Põhjus ja tagajärg. Ajalooline klimatoloogia teadusdistsipliinina
Cause and Effect: Historical Climatology as a Scientific Discipline

Summary/Abstract: Although the modern notion that climate has historically been in a state of constant change has become part of common knowledge, this has not always been the case. The problem of climate change was first brought to the attention of the scientific community by the Baltic-German geographer and climatologist Eduard Brückner in a public lecture at the University of Tartu in 1888. From then on, the notion that climate has historically undergone many changes gathered momentum and over time became dominant. However, in order to cope with climate change, now and in the future, it is necessary to have knowledge of the past. Historical climate studies are now being carried out all over the world. Human–climate interaction has not always been approached in a dynamic way: climate determinologists, for example, have seen climate as taking precedence over society, and have treated humans as objects rather than subjects. The notion that human beings react to the climate and try to find solutions in order to emerge from its plagues with as little damage as possible became established as a scientific research problem in the second half of the 20th century, yet there are several ways to explain the interaction between man and climate. Climate change can be understood, for example, by relying on data stored in nature’s own archives. There are many possibilities, and palaeoclimatology, as a science concerned with the analysis of data from nature, has today developed into a science using very specific research methods. By building on palaeo data to explain climate variability, a framework can be created to explain the environmental factors that have influenced social life. Since the invention of the means of recording weather conditions (thermometers, barometers, etc.), man has begun to observe weather and climate. These data have already made it possible to monitor climate dynamics in more concrete terms. However, the data in question are of late origin (sporadic data began to accumulate in the second half of the 17th century) and do not directly reflect the relationship between society and climate. A third possibility is to use weather and climate records compiled by man. This line of research is known as historical climatology and it developed into its current state within the last half century. The emancipation of historical climatology has been a long process. The societal impact of sudden natural events (volcanic activity, floods, etc.) is being studied as is the societal impact caused by prolonged deviations from normal conditions. A logical framework for monitoring the interaction between climate and society has been developed starting with the identification of changes in the natural environment, from where it is possible to observe the societal developments to which this has led. Such research is deeply interdisciplinary, involving the social sciences. However, convincing research results require the availability of source material and so increasing attention is being paid to the creation of datasets with a global reach as well as to linking them. The present collection of three articles is the first attempt in the Estonian scientific community to introduce historical climatology as a discipline in its own right, to show its potential for making sense of historical processes, and thus to stimulate research in this field in Estonia too.

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