 10,000 unique hits for the year, many from interested lay people. The site had tapped into a popular desire for unconventional, interdisciplinary climate research that could shed new light on global warming.

​Today, Historical Climatology.com provides bimonthly feature articles about climate change research, written by some of the most dynamic climate scholars. It offers monthly updates on the most interesting climate change web articles, and comprehensive quarterly updates on scholarship about past climate changes. It presents interviews with key newsmakers in climate change research, policymaking, and journalism, as well as updates on projects by leading interdisciplinary scholars. It provides extensive resources that let our visitors explore past climate changes for themselves. 

We currently receive around 500,000 hits per year. Over 100,000 are unique hits.
Articles on our site have been widely used in university courses in the sciences and the humanities. We have been cited by BBC News, and listed among the top online resources on climate change. We are funded by a Georgetown University Research Infrastructure Award, and a Georgetown Environment Initiative Impact Program award. These awards allow us to expand our online and offline resources while remaining 100% ad-free.

HistoricalClimatology.com is associated with the Climate History Network, an informal organization of nearly 200 teachers and researchers interested in climate and history. Stories on HistoricalClimatology.com are usually posted on the CHN homepage, and both organizations share a Facebook page. However, whereas the CHN presents resources exclusively for academics, HistoricalClimatology.com reaches a much wider audience. Unlike the CHN, HistoricalClimatology.com explicitly links the latest academic insights about the past to our understanding of the present and future. ​

A Conversation with Joseph Manning: Climate Change in the Ancient World
4/30/2020


In the 14th episode of Climate History, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde interview Joseph Manning, the William K. and Marilyn Milton Simpson Professor of Classics at Yale University.

​Professor Manning is a leading expert on the law, politics, and economy of the ancient world, particularly the Hellenistic Period (between 330 and 30 BCE). In recent years, he's led efforts to uncover a link between volcanic eruptions, climatic shocks, and rebellions in ancient Egypt: efforts that inspired headlines in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and elsewhere. Professor Manning explains how his team uncovered the influence of climate change in Egyptian history, and what the ancient world has to tell us about our uncertain future.
To listen to this episode, click here to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, you can still listen by clicking here.

A Conversation with Bathsheba Demuth: Histories of the Changing Arctic
10/22/2019

In the tenth episode of Climate History, our podcast, Emma Moesswilde and Dagomar Degroot interview Bathsheba Demuth, assistant professor of environmental history at Brown University. Professor Demuth specializes in the lands and seas of the Russian and North American Arctic. Her interests in northern environments and cultures began when she was 18 and moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon, where she spent several years training sled dogs. In the years since, she has visited and lived in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. She has a BA and MA from Brown University, and an MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in publications from the American Historical Review to the New Yorker. Her first book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait is now out with Norton, and has received rave reviews in both popular and academic publications. 

Professor Demuth is a returning guest. In our first interview, she introduced the major themes of what was then her doctoral dissertation, and is now ​Floating Coast. In this episode, she describes how she wrote the book, and what we can learn from it. She details her experiences in the Arctic, her deep engagement with the community of Old Crow, her thinking about non-human actors in historical stories, her success in writing for the general public, and her views on what the past can reveal about the future of the rapidly-warming Arctic.​

To listen to this episode, click here to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, you can still listen by clicking here.

The Nuclear Renaissance in a World of Nuclear Apartheid

3/27/2019

Prof. ​Toshihiro Higuchi, Georgetown University.

This is the fifth post in a collaborative series titled “Environmental Historians Debate: Can Nuclear Power Solve Climate Change?” hosted by the Network in Canadian History & Environment, the Climate History Network, and ActiveHistory.ca.


Nuclear power is back, riding on the growing fears of catastrophic climate change that lurks around the corner. The looming climate crisis has rekindled heated debate over the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power. However, advocates and opponents alike tend to overlook or downplay a unique risk that sets atomic energy apart from all other energy sources: proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Despite the lasting tragedy of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the elusive goal of nuclear safety, and the stalled progress in radioactive waste disposal, nuclear power has once again captivated the world as a low-carbon energy solution. According to the latest IPCC report, released in October 2018, most of the 89 available pathways to limiting warming to 1.5 oC above pre-industrial levels see a larger role for nuclear power in the future. The median values in global nuclear electricity generation across these scenarios increase from 10.84 to 22.64 exajoule by 2050.

The Cold War Constraints on the Nuclear Energy Option

3/13/2019

Dr. Robynne Mellor.

This is the third post in a collaborative series titled “Environmental Historians Debate: Can Nuclear Power Solve Climate Change?” hosted by the Network in Canadian History & Environment, the Climate History Network, and ActiveHistory.ca.

https://www.historicalclimatology.com/features/march-13th-2019

Mt. Taylor Mine in New Mexico. Author's photograph.


Shortly before uranium miner Gus Frobel died of lung cancer in 1978 he said, “This is reality. If we want energy, coal or uranium, lives will be lost. And I think society wants energy and they will find men willing to go into coal or uranium.”[1]
​
Frobel understood that economists and governments had crunched the numbers. They had calculated how many miners died comparatively in coal and uranium production to produce a given amount of energy. They had rationally worked out that giving up Frobel’s life was worth it.

I have come across these tables in archives. They lay out in columns the number of deaths to expect per megawatt year of energy produced. They weigh the ratios of deaths in uranium mines to those in coal mines. They coolly walk through their methodology in making these conclusions.

These numbers will show you that fewer people died in uranium mines to produce a certain amount of energy. But the numbers do not include the pages and pages I have read of people remembering spouses, parents, siblings, children who died in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and so on. The numbers do not include details of these miners’ hobbies or snippets of their poetry; they don’t reveal the particulars of miners’ slow and painful wasting away. Miners are much easier to read about as death statistics.

The erasure of these people trickles into debates about nuclear energy today. Any argument that highlights the dangers of coal mining but ignores entirely the plight of uranium miners is based on this reasoning. Rationalizations that say coal is more risky are based on the reduction of lives to ratios.

If we are going to make these arguments, we must first acknowledge entirely what we are doing. We must be okay with what Gus Frobel said and meant: that someone is going to have to assume the risk of energy production and we are just choosing whom. We must realize that it is no accident that these Cold War calculations permeate our discourse today, and what that means moving forward.

Financial Crises in Eighteenth-Century England

Julian Hoppit

The Economic History Review

New Series, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Feb., 1986), pp. 39-58

Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History Society

DOI: 10.2307/2596100

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596100

Page Count: 20

Abstract

Some confusion surrounds the dating and importance of financial crises in eighteenth-century England. By looking at the pattern of bankruptcy much of this confusion can be cleared up. Crises in public finance created few bankrupts and affected the economy less than did crises in private finance. The novelty, speculation and political uncertainty that created crises in public finance all became less significant factors in the second half of the century. But in the last third of the century the more intensive and extensive use of trade credit, along with stronger speculative tendencies encouraged by economic growth, were powerful forces creating crises of private finance. The pattern of financial crises demonstrates changing uses of finance and changing in the strength of financial ties within the domestic economy during early industrialization. It also shows how erratic and uncertain the growth process seemed at the time.

The Economic History Review © 1986 Economic History Society

18TH CENTURY SCIENCE

Discourse on Atmospheric Phenomena Originating from Electrical
Force by Mikhail Lomonosov 

Mikhail Vasil’evich Lomonosov Russian contemporary of Benjamin Franklin who published his research in Advance of Franklin as documented in the Russian press and before Franklin was published in Russian 

Oratio De Meteoris Vi Electrica Ortis, Autore Michaele Lomonosow Habita

EXCERPT FROM FULL DOCUMENT PDF
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1709/1709.08847.pdf

Слово о явлениях воздушных, от электрической силы происходящих,

предложенное от Михайла Ломоносова

G.Richmann regularly reported his results in the Vedomosti – on May 7 (No. 37), on May 11 (No. 38), on May 18 (No. 40) and on July 13 (No. 56), 1753 – see Fig.1b. His communicated on efficiency of lightning protection indicate that sharp-end metal rods work best, and that dielectrics (glass) are good to hold the metal rod. Lomonosov also reported in the newspaper of June 4 (No. 45) of 1753 and was the first to establish that "power of the electricity in the air may extend beyond the area of thundering or be present even without a thunder" - that is, to detect an electric field in the atmosphere. In April 1753, the two studied whether canon shorts could affect the atmospheric electricity during the Imperial Court’s celebration fireworks which employed up to 58 canons – and seemingly found no significant effect. Fig. 2: The map (left) and photo of the Vasilievsky Island in St.Petersburg, indicating the paths of Lomonosov and Richmann from the Academy (Kunstkamera) to their homes on the 2nd Liniya and on the 5 th Liniya, respectively, on the infamous afternoon of July 26, 2753. On July 26 (o.s.), 1753, Academician Georg Richmann was tragically killed by a lightning strike while conducting the experiments – see, e.g., [3, 4] for more details. On that day, from 10am to about noon, both Richmann and Lomonosov attended Academy’s meeting at what is now Kunstkamera. Around noon they have noted a big thunderstorm cloud coming and left for their home labs: Richmann to the 5th Liniya (about 16 min from the Academy) and Lomonosov to the 2nd Liniya (24 min). Both observed strong electricity activity out of the cloud in their setups, both experienced minor shocks prior to the disaster, Lomonosov was eventually distracted by his wife (presumably, asking him to take long awaiting lunch). Richmann’s death made a great impression in the academic world as in St. Petersburg, and abroad. Detailed reports about the accident were published in the Vedomosti on August 3, 1753, as well as in some foreign periodicals, for example, in the Philosophical Transactions [20, 21], in the Memoires de l'Academie Royale de Sciences (Paris) and others. The description of the tragic death of his friend was given by Lomonosov in a well-known letter to his patron, Count Ivan Shuvalov ([8], vol.X, pp.484-485) written on the same day while still being under the impression of the tragedy: “…What I am now writing to your Excellency – needs to be considered as a miracle, for the fact that the deads do not write. I do not know yet, or at least I doubt whether I am alive or dead. I see that Mr. Richmann was killed by thunder under the exact same circumstances in which I was at the same time…. Meanwhile, Mr. Richmann died a beautiful death, performing the duties of his profession. His memory will never get silent." In the time followed, Lomonosov did a lot to arrange pension for Richmann’s widow and children and effectively cared for their well-being. 34 Shortly thereafter, on August 5, 1753, an Adviser to the Chancellery of the Academia I.Schumacher wrote to the President, who was then in Moscow, on the desirability, in his opinion, to cancel the September 6 public meeting of the Academy. Accordingly, Razumovsky canceled the meeting on September 2, i.e., just four days prior to it. Lomonosov, naturally, could not reconcile himself with the cancellation of the public meeting and pulled all possible strings and insistently sought revision of the President's decision. After much trouble, Lomonosov managed to succeed and on October 18 , the Conference of the Academy had announced a new presidential decree on the organization of the public meeting on the 25th of November with following motivation ".... so that Mr. Lomonosov would not be late with his new inventions among the scientists in Europe and by that his work on electric experiments up to this time would not in vane”. Acdemician A. Grischow was appointed an official opponent of Lomonosov presentation at a public meeting. Lomonosov first wrote the Latin version of the speech, sent it to his fellow Academicians and then himself translated it into Russian. Members of the Academic Conference A.Grischow, N.Popov and I.Braun submitted their doubts and objections on individual particular moments of Lomonosov's speech – all of which Lomonosov addressed to the Conference’s satisfaction and the approval of the publication was given on November 3. On November 16, the Conference also approved the text of the Grischow's reply to Lomonosov's speech. It was decided that both public presentations will be given in Russian. Finally, on November 26 (o.s.), 1753, Lomonosov read Discourse on Atmospheric Phenomena Originating from Electrical Force at the public meeting of the Academy of Sciences. Lomonosov's presentation, Grischow's response were published separately in Russian and separately in Latin. Later, an addendum to the Lomonosov's work, entitled Explanations, Appropriate to the Discourse on Atmospheric Phenomena Originating from Electrical Force was also published ([8], vol.III, pp.101-133). It should be considered as an integral part of the Lomonosov’s work as it contains descriptions of a number of new observations and experiments, executed by Lomonosov, and explanations of the figures and drawings attached to the Discourse – see Fig.1 above. In the Explanations Lomonosov also proves as unfounded the doubts Grischow, who tried to belittle originality of the Lomonosov's research in the field of atmospheric electricity and to attribute him the role of imitator of B.Franklin. Lomonosov points out that a) his “Discourse..” had been written and sent for publication before any communications of the Franklin theories reached Russia; b) his "theory about the cause of the electrical force in the air” has nothing taken from Franklin, even in the cases which look similar – like the origin of the Northern lights – their explanations are totally different, as Lomonosov had totally different approach based on the air up- and down-drafts; c) Lomonosov’s theory got initiated after observations of electrical phenomena right after major cold air downdrafts causing severe frosts – nothing that Franklin ever could observe in Philadelphia, d) Lomonosov has evaluated mathematically the phenomena of the up- and down-drafts in atmosphere; e) he interpreted many phenomena which Franklin did not even considered. 200 out of 300 copies of the Latin version of the Oratio De Meteoris Vi Electrica Ortis were sent abroad, to foreign honorary members of the Academy, universities, foreign academies and large libraries. In January-February of 1754 several responses to the Lomonosov work were received from L.Euler, G. Krafft, G. Heinsius. Euler's comments were rather positive: “… the mechanism proposed by the wittiest Lomonosov concerning the currents of that subtle matter in the clouds, should bring the greatest help to those who want to study the issue. His thoughts about lowering the upper air and about the sudden cruel frosts happening from this are excellent.” Some engravings from the Lomonosov’s paper were reprinted by William Watson in the account of G.Richmann’s death in the Philosophical Transactions [20]. 35 Lomonosov himself very much valued the Oratio De Meteoris Vi Electrica Ortis and listed it among his most important scientific accomplishments – see [8], v.10, p.398 and p.409 – as well as included it in the convolute of his 9 major publications, bound under the title Opera Academica just in twelve copies, which were sent abroad on very special occasions, such as, e.g., for consideration for election to the Bologna Academy of Sciences in 1764 [22]. The interest in the atmospheric electricity led Lomonosov to create the first model helicopter. In 1754, looking for a way to send meteorological instruments and electrometers aloft, he designed and built the first working helicopter model. It used two propellers rotating in opposite directions for torque compensation, and was powered by a clock spring. While Leonardo da Vinci famously left a sketch of an airscrew, Lomonosov actually constructed a proof of principle that managed to demonstrate significant measurable lift – see, e.g. [15]. Most, though not all, elements of the Lomonosov’s work are profoundly correct even by present day understanding of the phenomena. The basis of the Lomonosov theory is the idea of vertical air movements as the main cause of atmospheric electricity - the immersion of the cold upper strata of the atmosphere into the lower (warmer) layers causes mechanical friction of minuscular particles in the air against each other, that results in generation of atmospheric electricity. Two kinds of particles are required: those of water (vapors) capable of accumulation of the electricity, and other which are involved in production of the electricity via friction. The latter are organic compounds, which can not mix with water, “fatty substances…balls of flammable vapors… that appear in the air in a great variety from the body fumes of animals and humans”, products of combustion, burning and rotting of all kinds of organics. Electrically charged droplets are assumed to be spread throughout the entire volume of the cloud. The transfer of charges from individual “fatty” particles to droplets of water in the clouds via countless collisions leads to formation in atmosphere, in clouds of strong electric fields, which are the cause of the appearance of lightning. Today’s explanation of the atmospheric electricity is much more complex – see e.g. [23] – but it involves many features of the Lomonosov theory and the vertical air movements as the centerpiece. Water (micro) droplets and ice crystals of various sizes are known to be the most important elements in the formation of the atmospheric electricity. Famous American atmospheric scientist Bernard Vonnegut commented in [24] “…It is worth recognizing earlier perceptions of convection in cumuli. Lomonosov (1753) was aware of updrafts and downdrafts and suggested that friction between them caused the electrification of clouds. Again, convection was proposed as the source of electrical energy, when Grenet (1947) in France published a novel theory of cumulus electrification in which a charge deposited on the upper surface of the cloud by electrical conduction was carried down to lower levels by upper-level downdrafts to accumulate and cause lightning.” It is simply remarkable how close the illustrations of the evolution of the lightning clouds and cells depicted in Feynman’s Lectures on Physics – see, e.g., figures on page 9-6 of volume II [25] – resemble Lomonosov’s Fig.2. Involvement of organic or “fatty” particles was not confirmed in common lightning, but they been experimentally observed in a related phenomenon of ball-lightning [26]. On base of his original observations and measurements with Richmann’s electrometer, Lomonosov concluded existence of electric fields in quiet atmosphere, i.e., not during a thunderstorm but in a clear, cloudless weather. Lomonosov was also the first to correctly proclaim the presence of the electricity-generating particles and processes all over the entire volume of a thundercloud, while until the end of the 19th century, it was commonly believed that the clouds are charged only over the surfaces. Presentation and proof of the new concept of the atmospheric electricity take three quarters of the Discourse, the rest is dedicated to practical matters and expansion of the theory to other electrical 36 phenomena. It was very appropriate for a public meeting to discuss countermeasures to mitigate the risks of lightning strikes. Notably, all of them were not Lomonosov’s inventions, but instead were presented as kind of consensus among the experts. He listed three of them: hiding in underground facilities, especially those which have water above them (the method which is nor supported by any theory but supported by experience in Freiberg mines and in Japan, and sort of consistent with the notions of the water being an effective acceptor of electricity), the lightning rods with sharp edges and shaking the air. The latter two are presented without full certainty – “…could seemingly be successfully used”. Such an attitude toward the lightning rods probably indicates that Franklin ideas were not yet fully accepted in Russia and in the European scientific circles actively communicating with the St.Petersburg Academy. The shaking of ether by church bell ringing and cannon firing was ideologically consistent with Lomonosov’s views that “electric power” and lightning are due to vibrations of ether (illustrated in Lomonosov’s Figs. 12, 13 and 14). At the same time it is remarkable that though his joint studies with Richman in April 1753 did not significant effect of firing dozens of firework canons during the Imperial Court celebration, the method was still considered as generally acceptable. Again, that might reflect nothing but common understanding of the times. For expample, eminent Dutch physicist, inventor of the first electric capacitor (“Leyden jar”) Pieter van Musschenbroek (1692-1761) in the article on electricity for the famous French Encyclopedie (under “Tonnerre” [27]) stated that “…thunder can be disrupted and diverted by the sound of several bells or the firing of a cannon; in this way a great agitation is excited in the air, which disperses the parts of the lightning; but it is necessary to be careful not to ring when the cloud is precisely above the head, to avoid direct thunderbolt from the cloud splitting overhead.” Musschenbroek defended such “traditional ways” of preventing lightning as quite effective in several other publications [28]. Lomonosov was not the only one in mid-18 century who stated the electrical nature Northern lights (aurora borealis). What was original in his approach is generation of the electricity from the movement of ascending and descending air currents in upper atmosphere in the polar regions – similar to what he proposed for the lightning – and the assertion that they ignite shining of the ether above the atmosphere – concluded out fundamental similarity of the auroras to a gas discharge in vacuum or thin gas. While the former is not true, the latter is correct. Observing aurora radiance in St.Petersburg on October 16, 1753, Lomonosov, as described in Explanations, was able to measure its height with an remarkable accuracy for those years and found the upper edge of the lights reaching about 420 versts, or 450 kilometers. That is compared to modern values of typical lower boundary of auroras at 95-100 km, and the upper edge between 400km to 600 km, as a rule, but sometimes up to 1000-1100 km. Finally, Lomonosov briefly discusses the nature of comet tails, expresses doubts in the Newton’s hypothesis [29] and proposes his own, naturally explaining the tails by electricity generation in the comet atmosphere down- and up-drafts at the borders of the shade areas (as in the theory of lightning) and by radiance of the electricity-induced vibrations of ether far beyond the atmosphere (i.e., like in his theory of Northern lights. None of these effects are involved in modern explanations of the phenomena of comet tails. There are no documented evidences of the audience reaction to Lomonosov’s presentation made on November 25, 1753, but present day reader of the Discourse should definitely be impressed by Lomonosov’s wit, depth of his rational thinking and the breadth of his knowledge – he covered subjects and cited evidences from various epochs and from a wide range of sources, brought up interesting classification of various electrical phenomena in atmosphere, touched such diverse subjects as electromechanical responses of the mimosa plant [30], St.Elmo’s lights and typhoons, he paid sincere tribute to 37 his late colleague Georg Richmann and praised the support of sciences exhibited by Peter the Great and his daughter, governing Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. In 1963, by B.Vonnegut’s request, the American Meteorological Society commissioned David Krauss to translate Discourse on Atmospheric Phenomena Originating from Electrical Force from Russian to English. The draft manuscript with numerous hand-written corrections was never published and has been made available to author from the university archives at SUNY Albany, NY. Despite a number of misreadings and mis-interpetations - very much excusable because of quite heavy kind of the 18th century Russian language of Lomonosov’s Discourse - that draft has been widely used a reference for this translation. 

POLITICAL ECOLOGY

1709: The year that Europe froze solid

CLIMATE AND HISTORY 1700-1709
https://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndHistory%201700-1799.htm

The Venetian lagoon frozen over in 1709.

Early January 1709 temperatures were dropping over most of Europe (Pain 2009). The cold remained for three weeks, and was followed by a brief thaw. Then temperatures plunged again and stayed there. From Scandinavia in the north to Italy in the south, lakes, rivers and even the sea froze. At Upminster, shortly north-east of London, temperature fell to -12oC on 10 January 1709, while it sank to -15oC in Paris on 14 January, and stayed at that level for the next 11 days. It has been estimated that the winter air temperature in Europe was as much as 7oC below the average for 20th century Europe. Not only was January very cold, it also turned out to be unusually stormy (Pain 2009).

In England the winter of 1709 became known as the Great Frost, while it in France entered the legend as Le Grand Hiver (Pain 2009). In France, even the king and his courtiers at the Palace of Versailles struggled to keep warm. In Scandinavia the Baltic froze so thoroughly that people could walk across the sea as late as April 1709. In Switzerland hungry wolves became a problem in villages. Venetians were able to skid across the frozen lagoon (see painting above).

According to a canon from Beaune in Burgundy, "travellers died in the countryside, livestock in the stables, wild animals in the woods; nearly all birds died, wine froze in barrels and public fires were lit to warm the poor". From all over the country came reports of people found frozen to death. Roads and rivers were blocked by snow and ice, and transport of supplies to the cities became difficult. Paris waited three months for fresh supplies (Pain 2009).

In Russia, the intense cold contributed significantly to the defeat of the Swedish army at Poltava under King Karl XII. Poltava became a political turning point for both Sweden and Russia: Sweden never regained its former military might, while Russia began to emerge as a European superpower (see text below).

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1709: Swedish defeat at Poltava UKRAINE

In 1697 the Swedish king Karl XII (1682-1718) assumed the crown at the age of fifteen, at the death of his father. As king, he embarked on a series of battles overseas. In 1700, Denmark-Norway, Saxony, and Russia united in an alliance against Sweden, using the perceived opportunity as Sweden was ruled by the young and inexperienced King. Early that year, all three countries declared war against Sweden. King Karl had to deal with these threats one by one, which he in a very determined way set out to do.

Having first defeated Denmark-Norway in 1700, King Karl turned his attention upon the two other powerful neighbours, Poland and Russia; lead by King August II and Tsar Peter the Great, respectively. First Russia was attacked. At the Narva Riverthe outnumbered Swedish army 20 November 1700 attacked the much larger Russian army under cover of a blizzard, divided the Russian army in two and won the battle. Next Karl next turned towards Poland and defeated King August and his allies at Kliszow in 1702. Then he turned back towards Russia, to finish Tsar Peter off for good.

In the meantime, Tsar Peter had embarked on a military reform plan to improve the quality of the Russian army. Especially the development of the artillery was emphasised. In the last days of 1707 King Karl crossed the frozen Weichsel River, and began advancing into Ukraine with his 77,400 man strong army. Already 28 January 1708 Karl together with an advanced group of 600 men crossed Njemen River and took the city Grodno. Shortly after this all hostilities were stopped, as both armies went into winter quarters.

The Russian tactical plan was to avoid a decisive battle before the Swedish army had been weakened by the progress of time. When hostilities were resumed in June 1708 the Russian army therefore slowly retreated towards Moscow, burning all villages to make the Swedish supply situation difficult. With great success this tactic would be used again 105 years later against the French invasion under Napoleon, and was in 1708 known as the Zjolkijevskij plan (Englund 1989). First Karl XII headed towards Moscow with his army, but it rapidly turned out being very difficult to supply the army in the deserted landscape. In addition, the summer 1708 was cold and wet, making life miserable for the Swedish soldiers. He therefore decided to turn south-east towards the more rich regions around the city Poltava. Before reaching Poltava the winter began, and the armies once again went into their winter quarters. The Swedish army went into winter quarters at the city Baturin, about 200 km NE of Kiev. The winter rapidly became very cold, not only in Russia, but in most of Europe, adding additional trouble to the already difficult Swedish supply situation. At the end of January 1709 the Swedish army resumed hostilities, but the winter soon made all operations virtually impossible. It became late April 1709 before Karl reached the city Poltava, 130 km SW of Kharkov.

King Karl XII of Sweden (left). Battle of Poltava (centre). King Karl at the Dnieper River during the catastrophic retreat following the battle of Poltava.

The extremely low temperatures characterizing the winter 1708-1709 had taken their toll on the Swedish soldiers. When the Swedish army finally began its siege of Poltava 1 May 1709, Karl has lost most of his army without any big battles being fought. In June Tsar Peter began concentrating an army shortly north of Poltava. Karl had to face this treat, but following the hard winter he was only able to muster about 12,000 men for the attack. The attack was launched 28 June 1709, but was affected by some tactical confusion on the Swedish side. After some initial successes, the Swedish army was defeated thoroughly by the much larger Russian army, mainly due to its numerical superiority, and partly because of the now very strong and efficient Russian artillery. A catastrophic retreat followed to the Dnieper River, where what was left of the Swedish army had to surrender.By this, the battle at Poltava represented a climatic induced turning point for both Sweden and Russia. Sweden never regained its former military might, while Russia was beginning to emerge as a European superpower.

King Karl XII himself managed to escape with 1,200 Swedish survivors to the northerly province of the Ottoman Empire. Here he was held as a kind of prisoner until 1714, when he jumped onto a horse and escaped back to Sweden. He died 30 November 1718 during the siege of the Norwegian fortifications at Frederikssten. Some rumours claim that he was shot by a Swedish officer, but a more likely cause is that he simply did not take sufficient cover against fire from the Norwegian soldiers.

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NORTH AMERICA FREEZES 
A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases; with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated. : In two volumes.

Webster, Noah, 1758-1843.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:12?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

SECTION VII. Historical view of pestilential epidemics from the year 1701 to 1788.
THE year 1701 appears to have been excessively dry in America. Dr. Rush relates that during the dry summer of 1782, a rock in the Skuylkill appeared above the surface of the water, on which were engraven the figures 1701. How little do men suspect the value of this inscription! To this alone I am indebted for the fact of extreme drouth in that year—and the fact is among the proofs of an extraordinary evaporation, before dis|charges of fire and lava from volcanoes. In 1701 was an erup|tion of Vesuvius; in 1702 of Etna. It will hereafter appear that a similar dry season in 1782 preceded the great eruption of Heckla in 1783. Indeed it is a general fact, and as far as I can learn, such seasons seldom occur, except during the approach of comets, or antecedent to volcanic eruptions.

This was a pestilential period. In 1701 Toulon lost two thirds of its inhabitants by the plague, and the Levant was se|verely affected about the same time. See the bills of mortality for Augsburg, Dresden and Boston.

In 1702 appeared a comet; Etna discharged its fires, and in Boston raged a malignant small-pox, attended, in many cases, with a scarlet eruption, which was mistaken for the scarlet fever. It appears from Fairfield's diary that this disease appeared in June and was at first mild, not fatal to any of the patients. In August died one patient—in September it became very mortal, and in this month was attended with a "sort of fever called scarlet fever." In October, many died of the "fever and the small-pox, and it was a time of sore distress," on which account the general court sat at Cambridge. 

Rodama: a blog of 18th century & Revolutionary French trivia

THURSDAY, 26 MAY 2016

The winter of 1709: letters of Liselotte


The correspondence of Louis XIV's sister-in-law, the Princess Palatine Elisabeth-Charlotte, duchess of Orléans (1652–1722), mother of the future Regent, is rightly prized for its down-to-earth comments and wealth of witty anecdote. Here is the "Great Winter" as it appears in her letters.

Curiously enough, the weather did not at first excite that much comment from "Liselotte". On 10th January 1709 she wrote to her half-sister, the Raugravine Amalia- Elisabeth without even mentioning the freezing temperature. On 17th January, she alluded to it only in passing: Last Sunday the cold was atrocious and we had to have a terrific fire lit in the room where we ate.

Her letter of 10th January to the Electress Sophia of Hanover, however, is more forthcoming:

The cold here is so fierce here that it fairly defies description. I am sitting by a roaring fire, have a screen before the door, which is closed, so that I can sit here with a sable fur piece around my neck and my feet in a bearskin sack, and I am still shivering with cold and can barely hold the pen. Never in my life have I seen a winter such as this one; the wine freezes in bottles.

READ THE REST HERE

http://rodama1789.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-winter-of-1709-letters-of-liselotte.html

POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Great Frost 1709: why experts are comparing the economic impact of coronavirus to Europe’s worst recession in history


The Great Frost, as it was known in England, or Le Grand Hiver ("The Great Winter"), as it was known in France, was an extraordinarily cold winter in Europe in late 1708 and early 1709, and was the coldest European winter during the past 500 years.

Great Frost of 1709 - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Great_Frost_of_1709

The coronavirus outbreak has had a huge impact on day-to-day life in many ways, and the UK is expected to remain under lockdown for several more weeksBy Claire Schofield Wednesday, 15th April 2020

While adjusting to life in isolation has been difficult, businesses have been hit particularly hard by the restrictions, with the budget watchdog now warning the country could suffer its biggest recession in 300 years if lockdown continues into the summer.

What happened to the economy in 1709?

The Office for Budget Responsibility has said the economy could shrink by 35 per cent this spring, with unemployment levels reaching 3.4 million over the coming months - its highest level since the 1990s.

The ‘Great Frost’ sparked food shortages and a huge deficit to the economy

The struggling economy has sparked comparisons to the financial crash in 2008, and the Great Depression of the 1930s, but experts are now predicting the outcome will be much worse.

Experts now believe the UK is headed for its biggest economic slump since 1709, when the country was hit by a deep freeze that spread across Europe.

Temperatures plummeted on 5 January, bringing with it the worst winter in 500 years and freezing over several countries, including France, England and Russia.

The ‘Great Frost’, as it came to be known, lasted for three months and sparked food shortages, thousands of deaths in France, and a huge deficit to the economy.

Is the UK heading for an economic crash?

The coronavirus pandemic could see the economy shrink by a record 35 per cent by June, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned.

A drop this big would mark the largest decline “in living memory”, Robert Chote, chairman of the OBR has said.

However, Chancellor Rishi Sunak stressed that this forecast is just one possible scenario, and it merely suggests the scale of what the country is currently facing will have “serious implications for our economy”.

He said: “We came into this crisis with a fundamentally sound economy, powered by the hard work and ingenuity of the British people and British businesses.

“Our planned economic response is protecting millions of jobs, businesses, self-employed people, charities and households.

“Our plan is the right plan.”

Mr Sunak assured that the government would not stand by and will act to support the economy, adding that the OBR expects the economic impact of the pandemic to be temporary.

When will the UK economy recover?

Despite being forecast for a significant decline, the UK is expected to return to its pre-coronavirus economic growth by the end of this year, with the OBR stating this amount will depend on how long the lockdown lasts.

The OBR predicts that any drop in growth will be reversed in the three months to September, as the economy starts to recover.

However, it warned that the pandemic may have a more lasting impact on unemployment, which is estimated to rise to 3.4 million by the end of June.

Unemployment levels are currently 1.3 million, marking a rise from 3.9 per cent to 10 per cent.

Unemployment rates are expected to remain high until 2023, before dropping back to four per cent, according to the OBR’s forecast.

As UK faces its worst slump since the Great Frost of 1709, history shows our economy is no match for nature

The likely global recession triggered by the novel coronavirus is part of a much older tradition

Sean O'Grady @_seanogrady Wednesday 15 April 2020

The Great Plague of 1665 forced businesses to close, but while the

 economic impact was severe it was not long-lasting 

( Hulton Archive/Getty Images )When the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts national income will fall by some 35 per cent over just a few months, that is a truly historic slump. It is useful to place it in some perspective.

Assuming that the economy “bounces back” fairly robustly afterward the lockdown and growth returns – far from guaranteed – it would leave the British economy in 2020 overall about 13 per cent smaller than it was in 2019. That would still be the biggest annual fall in economic activity in centuries – since 1709 in fact.

That of course begs the question: What on Earth happened in 1709 to spiral the economy into dropping by about 15 per cent (though the further back you go, the hazier GDP estimates get). Well, it wasn’t a war or one of the many pandemics – or plagues, as they were known then – that hit the world periodically.

BEHIND PAYWALL  

Winter Is Coming: Europe's Deep Freeze of 1709
https://www.nationalgeographic.com › history › magazine › 1709-deep-fre...
Apr 27, 2020 - In the first months of 1709, Europe froze and stayed that way for months. ... In London, “The Great Frost,” as it came to be known, iced over the ...

A MONTH LATER THE STORY RECIRCULATES AGAIN BEHIND A PAYWALL

The U.K. Is Headed for Its Worst Recession Since the Great Frost of 1709. Here’s What Happened Back Then.
BARRONS Published: May 7, 2020 

Beware, the stock market’s being supported by ‘nothing more than an ideological dream,’ economist warns

Published: May 7, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

Bears are still growling over valuations. iStockphoto

Not breaking news: Albert Edwards is bearish on the stock market.

Yes, the Société Générale economist who refers to himself as an “uber bear,” once again, lived up to his self-billing in his gloomy note to clients on Thursday.

“We are in the midst of a monetary and fiscal ideological revolution. Nose-bleed equity valuations are being supported by nothing more than a belief that a new ideology can deliver,” he wrote. “Meanwhile the gap between the reality on the ground and expectations grows wider.”

Edwards used this chart to show “how ludicrous current equity valuations have become and by implication how vulnerable equities are to a collapse”:



He called the relationship between the S&P and analyst expectations for long-term earnings growth — the PEG ratio — a “showstopper” that just hit historic levels of 2x. A PEG ratio above 1x typically means a stock is considered overvalued relative to its long-term earnings growth expectation.

Edwards compared it to the dot-com bubble when valuations were nearly as stretched.

“Back then the cycle was still intact,” he wrote. “As tech stocks increasingly dominated the index, the market’s [long-term earnings per share] was also surging higher in tandem with the rising PE.”

At that time, stocks at least had a leg to stand on, “albeit a wooden leg, riddled with woodworm,” he said, adding that this time around, the ratio is “based on nothing more than an ideological dream.”

What will it look like when the “dream” fades? A lot like Hagler vs. Hearns, apparently:

Stocks, at least in Thursday’s session, were standing on firm ground, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.89% up more than 300 points. The S&P 500 SPX, +1.15% and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, +1.41% were also firmly higher

WATCH: Praying mantis eats a murder hornet’s face, becomes Twitter’s new hero

The giant hornets can kill mantises and entire bee hives — but not this time. Not this time.

Turns out, the praying mantis can prey on murder hornets. imv/iStock

Published: May 7, 2020 By Nicole Lyn Pesce
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/watch-praying-mantis-eats-a-murder-hornets-face-becomes-twitters-new-hero-2020-05-07?mod=MW_article_top_stories

Say your prayers, murder hornets.

As if the coronavirus pandemic weren’t enough to give people nightmares this year, headlines about giant Asian “murder hornets” landing in the U.S. for the first time have had some people musing that the end is nigh.

The flying, meat-eating insects that grow more than 2 inches long can kill up to 50 people a year in Japan, and are known to decimate bee hives.

But all hope is not yet lost: tales of plucky bugs fighting back have been gaining a lot of buzz on social media.

A pretty gory video of a praying mantis grabbing a murder hornet from behind, and then chewing its face off and eating its brain, has gone viral across Twitter TWTR, +3.93%, Facebook FB, +1.33% and reddit, leading “praying mantis” to trend on Twitter on Thursday. Watch it here, but be warned that it’s pretty graphic.

It’s gruesome stuff, but many viewers cheered the mantis for taking down the Asian giant hornet notorious for decapitating bees and wiping out entire honeybee hives in a matter of hours. The hornets also produce a potent venom in their long stingers that reportedly feels like a hot nail being driven into one’s flesh when people get stung by them. A grisly 2018 video shows a murder hornet killing a mouse in seconds.

This is really more of an underdog story, however, as National Geographic warned in 2002 that “bees, other hornet species, and larger insects such as praying mantises are no match for the giant hornets, which often stalk their prey in relentless armies.” (The same article notes that murder hornet venom is strong enough to “disintegrate human flesh.”)

Related:Giant ‘murder hornet’ is in U.S. to stay, will eventually reach East Coast, experts say

Of course, the praying mantis is also known for being a cunning hunter in its own right, eating everything from bees, moths, beetles and crickets to even small birds, like hummingbirds.

And the female mantis is notorious for occasionally cannibalizing her male partner after mating.

A photograph of Japanese honeybees fighting back against a murder hornet is also making the rounds online. Turns out, these honeybees can form “hot defensive bee balls” by swarming a giant hornet and vibrating their flight muscles all at once, which “cooks the hornet to death.”


AS A JUNIOR SCIENTIST (WHAT CITIZEN SCIENTISTS WERE CALLED BACK THEN)
I WAS FASCINATED BY THE PREYING MANTIS, AS WELL AS THE ARACHNAE FAMILY

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HORNET

#ABOLISHICE
Immigrant in ICE custody dies after testing positive for COVID-19
Camilo Montoya-Galvez,CBS News•May 7, 2020


An immigrant detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in southern California died on Wednesday from coronavirus complications, local health authorities said, confirming the first known death of a detainee in the agency's custody during the pandemic.

The 57-year-old immigrant died Wednesday morning in a San Diego-area hospital after being transferred in April from the privately operated Otay Mesa detention center, the epicenter of coronavirus cases inside the nation's immigration detention system, according to Craig Sturak, a spokesperson for the County of San Diego Health & Human Services Agency.

The man was identified as Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejía by his immigration attorney for nine years, Joan Del Valle. He had lived in the U.S. since the 1980s, including 20 years in Los Angeles, according to Del Valle.

Escobar Mejía had been transferred to the Otay Mesa detention center after being picked up by ICE in January during the arrest of someone he was in a car with, Del Valle said. She stopped representing him after after he was transferred to the detention facility in the San Diego-area, since she's based in Los Angeles. Del Valle said Wednesday night that Escobar Mejía's family in the U.S. was too distraught to discuss his death publicly and authorized her to speak on their behalf.

Del Valle said her longtime client, who had undergone surgeries and suffered from diabetes, was denied bond on April 15 by an immigration judge. "On April 15, he had the opportunity to have many more years of life. On April 15, when they denied him every possibility to be released in the middle of a pandemic, knowing how frail he was, they sentenced him to die," Del Valle told CBS News.

According to Del Valle, Escobar Mejía struggled with alcohol and drug abuse earlier in his life, saying he had some substance convictions that date back roughly three decades. A drug-related charge in 2012 was expunged the following year, she added. For the past years, however, Escobar Mejía had turned his life around, Del Valle said.

"Having a record, it depends on you if you want to change your life — and he did. I want people to focus on Carlos, a good person who was fighting an addiction and bad influences and he was successful. Staying nine years clean after being so deep in using drugs is a big advancement," Del Valle said. "He was a good person."

"He was a person who loved his family. He loved life. Who wanted to improve, make things right. I will never forget his voice, his joy, his smile, his desire to press forward," she added.

At least 132 ICE detainees at the San Diego-area prison have tested positive for coronavirus, the most of any detention center used by the agency to hold immigrants it is looking to deport. Across the nation, at least 705 immigrants in ICE custody have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the agency, which reported 31 new cases on Wednesday. More than 48% of the 1,460 detainees who have been screened for the virus have tested positive.

Cases inside the agency's sprawling network of county jails and private prisons have been growing substantially on a consistent basis, with the agency reporting 581 cases in the past three weeks alone. Many of the more than 29,000 immigrants held by ICE have been growing increasingly frustrated, and have said they feel powerless to shield themselves from the contagion while in close quarters.

There have been at least nine instances since President Trump declared a national emergency over coronavirus in March in which protesting ICE detainees have been pepper sprayed. ICE has said the immigrants became confrontational and disruptive, and maintained that the "calculated use of force" mitigates the risk of injuries to both staff and detainees.

Since the pandemic started spreading across the U.S., immigrant advocates and human rights groups have been pressuring ICE to dramatically downsize its detainee population to mitigate the risk of widespread outbreaks.

ICE has so far released more than 900 immigrants who it determined face an increased risk of severe illness if they contract the coronavirus due to their age, underlying health conditions or the fact that they are pregnant. Granting requests in lawsuits filed by advocates across the country, federal judges have also required the agency to release more than 190 at-risk detainees.

But advocates believe the agency has not done enough to protect detainees. Anne Rios, a supervising attorney at Al Otro Lado, a group that has been working to release dozens of detainees from the Otay Mesa detention center, said she is worried about other immigrants dying while in custody.

"This was 100% avoidable. Immigration detention is civil detention — it is discretionary. ICE could've determined that this person who had underlying conditions could and should've been released," she told CBS News. "They had the discretion to do so and yet they chose not to."

ICE officials did not immediately respond to requests to comment on Wednesday's death.