Extreme Weather – Megadrought of 1540 much worse than 2003

http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drought.jpg

http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drought.jpg

The summer of 2003 was sweltering in Europe. Warmists like to point to it as a fingerprint of global warming.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=3714

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=3714

Many parts of Europe saw their temperature records broken during this summer, including the UK. A sweltering 39 °C was recorded in Brogdale in Kent on 10 August 2003, a record high which still stands today.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/teens/case-studies/heatwave

Of course temperature records do not go back as far as the sixteenth century so it is only a recent ‘record’and looking at written observations we see 2003 has happened before during times of much lower carbon dioxide levels*. This then beggars the question how to explain carbon dioxide levels having any role at all in unprecedented events that are not unprecedented? Of course those wedded to the moronic and niave narrative can’t accept this and rattle on incoherently about the changes being ‘too fast’ resorting to the obliteration of history with defective hockeysticks and computer generated alternate realities. A new observation based paper (paywalled) by Wetter et. al shows the warmist narrativeis not only an utter failure but an outright lie (emphasis added)

The heat waves of 2003 in Western Europe and 2010 in Russia, commonly labelled as rare climatic anomalies outside of previous experience, are often taken as harbingers of more frequent extremes in the global warming-influenced future. However, a recent reconstruction of spring–summer temperatures for WE resulted in the likelihood of significantly higher temperatures in 1540. In order to check the plausibility of this result we investigated the severity of the 1540 drought by putting forward the argument of the known soil desiccation-temperature feedback. Based on more than 300 first-hand documentary weather report sources originating from an area of 2 to 3 million km2, we show that Europe was affected by an unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought. The estimated number of precipitation days and precipitation amount for Central and Western Europe in 1540 is significantly lower than the 100-year minima of the instrumental measurement period for spring, summer and autumn. This result is supported by independent documentary evidence about extremely low river flows and Europe-wide wild-, forest- and settlement fires. We found that an event of this severity cannot be simulated by state-of-the-art climate models.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1184-2/fulltext.html

The Daily Kos does a nice summary

The group compiled evidence from more than 300 documents, including records kept by farmers, churches, and lock keepers.South of the Alps the disaster started in 1539. By October processions supplicating God for rain were being conducted in Spain, and an Italian chronicle describes the winter weather as being as dry and warm as in July. The drought spread north early in 1540; an Alsatian vintner noted that there were only three days of rain in March. The soil dried out and cracked; according to one chronicle, you could dangle your legs in some of the fissures. This resulted in a positive feedback cycle that stabilized the heat wave: less water available for evaporation meant less cooling of the air and hence more drying out of the soil.

And the heat wave was ferocious. The number of days with temperatures over 30°C (86°F) was at least three times as great as usual. Wells and springs dried up that had never done so before. A Swiss chronicler reported that not a drop of water could be found even a metre and a half below the beds of many streambeds. Even some major rivers became small enough to be crossed on foot. In 2003 the volume of water in the Elbe river was about half the usual amount; the researchers estimate that in 1540 it was only atenth of the usual amount. Middle Europe as a whole is estimated to have received only about a third as much precipitation as usual

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/02/1311260/-The-Great-European-Heat-Wave-and-Drought-of-1540

Solar/lunar periods?
As time extends further out the focus of these investigations is ‘fuzzy’ but to get an idea if we are in the ball park for possible lunisolar interaction;

2003-1539 (listed as the start if the Megadrought) = 464 years

Divided by the hale cycle of ~ 22 years = 21.091

Divided by the 18.6 lunar period =24.946

The nearest lunar year is 1538.
The nearest solar year is 1541.
The drought fron 1539 to 1540 forms the midway point of these two intracting cycle as they ‘pass’ or ‘resonate’ against each other. So what is the rest of that period like? According to the excellent booty 1538-41 was notably dry and hot.

1. These four years apparently experienced drought, with 1540 & 1541 particularly dry – in both these latter years, the Thames was so low that sea water extended above London Bridge, even at ebb tide in 1541. Three successive fine / warm summers from 1538-1540: the weather in 1540 was so fine that picking of cherries commenced before the end of May and grapes were ripe in July.

2. General warmth over Europe during the spring & summer of 1540. For England, there are several references to a hot summer, with great heat & drought; also many deaths due to the ‘Ague’. In this year (1540), there was so little water flowing in the Seine through Paris that people were able to walk across. (The next warm summer of equal worth is possibly that of 2003!) (also noted in usw via Holland .. ” 1540 is described in contemporary chronicles as the ‘Big Sun Year’; the lower part of the Rhine from Cologne into the Netherlands is ‘dry’ – it didn’t rain over Italy, with Rome dry for something like 9 months. Forest/city fires, with many people dying of heat stroke, heart failure etc.”)

3. 1541: as indicated above, another drought year with rivers drying up (must have been quite extreme given that the previous year was notably dry). Cattle / other livestock dying for lack of water: dysentery killed thousands.

http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1500_1599.htm

Update

A 2016 paper by Orth et. al. also came to a similar conclusion:

Our results show medium confidence that summer mean temperatures (T_JJA) and maximum temperatures (TXx) in Central Europe in 1540 were warmer than the respective present-day mean summer temperatures (assessed between 1966–2015). The model-based reconstruction suggests further that with a probability of 40%–70%, the highest daily temperatures in 1540 were even warmer than in 2003, while there is at most a 20% probability that the 1540 mean summer temperature was warmer than that of 2003 in Central Europe.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114021

* Spiegel: Europe’s “Gigantic Catastrophe” Happened in 1540 (When CO2 Was 30% Less Than Today!)

http://notrickszone.com/2014/07/02/spiegel-europes-gigantic-catastrophe-happened-in-1540-when-co2-was-30-less-than-today/