{"id":5862,"date":"2025-05-02T14:03:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T14:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/?p=5862"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:54:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:54:32","slug":"nordicclimatehistories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/2025\/05\/02\/nordicclimatehistories\/","title":{"rendered":"Nordic Climate Histories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Impacts, Pathways, Narratives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Dominik Collet, Ingar M\u00f8rkest\u00f8l Gundersen, Heli Huhtamaa, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Astrid Ogilvie and Sam White (eds)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Down the centuries, the people of the Nordic countries have confronted challenges from climatic variability and change and sought ways to survive and adapt. In a time of accelerating global warming, these climate histories take on new contemporary significance. Drawing on tools from the natural and historical sciences, the innovative scholarship in this volume addresses questions such as: How did Nordic societies cope with past climatic hazards? What was the historical significance of the \u2018Little Ice Age\u2019 or the \u2018Medieval Climate Anomaly\u2019 for Nordic countries? And how do we study, narrate and learn from these past experiences?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This volume is the first to collect climate histories from across all the Nordic countries. It combines research from climatologists, historians, archaeologists and museologists to explore how climate and culture interacted in the past and what we might learn from these interactions today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chapters range from in-depth case studies to reflexive meta-histories; cover periods from the Bronze Age to the present; and draw on sources from tree rings to material culture to poetry. They also discuss how these histories can be communicated today, including how museums and literature can bring them into conversation with a current audience looking for lived experiences of climate adaptation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The volume was conceived during an international conference at the University of Oslo in May 2024. This interdisciplinary forum connected leading scholars in the field with practitioners and stakeholders. The essays presented here engage a rapidly growing field of intense public and political concern in the Nordics and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book speaks to various academic communities (climatology, history, literature) and stakeholders (museum practitioners, climate communicators and advocates). It includes the growing research and student community invested in this topic across several disciplines, practitioners and communicators in the field and the wider public interested in the vibrant debates about climate adaptation and experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is Open Access through the support of The Centre for Advanced Study (Oslo)<\/a> and the NORCLI project<\/a> at The University of Oslo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Corrigendum: <\/strong>
Chapter 4, ‘Volcanic\u202fVulnerability\u202fin\u202fMedieval\u202fIceland’, should bear the following funder credit:
‘This research is part of the project No. 2022\/47\/P\/HS3\/01044 co\u2011funded by the National Science Centre (Poland) and the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska\u2011Curie grant agreement No. 945339. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC\u2011BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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THE EDITORS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The editors are all currently Fellows of the project The Nordic Little Ice Age<\/em> (1300\u20131900) <\/em>Lessons from Past Climate Change (NORLIA)<\/em> at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dominik Collet<\/strong> is Professor of Climate and Environmental History at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is the PI of ClimateCultures \u2013 Socionatural entanglement in Little Ice Age Norway (1500\u20131800)<\/em> as well as the thematic research group Nordic Climate History<\/em>. He also leads the project The Nordic Little Ice Age<\/em> (1300\u20131900) <\/em>Lessons from Past Climate Change (NORLIA)<\/em> at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. His research focuses on the historical entanglements of climate and culture both in their material and mental configurations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingar M\u00f8rkest\u00f8l Gundersen<\/strong> is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and History at the University of Oslo. He has published on a range of topics on climate history and the Scandinavian Iron Age. Gundersen received his Ph.D. in 2022 with the thesis \u2018Iron Age Vulnerability\u2019, which investigated the archaeological evidence for a sixth-century climate crisis in eastern Norway. His doctoral research was part of the VIKINGS project (Volcanic Eruptions and their Impacts on Climate, Environment, and Viking Society in 500\u20131250 ce). Together with Dr Manon Bajard, he received the Inter Circle U. prize 2022 for outstanding examples of cross-disciplinary research. He is currently part of two research projects on the Nordic Little Ice Age (ClimateCultures, University of Oslo and The Nordic Little Ice Age<\/em> (1300\u20131900) <\/em>Lessons from Past Climate Change (NORLIA)<\/em> at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heli Huhtamaa<\/strong> is a climate and environmental historian. Her research interests include human consequences of the Little Ice Age and pre-industrial Nordic history. She focuses on interdisciplinary approaches concerning both historical and climate sciences. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where she leads a research project on volcanic impacts on climate, environment and society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist<\/strong> is Professor of History, in particular Historical Geography, at Stockholm University, Sweden. He also holds the title of Associate Professor of Physical Geography at the same university. Ljungqvist was in 2022 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities awarded the Rettig Prize for \u201cinterdisciplinary works concerning climate and diseases in a long-term perspective\u201d. He was a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study from 2019 to 2024 and has been a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, Lanzhou University, University of Bern, and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Astrid Ogilvie<\/strong> is a Research Professor at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado and a Senior Associate Scientist at the Stefansson Arctic Institute in Akureyri, Iceland. Her research focuses on the broader issues of climatic change and contemporary Arctic issues, as well as the environmental humanities. Her interdisciplinary, international projects have included leadership of the NordForsk Nordic Centre of Excellence project: Arctic Climate Predictions: Pathways to Resilient, Sustainable Societies (ARCPATH)<\/em>; and The Natural World in Literary and Historical Sources from Iceland ca. AD 800 to 1800 (ICECHANGE)<\/em>. She is currently a Fellow of the project The Nordic Little Ice Age<\/em> (1300\u20131900) <\/em>Lessons from Past Climate Change (NORLIA)<\/em> at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. She is the author of some 100 scientific papers and has three edited books to her credit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam White<\/strong> is Professor of Political History at the University of Helsinki, author of A Cold Welcome <\/em>(Harvard University Press, 2017) and editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Climate History <\/em>(Palgrave, 2018). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CONTENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction: Integrating, Connecting and Narrating Nordic Climate Histories 
Dominik Collet, Ingar M\u00f8rkest\u00f8l Gundersen, Heli Huhtamaa, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Astrid E.J. Ogilvie and Sam White<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 1. The Development of Meteorological Institutions and Early Instrumental Climate Data in the Nordic Countries
Elin Lundstad, Stefan Norrg\u00e5rd and A.E.J. Ogilvie<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL CLIMATE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 2. Cold or Culture? Effects of Mid-Holocene Temperatures on Forager and Early Farmer Demographics in Southern Norway 
Svein Vatsv\u00e5g Nielsen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 3. A Series of Unfortunate Events: Two Central Norwegian Settlements Facing the Climatic Downturn after ad536\u2013540 
Ingrid Ystgaard and Raymond Sauvage<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 4. Volcanic Vulnerability in Medieval Iceland 
Carina Damm<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 5. The Moving Manors and Adaptation in Sixteenth Century Denmark 
Sarah Kerr<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 6. Architectural Climate Change Adaptions in Little Ice Age Norway c. 1300\u20131550 
Kristian Reinfjord<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LITTLE ICE AGE CLIMATE <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 7. The Impact of Wildfire and Climate on the Resilience and Vulnerability of Peasant Communities in Seventeenth-Century Finland <\/strong>
Jakob Starlander<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 8. Northern Iceland Temperature Variations and Sea-Ice Incidence c. ad 1600\u20131850 <\/strong>
A.E.J. Ogilvie and M.W. Miles <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 9. Integrating Agricultural Vulnerability and Climate Extremes. Eighteenth-century Norway through the Works of Jacob Nicolaj Wilse (1735\u20131801) 
Ingar M\u00f8rkest\u00f8l Gundersen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 10. An Ice Breakup as in the Good Old Days\u2019. Ice Jams in the Aura River, Turku, Southwest Finland, 1739\u20132024
Stefan Norrg\u00e5rd<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NARRATING CLIMATE HISTORIES<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 11. Climate Narratives in Norwegian Public Histories <\/strong>
Eivind Heldaas Seland<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 12. Glacier Poetry in Norwegian Literary Historiography <\/strong>
Kristine Kleveland<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 13. Through a Mirror, Darkly: Bringing Deep Environmental History into the Museum <\/strong>
Felix Riede<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 14. Back to the Future: Weaving Climate History into Nordic National Museum Narratives 
Nat\u00e1lia Melo, Bergsveinn \u00de\u00f3rsson, Felix Riede and Stefan Norrg\u00e5rd<\/em>
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1st August 2025
ISBN 978-1-912186-98-3 (PB) \u00a330, 360pp
eISBN 978-1-912186-99-0 (Open Access eBook)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Impacts, Pathways, Narratives Dominik Collet, Ingar M\u00f8rkest\u00f8l Gundersen, Heli Huhtamaa, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Astrid Ogilvie and Sam White (eds) Down the centuries, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,17],"tags":[90],"class_list":["post-5862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-historyc","category-oabooks","tag-90","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5862"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6660,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5862\/revisions\/6660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whpress.co.uk\/publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}