The cooling of 535–536 is the most dramatic decrease in the average annual temperature in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 2,000 years [1] . The alleged cause of cooling is a sharp decrease in atmospheric transparency as a result of several large volcanic eruptions in the tropics (see Krakatau , Ilopango, and Rabaul ) [2] or as a result of a collision with a large meteorite [3] . The latest study of cores taken from the Kolle Nafetti glacier in the Swiss Alps showed that the cause of the cooling was a volcanic eruption in Iceland [4] .
Procopius of Caesarea celebrated in the tenth year of Justinian I (536/537):
And this year the greatest miracle happened: the whole year the sun gave off light like a moon, without rays, as if it had lost its power, having ceased, as before, to shine cleanly and brightly. From the time it started, neither war, nor plague, nor any other calamity that caused death ceased among people. Then was the tenth year of the reign of Justinian.
- Procopius . History of Wars (Book IV [War with Vandals (II)], chapter 14. 5-6)
The link between the sharp cooling and the mutation of the plague pathogen leading to the pandemic of bubonic plague , known as Justinian's plague , has not been proven, however, for contemporaries, the sudden cooling, the plague, the devastating earthquakes in the eastern Mediterranean, and Justinian's wars constituted one continuous chain of disasters.
In 2015, it was found that the cooling of 536 was just the beginning of the Late Antique Little Ice Age , which lasted until 660 AD and coincided with significant changes in the lives of many peoples of Europe, Asia and America [5] .
This period in history
Cooling led to a sharp decline in the harvest and widespread hunger, which caused significant population migrations and wars [3] . The historical period of 535–536 was accompanied by the following political events:
- The Franco King Theodebert I seizes land in the Alps and northeastern Italy.
- Migration of Bavars from Bohemia to the territory of Retsiya .
- The beginning of a large-scale relocation of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain [6] [7] .
- Byzantine sources marked the raids of the Huns , Slavs and Ants on Illyria and Thrace .
- Slavs reach the coast of the Baltic and North Sea, fall into Northern Italy, in the foothills of the Alps, the upper reaches of the Rhine and the lower reaches of the Danube, the Elbe River becomes Slavic almost throughout its course.
- The invasion of the Avars into the steppes of the Western Caspian and further into the Northern Pontic and Byzantium.
- At this time, a union of the Turkic group of tribes was formed and their influence increased, including the formation of the Turkic Kaganate , to which China was immediately forced to pay a large tribute, the Turks continued their raids on cities in the Kerch Strait , as well as in areas close to Korea .
- Famine began in North China, killing 80% of the region’s population.
- During this period began the decline of Teotihuacan - the largest city of Mesoamerica and one of the largest cities in the world of this era. Probably the cause of the decline was the famine resulting from the drought.
- Death and reformatting of forest archaeological cultures of Eastern Europe: Moschinskaya and others.
See also
- Fimbulinter
- Early Middle Ages Climate Pessimum
- Eruption of the volcano Samalas (1257)
- Great famine (1315-1317)
- Quay
- Minoan eruption
- Year without summer
Notes
- ↑ AGU 2008: “Magnetite and Silicate Spherules from the GISP2 Core at the 536 AD Horizon”
- ↑ Larsen, LB, et al. (2008), volcanic cause of the AD 536 dust veil , Geophys. Res. Lett. , 35, L04708, doi: 10.1029 / 2007GL032450.
- 2 1 2 Than, Ker (3 January 2009) "Slam dunks from the winter" The New Scientist "201 (issue 2689): p.9
- ↑ Gibbons, Ann. (2018), “ Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' ”, Science , doi: 10.1126 / science.aaw0632.
- ↑ M. Sigl, M. Winstrup, JR McConnell, KC Welten, G. Plunkett. Timing and climate forcing for 2,500 years // Nature. - T. 523 , vol. 7562 . - p . 543–549 . - DOI : 10.1038 / nature14565 .
- ↑ Hilda the Wise. On the Ruin of Brittany.
- ↑ Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain Unc .