CLIMATE CHANGE THEORIES AND EUROPE

Climate studies have developed beyond Ellsworth Huntington’s theory (1907) of only two different climate cycles of the Earth, the glacial cycle and Bruckner and Clough’s 36-year climate cycle (Huntington, 1907, Huntington et al., 1914) .  There is extensive evidence of major changes identified in central Europe through several proxies such as lake levels and palynology.  Brooks (1970) interpreted several broad changes in the climate of Europe.  He concluded that the climate changed from wetter and cooler than present in 500BC to sub-Atlantic (AD 1), to similar to modern Germany (AD 100), to drier and warmer (AD 180 to 350), to wetter (AD 350), to drier and warmer (AD 600), to wetter (AD 800) (Brooks, 1970) .  The tree-ring record generally supports these observations, with the exception of the wetter period in AD 350.  M. L. Parry used archaeological evidence to suggest that there was a greater frequency of severe winters from 450 BC and in the period from AD 600 to 800, which reflected more of a sub-boreal epoch (Parry, 1978, Parry, 1981) . 

It has been theorized that the warmer and drier climate of the 3^rd century AD affected the Huns on the Russian Steppes, but strangely, the possibility of a drought in 3^rd century Germania is still contested (Huntington, 1907, Maenchen-Helfen, 1973, Chernavskaya, 1996) .  The tree-ring record indicates several periods in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AD had sustained periods below the mean growth rates.  This argument against significant drought in Germania is mainly centered on the fact that it is difficult to directly connect tree-ring records and human agriculture.  This connection can only be made indirectly with climate change being the common link.  The question, “where the migrations of the Germanic tribes being driven solely by climate?”, is easily answerable – no they were not.  The Germanic tribes were affected by the apparent climate changes that occurred, as is evident from the tree rings, but only in a few instances were they the main contributor to tribal relocation.  These climate changes were arguably a factor to some degree or another in most of the other instances.