Climatic fluctuations over the past thousand years have likely influenced the slope of the curved roofs of traditional buildings in China. This is the result of a study by Chinese scientists in the trade journal Science Advances. In colder times, people built steeper roofs on which snow could slide off better. According to the researchers, their study illustrates how human cultures have learned over the centuries to adapt to the effects of climate change on their daily lives.
As one of the oldest in the world, the Chinese civilization has experienced numerous climate changes that have affected agriculture, population and economy and have even contributed to wars, uprisings and the rise and fall of dynasties, explain the scientists working with Siyang Li from Nanjing University in China their study. So far, however, it has been unclear whether and how these changes had also affected the architecture, although such a connection is obvious, especially with regard to the design of roofs: These protect people from rain, snowfall or sunlight and are thus the most sensitive to the climate, the most vulnerable and the most exposed parts of buildings.
It took 30 years for people to react to the falling temperatures
The research team has now investigated how the fluctuating climate has affected the design of traditional curved roofs over the past millennium. To do this, the scientists reconstructed the roof pitches of architectural remains in the northern part of central and eastern China, an important region for traditional Chinese culture that was exposed to frequent climatic fluctuations. The team also analyzed high-resolution paleoclimatic data from the past thousand years.
The following analysis showed that cold temperatures caused the roof pitch to become steeper with a delay of about 30 years. As the authors write, previous studies have shown a similar delay in human response to climatic changes.
Specifically, the scientists observed that the roofs became steeper in cold periods, specifically in the years between 1100 and 1200 AD and during the Little Ice Age between 1300 and 1750 AD. In warm periods, however, the roof pitch decreased significantly, for example between 1200 and 1300 AD, which roughly corresponds to the medieval warm period in Europe.
The researchers cite the Longmen Temple in Pingshun in Shanxi Province as a particularly vivid example of the relationship described. Four of its five main buildings were built or rebuilt during various warm and cold periods between 925 and 1504 AD. According to historical building standards of the time, these four buildings should have an almost identical roof pitch of around 27 percent. “The two buildings erected in the cold period had steeper roofs with 29.67 percent and 30.50 percent, while the building erected in the warm period was flatter at 26.92 percent,” the scientists note.
Their analysis also gives indications for the future, in which the increase in extreme weather events such as heavy snowfalls, droughts and floods is likely to lead to serious problems, the scientists write. “In order to reduce the losses caused by extreme weather events, planners should carefully consider the local climate and natural disasters according to the climate forecasts.”