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Nicola Di Cosmo

...Nicola Di Cosmo is the Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, USA) since 2003. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies (now Central Eurasian Studies) at Indiana University in 1991, and held research and teaching positions at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand). His main field of research is the history of the relations between China and Inner Asia from prehistory to the modern period. Within that broad area he has published widely on the history (political, military, and economic) of China’s relations with steppe nomads, and on Mongol and Manchu history. His most recent works explore the use of proxy data from climatology and other palaeosciences in the study of the history of China and Central Asia, with special reference to early Eurasian nomads, the Mongol empire, and the Qing dynasty. Most recently, he has collaborated with climatologists and archaeologists in the research project "Volcanoes, Climate and History" at ZiF (University of Bielefeld) from 2022 to 2024.

 

Publications relevant to the Planetary

Journal articles

  • Frachetti, M., Di Cosmo, N., Esper, J., Khalidi, L., Mauelshagen, F., Oppenheimer, C., Rohland, E., & Bündgen, U.: The Dahliagram: A New Tool for Interdisciplinary Investigation, Visualization, and Communication of Past Human-Environmental Interaction. Science Advances9(47), November 2023. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adj3142.
  • Mackay, H., Plunkett, G., Jensen, B. J. L., Aubry, T. J., Corona, C.,  Kim, W. M., Toohey, M., Sigl, M., Stoffel, M., Anchukaitis, K. J., Raible, C., Bolton, M. S. M., Manning, J. G., Newfield, T. P., Di Cosmo, N., Ludlow, F., Kostick, C., Yang, Z., Coyle McClung, L., Amesbury, M., Monteath, A., Hughes, P. D. M., Langdon, P. G., Charman, D., Booth, R., Davies, K. L., Blundell, A. and Swindles, G. T.: The 852/3 CE Mount Churchill Eruption: Examining the Potential Climatic and Societal Impacts and the Timing of the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the North Atlantic Region. Climate of the Past Discussions18(6), pp. 1475--1508, 2022. https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/1475/2022/.
  • Büntgen, U., Krusic, P., and Di Cosmo, N.: Science in Silence. Erdkunde75(1). pp. 61-63, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27090856.  
  • Di Cosmo, N. Wagner, S. and Büntgen, U.: Climate and Environmental Context of The Mongol Invasion of Syria and Defeat at ‘Ayn Jālūt (1258–1260 CE). Erdkunde75(2). pp. 87–104, 2021. doi: 10.3112/erdkunde.2021.02.02.
  • Büntgen, U., and Di Cosmo, N.: Publisher Correction: Reply to ‘Climate of Doubt: A Re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s Environmental Hypothesis for the Mongol Withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE’. Scientific Reports8(1), 10 May 2018. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-25733-w.
  • Di Cosmo, N., Hessl, A., Leland, C., Byambasuren, O., Tian, H., Nachin, B., Pederson, N., Andreu-Hayles, L. and Cook, E.R.: Environmental Stress and Steppe Nomads: Rethinking the History of the Uyghur Empire (744–840) with Paleoclimate Data. Journal of Interdisciplinary History48(4), pp.439-463, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1162/JINH_a_01194.
  • Oppenheimer, C., Orchard, A., Stoffel, M., Newfield, T.P., Guillet, S., Corona, C., Sigl, M., Di Cosmo, N. and Büntgen, U.: The Eldgjá Eruption: Timing, Long-range Impacts and Influence on the Christianisation of Iceland. Climatic Change147, pp. 369-381, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2171-9.  
  • Büntgen, U., Eggertsson, Ó., Wacker, L., Sigl, M., Ljungqvist, F. C., Di Cosmo, N., Plunkett, G., Krusic, P. J., Newfield, T. P., Esper, J., Lane, C., Reinig, F., Oppenheimer, C.: Multi-proxy Dating of Iceland’s Major Pre-settlement Katla Eruption to 822–823 CE. Geology45(9), pp. 783–786, 19 June 2017. https://doi.org/10.1130/G39269.1.  
  • Dangal, S.R., Tian, H., Lu, C., Ren, W., Pan, S., Yang, J., Di Cosmo, N., and Hessl, A.: Integrating Herbivore Population Dynamics into a Global Land Biosphere Model: Plugging Animals into the Earth System. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems9(8), pp. 2920-2945, 30 November 2017. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016MS000904.
  • Di Cosmo, N., Oppenheimer, C., and Büntgen, U.: Interplay of Environmental and Socio-political Factors in the Downfall of the Eastern Türk Empire in 630 CE. Climatic Change145, pp. 383–395, December 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2111-0.
  • Oppenheimer, C., Wacker, L., Xu, J., Galván, J.D., Stoffel, M., Guillet, S., Corona, C., Sigl, M., Di Cosmo, N., Hajdas, I., and Pan, B.: “Multi-proxy dating the ‘Millennium Eruption’ of Changbaishan to late 946 CE.” Quaternary Science Reviews158, pp. 164-171, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.12.024.
  • Büntgen, U., Di Cosmo, N.: Climatic and Environmental Aspects of the Mongol Withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE. Sci Rep6, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep25606.
  • Büntgen, U., Myglan, V.S., Ljungqvist, F.C., McCormick, M., Di Cosmo, N., Sigl, M., Jungclaus, J., Wagner, S., Krusic, P.J., Esper, J. and Kaplan, J.O.: Cooling and Societal Change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD. Nature Geosci9, pp. 231-236, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2652.
  • Pederson, N., Hessl, A.E., Baatarbileg, N., Anchukaitis, K. J., and Di Cosmo, N.: Pluvials, Droughts, the Mongol Empire, and Modern Mongolia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences111(12), pp. 4375-4379, 10 March 2014. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318677111.