Poland’s Climate in the Last Millennium

Author(s):  
Rajmund Przybylak

The reconstruction of climate in Poland in the past millennium, as measured by several kinds of proxy data, is more complete than that of many other regions in Europe and the world. In fact, the methods of climate reconstruction used here are commonly utilized for other regions. Proxy data available for Poland (whether by documentary, biological, or geothermal evidence) mainly allow for reconstructions of three meteorological variables: air temperature, ground-surface temperature, and precipitation. It must be underlined however, that air temperature reconstructions are possible only for certain times of the year. This is particularly characteristic of biological proxies (e.g., tree rings measure January–April temperature, chironomids provide data for August temperature, chrysophyte cysts identify cold seasons, etc.). Potentially, such limitation has no corresponding documentary evidence. In Poland these data are available only for climate reconstructions covering mainly the last 500 years because the number of historical sources pre-1500 is usually too small. Geothermal data allow for reconstruction of mean annual ground surface temperature generally for the last 500 years. Reconstructions of air temperature that cover the entire, or almost the entire, millennium and have high time resolution are only available from biological proxies (tree rings, chironomids, diatoms, etc.). At present, the best source of information about climate in Poland in the last millennium is still documentary evidence. This evidence defines a Medieval Warm Period (MWP), which was present in the 11th century and probably ended in the 14th or early 15th century. Air temperature in the MWP was probably about 0.5–1.0°C warmer than contemporary conditions on average, and the climate was characterized by the greatest degree of oceanity throughout the entire millennium. A Little Ice Age (LIA) can be also distinguished in Poland’s climate history. Data show that it clearly began around the mid-16th century and probably ended in the second half of the 19th century. In this LIA, winters were 1.5–3.0°C colder than present conditions, while summers tended to be warmer by about 0.5°C. As a result, the continentality of the climate in the LIA was the greatest for the entire millennium. Mean annual air temperature was probably lower than the modern temperature by about 0.9–1.5°C. The average rise of air temperature since the mid-19th century, which is often called the Contemporary Warming Period (CWP), is equal to about 1°C and is in line with the results of reconstructions using geothermal and dendrochronological methods. The reconstruction of precipitation in Poland is much more uncertain than the reconstruction of air temperature. There was probably considerably higher average precipitation in the 12th century (and particularly in the second half of this century), in the first half of the 16th century, and also in the first half of the 18th century. The second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 19th century were drier than average. In other periods, precipitation conditions were close to average, including for the entire CWP period.

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Verdoya ◽  
P. Chiozzi ◽  
V. Pasquale

Abstract. A joint analysis of surface air temperature series recorded at meteorological stations and temperature-depth profiles logged in near-by boreholes was performed to estimate conditions existing prior to the beginning of the instrumental record in central-northern Italy. The adopted method considers conductive and advective heat transport in a horizontally layered medium and provides simultaneous estimates of the pre-observational temperatures and the Darcy velocities. The reconstruction of the ground surface temperature history using an inversion method was performed for boreholes where hydrological disturbances to measured temperature logs were proved to be negligible. Both methods revealed generally coherent climatic changes in the whole investigated area. Climatic conditions were generally warm and comparable with the reference period 1960–1990. The absence of the Little Ice Age in the middle ages seems to be a generic feature of the climate in central-northern Italy. Climate change of the 19th century was generally insignificant with well balanced periods of cold and warmth. The investigated area became significantly colder only at the end of the 19th century. Cooling culminated around 1950 when it was replaced by rapid warming. Recent warming was not inferred only for one of the investigated holes. This discrepancy can be attributed to local environmental conditions.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Verdoya ◽  
P. Chiozzi ◽  
V. Pasquale

Abstract. A joint analysis of surface air temperature series recorded at meteorological stations and temperature-depth profiles logged in nearby boreholes was performed to estimate conditions existing prior to the beginning of the instrumental record in central-northern Italy. The adopted method considers conductive and advective heat transport in a layered medium and provides simultaneous estimates of the pre-observational temperatures and the Darcy velocities. The reconstruction of the ground surface temperature history using a generalised least-squares inversion method was performed for boreholes where hydrological disturbances to measured temperature logs were proved negligible. Both methods revealed generally coherent climatic changes in the whole investigated area. Climatic conditions were generally warm and comparable with the reference period 1960–1990. The absence of the Little Ice Age seems to be a generic feature of the climate in central-northern Italy. Climate change of the 19th century was generally insignificant with well-balanced periods of cold and warmth. The investigated area became significantly colder only at the end of the 19th century. Cooling culminated around 1950 when it was replaced by rapid warming. Recent warming was not inferred only for one of the investigated holes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Sara Matrisciano ◽  
Franz Rainer

All major Romance languages have patterns of the type jaune paille for expressing shades of colour represented by some prototypical object. The first constituent of this pattern is a colour term, while the second one designates a prototypical representative of the colour shade. The present paper starts with a short discussion of the controversial grammatical status of this pattern and its constituents. Its main aim, however, concerns the origin and diffusion of this pattern. We have not found hard and fast evidence that Medieval Italian pigment compounds of the type verderame influenced the rise of the jaune paille pattern, which first appears in French in the 16th century. This pattern continued to be a minority solution during the 17th century, but established itself during the 18th century. In the 19th century, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese adopted the pattern jaune paille, while it did not reach Catalan and Romanian before the 20th century.


2019 ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Marcin Gadocha

The article is a survey and an attempt to bring closer the questions connected with the education of future tradesmen in Cracow from the 16th century until the first half of the 19th century. Thus far, there has been no thorough study devoted to this topic. In the 16th century, young adepts of trade would start learning this occupation in their father’s business, further family’s business or in the dynamically developing trading houses in Cracow. In the 16th c. and 17th c. there was no merchants’ guild in Cracow, which could oversee the process of learning the “art of trade”. Only the establishment of the Merchants’ Congregation in 1722 brought about changes in this respect. Ultimately, in the new statute of the Congregation from 1833, the new principles of training were formulated. Candidates had to present their birth certificate, the recommending certificate written by their parents or foster parents. Moreover, the candidate had to be able to read, write and calculate in Polish or German. Learning took three years in the 16th and 17th centuries; in the 18th century this period was prolonged, in the 19th century lasted from 4 to 6 years. According to the author, the problem still requires further in-depth research. After the archival query, it seems that there are good possibilities to obtain valuable material connected with mercantile art in Cracow.


2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Reiter

AbstractThe present article focuses on court interpreters at the Imperial court of Vienna, who were employed in the Habsburg Monarchy from the early 16th century until the end of the 19th century. Based on the methodological concepts of professional intercultures introduced by Anthony Pym the article discusses the question whether or not court interpreters formed a professional group at the court. Different aspects of their profession such as competencies, remuneration, duties, reputation and their place in the organization of the court are discussed. For the application of Anthony Pyms model it will be shown that two main components, time and the intern differentiation of the group, are necessary to apply the model on a professional group like the court interpreters that was a highly complex group characterized by strong changes throughout their existence.


Author(s):  
Liliana Ninarello

The main focus of this chapter is the highly valued work done by the architect Francesco Pieroni at the Ministero delle Finanze in Rome. This contribution can to attribute to Pieroni various drawings and numerous modine, i.e. real scale cardboard templates of various shapes used in the realization phases of the mouldings. Pieroni's activity represents, in the Roman context, one of the first applications of typical 16th century mouldings, to modern and prefabricated metal bar structures, spreading in the 70's of the 19th century. The construction companies were resilient to agree for changes in building techniques due to a lack of expertise. The realization of the Ministero is a case study of this phenomenon. The archival research developed casts new light on the numerous modifications carried out by Peroni during construction phases, which demonstrate the accuracy employed by the architect in designing the stuccos. The chapter analyses two different types of archive documents: the report Spoglio modificazioni lavori di stucco, and the examples of modine authored by Pieroni.


Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock

In the mid-16th century, the Ottoman empire expanded to encompass parts of the modern Sudan, Eritrea, and the Ethiopian borderlands, forming the Ottoman province of Habeş. The Ottomans also provided aid to their ally Ahmad Grañ in his jihad against Ethiopia and fought with the Funj sultanate of Sinnar for control of the Nile valley, where Ottoman territories briefly extended south as far as the Third Cataract. After 1579, Ottoman control was limited to the Red Sea coast, in particular the ports of Massawa and Suakin, which remained loosely under Ottoman rule until the 19th century, when they were transferred to Egypt, nominally an Ottoman vassal but effectively independent. Politically, Ottoman influence was felt much more broadly in northeast Africa in places as distant as Mogadishu, at least nominally recognized Ottoman suzerainty.


2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Miriam Velázquez Martínez

The existence of the Franz Mayer Museum is due to the German philanthropist and naturalized Mexican, Franz Gabriel Mayer Traumann Altschul (1882-1975), who bequeathed to the Mexican people his library and decorative arts collection. Considered the most important of its kind in the country, it includes works from the 16th through the 19th centuries, from America, Europe and Asia. It is located in Mexico City, in a building dating from the second half of the 16th century, and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2011. The Library, which is open to researchers, is currently made up of around 22,000 volumes, and specializes in decorative arts and the history of Mexico in the 19th century, among other subjects. As well as displaying the Mayer Collection the Museum also presents temporary exhibitions on decorative arts, contemporary design and photography, while the library holds two exhibitions a year highlighting the bibliographic collections.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 1583-1606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilo Melo-Aguilar ◽  
J. Fidel González-Rouco ◽  
Elena García-Bustamante ◽  
Jorge Navarro-Montesinos ◽  
Norman Steinert

Abstract. Past climate variations may be uncovered via reconstruction methods that use proxy data as predictors. Among them, borehole reconstruction is a well-established technique to recover the long-term past surface air temperature (SAT) evolution. It is based on the assumption that SAT changes are strongly coupled to ground surface temperature (GST) changes and transferred to the subsurface by thermal conduction. We evaluate the SAT–GST coupling during the last millennium (LM) using simulations from the Community Earth System Model LM Ensemble (CESM-LME). The validity of such a premise is explored by analyzing the structure of the SAT–GST covariance during the LM and also by investigating the evolution of the long-term SAT–GST relationship. The multiple and single-forcing simulations in the CESM-LME are used to analyze the SAT–GST relationship within different regions and spatial scales and to derive the influence of the different forcing factors on producing feedback mechanisms that alter the energy balance at the surface. The results indicate that SAT–GST coupling is strong at global and above multi-decadal timescales in CESM-LME, although a relatively small variation in the long-term SAT–GST relationship is also represented. However, at a global scale such variation does not significantly impact the SAT–GST coupling, at local to regional scales this relationship experiences considerable long-term changes mostly after the end of the 19th century. Land use land cover changes are the main driver for locally and regionally decoupling SAT and GST, as they modify the land surface properties such as albedo, surface roughness and hydrology, which in turn modifies the energy fluxes at the surface. Snow cover feedbacks due to the influence of other external forcing are also important for corrupting the long-term SAT–GST coupling. Our findings suggest that such local and regional SAT–GST decoupling processes may represent a source of bias for SAT reconstructions from borehole measurement, since the thermal signature imprinted in the subsurface over the affected regions is not fully representative of the long-term SAT variations.


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