Little Ice Age Lessons: Towards a New Climate History

F Matthes used the phrase “Little Ice Age” in 1939 to describe the most recent 4000 year climatic interval (the Late Holocene) accompanied with a particularly spectacular series of mountain glacier advances and retreats, similar to, but much more modest than, Pleistocene glacial oscillations. The Neoglacial epoch is the name given to this rather long time.

Instead, the phrase “Little Ice Age” refers to the most recent time of mountain glacier expansion, which is traditionally regarded as the 16th–mid 19th centuries, when the European climate was most severely influenced. Following the milder temperatures of the so-called mediaeval warm period or mediaeval climatic optimum of Europe, this period begins with a tendency toward improved glacial conditions in Europe and ends with the dramatic retreat of these glaciers throughout the twentieth century.

While evidence exists that many other regions outside of Europe experienced periods of cooler temperatures, expanded glaciation, and significantly altered climate conditions, the timing and nature of these variations vary greatly from region to region, and the idea of the Little Ice Age as a globally synchronous cold period has all but been dismissed (Bradley and Jones, 1993; Mann et al., 1999). If the Little Ice Age is characterised as a large-scale event, it must be considered a period of moderate cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, with temperatures dropping by around 0.6°C between the 15th and 19th centuries (Bradley and Jones, 1993; Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1998, 1999).

Significance of Little Ice Age

Increased climate variability, rather than changes in the average climate, may have been more significant during the Little Ice Age. The most severe climate extremes were related with year-to-year temperature swings, or even extremely apparent individual cold spells, and these events were generally season-specific.

The first very cold winters in Switzerland, for example, appear to have occurred in the 1550s, with frigid springs following around 1568: the year 1573 saw the first unusually chilly summer (Pfister, 1995). Increased climate variability may have resulted in alternating periods of abnormally cold winters and comparatively warm summers. The hot summer that sparked the Great Fire of London in 1666 was preceded by a harsh winter.

The discontent of peasants who stormed the Bastille in Paris in the summer of 1789 may have been increased by a difficult winter followed by a warm summer. Norse settlements in Greenland that had been created during the early centuries of the second millennium have been blamed on the cooling of the Little Ice Age. However, it appears that this concept has relatively limited validity.

Increased sea ice extent in the North Atlantic posed challenges for Icelandic and Scandinavian fishermen, as well as Norse settlements in Iceland and Greenland. During the late 14th century, increased winter sea-ice cover blocked off formerly accessible trade routes between Scandinavia and Greenland, cutting off trade with mainland Europe, which the Norse settlements relied on.

Causes of Little Ice Age

According to geologists, the Little Ice Age was triggered by the chilling effect of major volcanic eruptions and sustained by variations in Arctic ice cover. Ancient plants from Iceland and Canada, as well as glacial sediments, were investigated by an international scientific team. They claim that a series of eruptions around 1300 decreased Arctic temperatures sufficiently to cause ice sheets to expand.

They claim that this would have kept the Earth chilly for centuries, writing in Geophysical Research Letters. The Little Ice Age’s exact definition is debatable. While many studies claim that global temperatures began to fall in the 1500s, some claim that the Arctic and sub-Arctic began dropping centuries earlier. The global temperature drop was less than 1 degree Celsius, but regions of Europe cooled even more, especially in the winter, with the River Thames in London iced thickly enough to walk over.

It is unknown what caused it. The new research, conducted by Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado in Boulder, connects four major volcanic eruptions in the tropics between 1250 and 1300 that would have blasted massive clouds of sulphate particles into the upper sky.

These microscopic aerosol particles are known to chill the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space.

Little Ice Age Effects

The Little Ice Age was a period of cold weather in the United States that lasted from 1300 to 1850 BC. The term “little ice age” has been questioned because no one and well-defined period of persistent cold has been identified. The short ice age was divided into two periods, the first of which began around the year 1290 and lasted for more than two centuries until the 1400s. Following the first phase, there was a milder period in the 1500s, followed by another cold period, which is thought to be the coldest of the three.

The second period began in the year 1645 and continued until 1715. Conditions were extremely harsh during this ice age’s harshest period, with average winter temperatures in North America and Europe as low as 2 degrees Celsius.

There is a substantial quantity of evidence throughout history that supports the minor ice age, such as the total freezing of the Baltic Sea and many rivers and lakes across Europe. Pack ice had extended well south into the Atlantic during this time, making shipping to Iceland and Greenland impossible for months.

Winters used to be bitterly cold, while summers were frequently mild and rainy. Since a result of these conditions, there were widespread crop failures, starvation, and a massive population loss as many individuals were unable to withstand the bitter cold. The glacier advanced, causing the snowline and tree lines to lower, destroying numerous residences and farmlands in the process.

Effect on Economy

There were other examples of economic consequences from the extreme cooling of the environment, including higher grain costs and lower wine production. Many farmsteads were destroyed owing to starvation, storms, and glacier growth, resulting in lower tax income due to the decreasing value of the properties (Lamb, 1995.)

As the cod went further south, fishing became much more difficult, particularly for Scottish anglers. Between 1675 and 1704, the Faeroe Islands’ cod fishery began to deteriorate around 1615, and it was completely shut down for thirty years (Lamb, 1995.) The gold mines of the Archbishop of Salzburg, who was one of the empire’s wealthiest dukes, were shut down by rising glaciers in the Austrian Alps’ Hohe Tauern highlands. The workers’ inability to rely on work in the mines over the course of two or three disastrous summers forced them to look for work elsewhere, bringing the mining operations to a halt (Bryson, 1977.)

Not all of the economic consequences were negative. Fishermen in the late 1400s are considered to have discovered the prolific fishing grounds of today’s Newfoundland Banks while searching for fish stocks that had fled their prior grounds due to the flow of cooler seas from the north (Lamb, 1995.)

Conclusion

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a cooling event that followed the mediaeval warm period. François E. Matthes used the name “small ice age” in 1939, despite the fact that it did not correspond to the genuine ice age period. It has historically been characterised as the period from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century. Other academics have differing opinions on the timeline, with some preferring the period between 1300 and 1850.