"Published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the new study combined historical records with studies of polar ice cores and European tree rings. Researchers Martin Bauch at the Leibniz Institute in Germany, and Ulf Buntgen at Cambridge University, UK, conclude that an unidentified volcanic eruption around the year 1345 pumped climate-cooling ash and sulfur into Earth's atmosphere and caused crop failures across the Mediterranean."
""By a combination of several coincidences at a time, you get a side effect that you were not expecting. You couldn't from a 14th century perspective calculate and expect this to happen the same system which successfully saves you from starvation, will lead to their mass death if the Black Death reaches your city," said Bauch, who is an environmental historian."
Combined evidence from polar ice cores, European tree rings, and historical records indicates an unidentified volcanic eruption around 1345 injected ash and sulfur into the atmosphere, cooling climate and triggering widespread Mediterranean crop failures. Food shortages forced major port cities to alter trade links with the Golden Horde in Central Asia, creating pathways for Yersinia pestis to reach Europe. The ensuing Black Death pandemic (1347–1351) produced bubonic and pneumonic plague waves that caused massive mortality. Italian city-states' food-security strategies could not prevent the epidemic's spread. Modern antibiotics have largely made plague controllable, though the bacterium still causes isolated outbreaks.
Read at www.dw.com
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