Climatic signatures in early modern European grain harvest yields
Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Bo Christiansen, Jan Esper, Heli Huhtamaa, Lotta Leijonhufvud, Christian Pfister, Andrea Seim, Martin Karl Skoglund, Peter Thejll
Abstract
Abstract. The association between climate variability and grain harvest yields has been an important component of food security and economy in European history. Yet, inter-regional comparisons of climate–yield relationships have been hampered by locally varying data types and use of different statistical methods. Using a coherent statistical framework, considering the effects of diverse serial correlations on significance, we assess the temperature and hydroclimate (precipitation and drought) signatures in grain harvest yields across varying environmental settings of early modern (c. 1500–1800) Europe. An unprecedentedly large network of yield records from northern (Sweden), central (Switzerland) and southern (Spain) Europe is com- pared with a diverse set of seasonally and annually resolved palaeoclimate reconstructions. Considering the effects of different crop types and time-series frequencies, we find within regions consistent climate–harvest yield patterns characterised by a significant summer soil moisture signal in Sweden, a winter temperature and precipitation signal in Switzerland, and spring and annual mean temperature signals in Spain. The regional scale climate–harvest associations are weaker than the recently revealed signals in early modern grain prices, albeit similar to those observed in modern climate–harvest relationships on comparable spatial scales.