Distal socio-economic impacts of big volcanic eruptions in 1500–1900 CE Switzerland and Sweden (DEBTS)

Large volcanic eruptions can have a substantial impact on climate and these climatic disturbances can, in turn, have severe human consequences far away from the eruption location. In order to understand the eruption-climate-society causalities better, we have to look back into history, as our recent past has witnessed only a limited number of large eruptions.
Recent research have detected several large-scale famine crises coinciding with large eruptions. However, less is known about the complexity of how these volcanism-triggered climate anomalies influenced societies on a micro-regional scale.
The DEBTS project examines the socio-economic impacts of eruption-related climatic anomalies among Swiss and Swedish peasant societies in 1500–1900 CE. In addition to uncovering these impacts, the project investigates to what degree the detected socio-economic effects can be attributed to volcanic-induced climatic disturbances, as well as to what degree internal climate variability, existing socio-environmental conditions, and emerging human actions can explain these events. This will be achieved by combining rigorous historical source analysis with state-of-the-art data from climate sciences. In result, the DEBTS project aims to provide a better understanding of the complexity of socio-economic consequences of past volcanic eruptions – a step away from simplistic “climate and collapse” narratives.
The DEBTS project is a part of a larger interdisciplinary research group on past eruption-climate-society linkages at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, led by Dr. Heli Huhtamaa.