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Climatic decline in Late Antiquity.

• Message 1. 

  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 28th July 2005

  Just to follow on from the many enquiries about the transition from antiquity to the medieval period on the the old boards such as the fall of Rome thread. It is thought there is a general change in the climate of the ancient world from at least the mid second century AD. One might argue that factors such as the growth of swampland in fertile lowland areas of the Mediterranean; the change in the distribution of malarea carrying mosquitos as well as the emergence and spread of new diseases like small pox; the depopulation of the Roman Empire and the mass migrations across the Northern borders would all seem to be side effects of this change in climate.
  
  What struck me was that varves in iceland suggest that for several centuries large quantities of residue from the production of metals, particularly lead were floating about in the atmosphere. I am aware that some bright spark proposed that the best way to deal with the potential effects of the Greenhouse earth theory as it was then understood was to seed the atmosphere with aluminium to reflect the suns heat away from the earth. Given the idea of global dimming (not part of dumbing down apparently) does anyone think this may have contributed to the change in weather.

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  Posted by DL (U1683040) on Thursday, 28th July 2005

  Hi lolbeeble,
  
  Interesting post, considering global dimming (which some reckon has acted as a counterbalance to greenhouse gases) as a climatic change factor with respect to the past, you may have a point there.
  
  I would think that dimming due to atmospheric particles has had an effect in the past. To go back merely to the 19th Century, where the levels of pollution in the UK were much higher (for particles anyway), since the Victorians weren't exactly environmentally friendly, and basically burnt any old dirty fuels they could get their hands on in the name of industry! It is during this period we get records of the Thames being used for ice skating, it was frozen so solidly, and since dimming reduces temperature this could well have been the cause. I think maybe global dimming has an effect only at a local level (I guess you have to be under the cloud of soot to be cooled by it!) so it could have an effect on civilizations on the edge of, for example, the permafrost regions, and areas where there is only a short growing season (far Northern Europe maybe?) would suffer greatly. I would however have thought that you would need quite a high local concentration of industry (or maybe a bloody big volcanic eruption?).
  
  
  With regards to the Romans, IMO it is quite reasonable to assume that since the climate became warmer at the end of the Roman Empire, that malaria has a huge effect on the population as the anopheline mosquitoes could survive in more northern areas, and spread the disease across Italy. I may be wrong on this but didn't the late empire have large static water storage tanks in some cities as well? If so these would be perfect breeding grounds for mossies!
  There are many theories such as lead in the water as a cause which may have an combined effect with all the above and cause population decline! Still can't get my head round the fact the Romans used to actually flavour wine with lead....what were they thinking?
  
  Cheers
  DL

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  Posted by Gilgamesh of Uruk (U211168) on Friday, 29th July 2005

  Not much, afterwards. There are many theories such as lead in the water as a cause which may have an combined effect with all the above and cause population decline! Still can't get my head round the fact the Romans used to actually flavour wine with lead....what were they thinking?
  
  Cheers
  ¶Ù³¢Ìý

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Sunday, 31st July 2005

  Dark Light, so far as I was aware the Dickensian Christmas was a by product of the mini Ice Age across Northern Europe and the Glaciers have been on the retreat since the mid nineteenth century. Mind you I gather it was coking that really increased the volumes pumped into the Atmosphere. The mini ice ages onset in the fourteenth century seems to have coincided with the spread of the Black Death. In any case I would have thought that as the traces of lead exploitation in the Mediterranean have settled on Greenland it would suggest that the dust was entering the Atlantic weather system at least. There is an argument that by the end of the second century the Galena seams that provided the stability of the value of silver across the Roman Empire were on the wane but how long would the material have stayed in the atmosphere? You don’t want to go playing into the hands of the likes of the Cato institute.
  
  With regard to the spread of mosquitoes, I was under the impression that they were able to exploit areas where the nighttime temperature would have killed the adult population by the heat retained by human buildings in the swamped lowland areas their larvae settled. Certainly by the fifth century AD many parts of Appenine Italy were affected by pestilence. There again the spread of marshland into previously drained areas might be a side effect of the depopulation of Italy, there simply being not enough spare labour to coordinate drainage projects, let alone the desire to invest in such activity. The urban centres administrating these areas could still get most of their agricultural staples form North Africa. There again I do remember seeing that the effects of global dimming also meant that water did not evaporate off the land so quickly and one would imagine that this would have had some influence over the build up of water levels that overran the drainage systems of lowland Italy.
  
  It is thought the plagues, distinct from pestilence that generally meant malaria, that affected the Empire from the mid second century AD were the first outbreaks of smallpox in Europe. I’m inclined to think that all that luxury that separated urban dwellers and their counterparts in villas would have left them rather susceptible to small pox infection unlike the tribal groups of Northern Europe and across the steppes who occupied the same living quarters as their cattle and other livestock.
  
  I suppose as with modern international diets it was the importance of preservatives to keep goods longer. Wine in amphorae would have been sat around for several months before being consumed and if you consider what sort of effect the build up of lead has on large organisms like humans, bacteria didn’t stand a chance. I’d imagine that in the absence of pasteurisation it would have been quite useful and besides which it made the wine sweeter to the taste as children with lead oxide based paint on teething rings found. I don’t think they had the mechanisms to make compensation claims against the producers of Sapa in any case.

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  Posted by John Paul (U1698054) on Sunday, 31st July 2005

  lolbeeble, howzit?
  
  What we did have in South Africa after 1994 was a great influx of people from the north, bringing new strains of or new contagious diseases with them;
  
  We already had other population groups mixing in for a long time, such as Mozzies ( like myself ), Basuthos, Tswanas, Swazis; so there was a overall stable? pool of people and diseases in southern africa.
  
  But we started to get eboli virus and other strange nemes I dont remember as congolese, other central africans and even nigerians started to immigrate here.
  
  could that have happened to the roman empire? great shifts of people, slaves, around spreading new strains and new contagious diseases.
  
  like the chinese sars?
  
  John Paul

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Sunday, 31st July 2005

  John Paul, alright thanks. I think you may be onto something. Gothic groups were reported to have wanted to settle in the Roman Empire as they were pushed westwards by other tribal groupings and they had a fairly mobile lifestyle with their families being pulled by ox drawn carriages. Certainly the old folk tale that milk maids never got small pox inspired Jenner but what about those they came into contact with. After all the first outbreak of Plague hit while Marcus Aurelius was campaigning against the Marcomanni on the Danube. Admittedly most sources ascribe it to the Parthians but so far as the Romans were concerned all corruption emenated from the East so whether that is truly accurate is questionable.

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