Climate: heat wave and great winters experienced by our ancestors
Thunderstorms, heat waves, frosts, snow, storms ... Our ancestors have also undergone difficult weather conditions. Back on these climatic events.
©️Gallica - BnF
In Europe, the first months of 2020 experienced record temperatures (+3 ° C compared to the average since the start of the statements). Winter 2019-2020 and the first quarter of 2020 have been the hottest ever recorded since the 20th century. This global warming is not without consequences: heat wave, drought, floods, storms and other bad weather that oblige populations to adapt.
Our ancestors also had to adapt to climatic hazards: return to some important climatic phenomena and their consequences on the life of our ancestors.
Mortal heat waves ...
Many of them were hot, burning summers, with many consequences on the lives of our ancestors: deaths by hundreds of thousands, mediocre harvests, price increases, epidemics, unemployment ...
On recense de fortes chaleurs depuis la nuit des temps mais ce n’est qu’au XVe siècle que le mot « canicule » voit le jour.
Celui-ci vient du latin « canicula » ou « petite chienne », nom donné à l’étoile Sirius de la constellation du Grand Chien. Sirius est la deuxième étoile la plus brillante après le Soleil et se couche et se lève aux mêmes moments que le Soleil du 22 juillet au 23 août. On parlait alors de « jours de canicule » les jours où Sirius était le plus visible, période qui correspondait également aux journées les plus chaudes.
Le climatologue Van Engelen a fait la liste des « étés brulants » depuis le XIVe siècle, retour sur quelques-uns d’entre eux :
- Summer 1420: The hot spring announces early harvests. We find in the archives indications on certain cultures: cherries and wheat are ripe at the end of May, lily of the valley is flowered on April 10 and we harvest in mid-August.
- Summer 1556: The harvest is early again but the wine seems of quality. The harvest is poor, and forest fires are to be deplored to Normandy.
- Summer 1636: Throughout France, more than 500,000 people die from infectious diseases (mud and water are infected).
- Summer 1705: He made 39 ° C in Paris for several days, even warmer in the south of France… This scorching episode made between 200,000 and 500,000 victims.
- Summer 1718 and 1719: A particularly deadly couple. 700,000 deaths are to be deplored, of which 450,000 in the summer of 1719. Water was unfit for consumption because of the drought, the majority of victims die of dysentery. The crops are mediocre and prices increase sharply, the State intervenes to control the prices of the grain and prohibits export. Summer 1719 was also marked by an invasion of grasshoppers from North Africa to Languedoc which ravaged cultures. The Seine reaches a historic low level: a little more than 26m above sea level.
- Summer 1747 and summer 1779: 200,000 victims for each of these periods, the vast majority of which are infants and children.
- Summer 1788: It is not the heat that is wreaking havoc but the impressive thunderstorm of July 13. The wheat crops are destroyed, a period of scarcity is coming ...
- Summer 1846: The country still faces the potato disease of 1845, hundreds of thousands of people died and France experienced misery and unemployment in the textile and building sectors.
- Summer 1859: July is the hottest in history. There are 100,000 deaths, including 60,000 children under the age of 5…
Le Charivari, August 14, 1854 - Retonews
... to extreme winters
Our ancestors also had to face harsh and extremely cold winters:
- Winter 1364-1365: One of the seven most rigorous winters that France has known, it is long, intense and the snowfall is strong. There are 15 to 20 weeks of frost and the freezing of large rivers. Wood is expensive, the prices of wheat double and the trees and vines are frozen.
- Winter 1708-1709: Seven cold waves are identified this winter with several periods of frost. The minimum temperature is -20.5 ° C in Paris. Winter wheat harvest is strongly impacted. There are nearly 600,000 deaths.
- Winter 1788-1789: This winter is very rough, the average temperature in Paris of -6.8 ° C: a cold record for an average.
- Winter 1879-1880: The Seine remains frozen during all December. There are -25.6 ° C on December 17 in Paris. Unslashes the Loire and the Seine caused damage in their path, including the destruction of the Pont des Invalides.
- Winter 1890-1891: Winter is early in the north of France. Temperatures are negative on a large part of France from November to February, it's a long time. The sowing is damaged and the harvest of the harvest will be bad.
Large climatic phenomena such as heat waves or harsh winters are added to seasonal bad weather such as rains in the fall or hail in the spring. These meteorological phenomena and their consequences have marked several generations of our ancestors. Improving living conditions and the progress of medicine has reduced the number of victims of infectious diseases, consequences of drought and glacial winters.