Tree-ring summer wetness for lowland England, 1400 to 1650
Old World Drought Atlas, 48 grid squares over lowland England averaged (script: scripts/sweat_drought.py). Summer wetness index (positive = wet) around each outbreak: 1485: two years before -1.8, year before +0.8, outbreak summer +0.9 1508: -0.2, +1.3, +0.1 1517: +1.6, -3.3, -6.0 (one of the driest summers in 250 years) 1528: +2.8, +2.0, +2.9 1551: +2.0, +0.8, +0.5 Caveat: England has fewer old tree-ring series than central Europe, so the reconstruction there is less certain, and it measures summer conditions, not winter rain.
How it connects
This clue from nature supports this hunch
Sweating sickness outbreaks followed slightly wet summers: a weak hint that did not strengthen weak: 4 of 5 wet years before; 1517 contradicts
This clue from nature is a clue for
English sweating sickness: what was it?
This clue from nature we read it in
Cook et al. 2015, Old World Drought Atlas: tree-ring summer scPDSI on a 0.5 degree grid, AD 0 to 2012, NOAA study 19419
This clue from nature came from this step
New mystery: tested the sweating sickness against tree-ring wetness