OK, so I spent a career as a patent attorney and geneticist working in agriculture. Somewhere along the line I looked at the solar cycle and recent agricultural failures. The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and the and frost fairs on the Thames correlate with ag failures. This had great effects on the Ottoman Empire.
My question is - does the drop in solar irradiance have anything to do with Rome falling, do the others have any correlation? The best data we have on solar irradiance from older periods is from ice cores, and thus the dates are not specific but the data is good. (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009GL040142, see Figure 2).
I have wondered this for years and never found an analysis of it, is there one? Can someone do a thesis on this? OR, more likely, am I just being naïve and stupid because my PhD is in Molecular Genetics and I dont know enough ask a good question (possible!)?
Lets not get into the debate on climate change and solar irradiance, or the debate on whether the Maunder Minimum was worldwide (although glacial growth in Peru agrees it was).
Thank you for your consideration.
And when I say let's not get into the debate on climate change, I mean let's not debate solar irradiance effects on climate. It get gets complex and controversial fast, I am just interested in the historical correlation of solar irradiance with agriculture/history. If one exists broadly.