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The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Matthes described glaciers in the
Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
of
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
that he believed could not have survived the hypsithermal; his usage of "Little Ice Age" has been superseded by " Neoglaciation".
The period has been conventionally defined as extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries, (noted in Grove 2004: 4). but some experts prefer an alternative time-span from about 1300 to about 1850. The
NASA Earth Observatory NASA Earth Observatory is an online publishing outlet for NASA which was created in 1999. It is the principal source of satellite imagery and other scientific information about the climate and the environment which are being provided by NASA for ...
notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, all of which were separated by intervals of slight warming. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World Met ...
Third Assessment Report considered that the timing and the areas affected by the LIA suggested largely independent regional climate changes, rather than a globally synchronous increased glaciation. At most, there was modest cooling of the
Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...
during the period. Several causes have been proposed: cyclical lows in solar radiation, heightened
volcanic activity Volcanism, vulcanism, volcanicity, or volcanic activity is the phenomenon where solids, liquids, gases, and their mixtures erupt to the surface of a solid-surface astronomical body such as a planet or a moon. It is caused by the presence of a he ...
, changes in the
ocean circulation An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of seawater generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, ...
, variations in
Earth's orbit Earth orbits the Sun at an astronomical unit, average distance of , or 8.317 light-second, light-minutes, in a retrograde and prograde motion, counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes & ...
and
axial tilt In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, which is the line perpendicular to its orbital plane; equivalently, it is the angle between its equatorial plane and orbita ...
( orbital forcing), inherent variability in global climate, and decreases in the human population (such as from the massacres by
Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...
, the
Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...
and the epidemics emerging in the Americas upon European contact).


Areas involved

The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World Met ...
Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001 described the areas that were affected: The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of 2007 discusses more recent research and gives particular attention to the Medieval Warm Period:


Dating

There is no consensus on when the Little Ice Age began, but a series of events before the known climatic minima have often been referenced. In the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as did
glaciers A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...
in
Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
. Anecdotal evidence suggests expanding glaciers almost worldwide. Based on radiocarbon dating of roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact that were collected from beneath ice caps on
Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is (slightly smal ...
and
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
, Miller ''et al.'' (2012) state that cold summers and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300, followed by "a substantial intensification" from 1430 to 1455. In contrast, a climate reconstruction based on glacial length shows no great variation from 1600 to 1850 but a strong retreat thereafter. Therefore, any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age: * 1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow, a cold period that was possibly triggered or enhanced by the massive eruption of the Samalas volcano in 1257 and the associated
volcanic winter A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, sulfur-rich, particularly explosive volcanic eru ...
. * 1275 to 1300 for when the radiocarbon dating of plants shows that they were killed by glaciation * 1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe * 1315 for when rains and the
Great Famine of 1315–1317 The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck parts of Europe early in the 14th century. Most of Europe (extending east to Poland and south to the Alps) was affected ...
occurred * 1560 to 1630 for when the worldwide glacial expansion, known as the Grindelwald Fluctuation, began * 1650, not the start of the Little Ice Age, but the start of the coldest years midway through, i.e., the First Climatic Minimum The Little Ice Age ended in the latter half of the 19th century or in the early 20th century. The 6th report of the IPCC describes the coldest period in the last millennium as:


By region


Europe

Drangajökull, Iceland's northernmost glacier, reached its maximum extent during the LIA around 1665 or 1765. The
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
froze over twice, in 1303 and 1306–1307, and years followed of "unseasonable cold, storms and rains, and a rise in the level of the Caspian Sea". The Little Ice Age brought colder winters to parts of Europe and North America. Farms and villages in the
Swiss Alps The Alps, Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps, represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swiss Plateau and the Swiss portion of the Jura Mountains, one of its three main Physica ...
were destroyed by encroaching glaciers during the mid-17th century. Canals and rivers in Great Britain and the Netherlands were frequently frozen deeply enough to support ice skating and winter festivals. As trade needed to continue during the prolonged winter often spanning 5 months, merchants equipped their boer style boats with planks and skates (runners), hence the
iceboat An iceboat (occasionally spelled ice boat or traditionally called an ice yacht) is a recreational or competition sailing craft supported on metal runners for traveling over ice. One of the runners is steerable. Originally, such craft were boats w ...
was born. The first River Thames frost fair was in 1608 and the last in 1814. Changes to the bridges and the addition of the
Thames Embankment The Thames Embankment was built as part of the London Main Drainage (1859-1875) by the Metropolitan Board of Works, a pioneering Victorian civil engineering project which housed intercept sewers, roads and underground railways and embanked the ...
have affected the river's flow and depth and greatly diminish the possibility of further freezes. In 1658, a Swedish army marched through Denmark and across the Great Belt to attack
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
from the west. The winter of 1794–1795 was particularly harsh: the French invasion army under Pichegru marched on the frozen rivers of the Netherlands, and the Dutch fleet was locked in the ice in
Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO fe ...
harbour. Sea ice surrounding
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
extended for miles in every direction and closed harbors to shipping. The population of Iceland fell by half, but that may have been caused by skeletal fluorosis after the eruption of
Laki Laki () or Lakagígar (, ''Craters of Laki'') is a volcanic fissure in the western part of Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland, not far from the volcanic fissure of Eldgjá and the small village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The fissure is proper ...
in 1783. Iceland also suffered failures of cereal crops and people moved away from a grain-based diet. After
Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
's climate became colder and stormier around 1250, the diet of the Norse Viking settlements there steadily shifted away from agricultural sources. By around 1300,
seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, also called "true seal" ** Fur seal ** Eared seal * Seal ( ...
hunting provided over three quarters of their food. By 1350, there was reduced demand for their exports, and trade with Europe fell away. The last document from the settlements dates from 1412, and over the following decades, the remaining Europeans left in what seems to have been a gradual withdrawal, which was caused mainly by economic factors such as increased availability of farms in Scandinavian countries. Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s. Between 1620 and 1740, the Yzeron Basin in the Massif Central of France witnessed a phase of decreased fluvial activity. This decline in fluvial activity is believed to be linked to a multidecennial phase of droughts in the western Mediterranean. In southwestern Europe, a negative North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) combined with increased aridity caused an increase in wind-driven sediment deposition during the LIA. In his 1995 book, the early climatologist Hubert Lamb said that in many years, "snowfall was much heavier than recorded before or since, and the snow lay on the ground for many months longer than it does today." In
Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
, Portugal, snowstorms were much more frequent than today, and one winter in the 17th century produced eight snowstorms. Many springs and summers were cold and wet but with great variability between years and groups of years. That was particularly evident during the "Grindelwald Fluctuation" (1560–1630); the rapid cooling phase was associated with more erratic weather, including increased storminess, unseasonal snowstorms, and droughts. Crop practices throughout Europe had to be altered to adapt to the shortened and less reliable growing season, and there were many years of scarcity and
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...
. One was the
Great Famine of 1315–1317 The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck parts of Europe early in the 14th century. Most of Europe (extending east to Poland and south to the Alps) was affected ...
, but that may have been before the Little Ice Age. According to Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, "Famines in France 1693–94, Norway 1695–96 and Sweden 1696–97 claimed roughly 10 percent of the population of each country. In
Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
and Finland in 1696–97, losses have been estimated at a fifth and a third of the national populations, respectively."
Viticulture Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine ...
disappeared from some northern regions, and storms caused serious flooding and loss of life. Some of them resulted in the permanent loss of large areas of land from the Danish, German, and Dutch coasts. The violinmaker Antonio Stradivari produced his instruments during the Little Ice Age. The colder climate may have caused the wood that was used in his violins to be denser than in warmer periods and to contribute to the tone of his instruments. According to the science historian James Burke, the period inspired such novelties in everyday life as the widespread use of buttons and button-holes, as well as knitting of custom-made undergarments for the better covering and insulating of the body. Chimneys were invented to replace open fires in the centre of communal halls to allow houses with multiple rooms to have the separation of masters from servants. ''The Little Ice Age'', by the anthropologist Brian Fagan of the
University of California at Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joine ...
, describes the plight of European peasants from 1300 to 1850: famines,
hypothermia Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...
, bread riots and the rise of despotic leaders brutalizing an increasingly dispirited peasantry. In the late 17th century, agriculture had dropped off dramatically: "Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with
barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
and oat flour.". Historian Wolfgang Behringer has linked intensive witch-hunting episodes in Europe to agricultural failures during the Little Ice Age. ''The Frigid Golden Age'', by the environmental historian Dagomar Degroot of
Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...
, points out that some societies thrived, but others faltered during the Little Ice Age. In particular, the Little Ice Age transformed environments around the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...
and made them easier to exploit in commerce and conflict. The Dutch were resilient, even adaptive, in the face of weather that devastated neighboring countries. Merchants exploited harvest failures, military commanders took advantage of shifting wind patterns, and inventors developed technologies that helped them profit from the cold. The 17th-century
Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands which roughly lasted from 1588, when the Dutch Republic was established, to 1672, when the '' Rampjaar'' occurred. During this period, Dutch trade, scientific development ...
therefore owed much to its people's flexibility in coping with the changing climate.


Cultural responses

Historians have argued that cultural responses to the consequences of the Little Ice Age in Europe consisted of violent
scapegoating Scapegoating is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g., "he did it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g ...
. The prolonged cold, dry periods brought drought upon many European communities and resulted in poor crop growth, poor livestock survival, and increased activity of pathogens and disease vectors. Disease intensified under the same conditions that unemployment and economic difficulties arose: prolonged cold, dry seasons. Disease and unemployment generated a lethal positive feedback loop. Although the communities had some contingency plans, such as better crop mixes, emergency grain stocks, and international food trade, they did not always prove effective. Communities often lashed out via violent crimes, including robbery and murder. Accusations of sexual offenses also increased, such as
adultery Adultery is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept ...
, bestiality, and
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...
. Europeans sought explanations for the famine, disease, and social unrest that they were experiencing, and they blamed the innocent. Evidence from several studies indicate that increases in violent actions against marginalized groups, which were held responsible for the Little Ice Age, overlap with the years of particularly cold, dry weather. One example of the violent scapegoating occurring during the Little Ice Age was the resurgence of witchcraft trials. Oster (2004) and Behringer (1999) argue that the resurgence was brought by the climatic decline. Prior to the Little Ice Age, witchcraft was considered an insignificant crime, and victims (the supposed witches) were rarely accused. But beginning in the 1380s, just as the Little Ice Age began, European populations began to link magic and weather-making. The first systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s, and by the 1480s, it was widely believed that witches should be held accountable for poor weather. Witches were blamed for direct and indirect consequences of the Little Ice Age: livestock epidemics, cows that gave too little milk, late frosts, and unknown diseases. In general, the number of witchcraft trials rose as the temperature dropped, and trials decreased when temperature increased. The peaks of witchcraft persecutions overlap with the hunger crises that occurred in 1570 and 1580, the latter lasting a decade. The trials targeted primarily poor women, many of them widows. Not everybody agreed that witches should be persecuted for weather-making, but such arguments focused primarily not upon whether witches existed but upon whether witches had the capability to control the weather. The
Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
in the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
argued that witches could not control the weather because they were mortals, not God, but by the mid-13th century, most people agreed with the idea that witches could control natural forces. Jewish populations were also blamed for climatic deterioration during the Little Ice Age. The Western European states experienced waves of
anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
, directed against the main religious minority in their otherwise Christian societies. There was no direct link made between Jews and the weather; they were blamed only for indirect consequences such as disease. Outbreaks of the
Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...
were often blamed on Jews. In Western European cities during the 1300s, Jewish populations were murdered to stop the spread of the plague. Rumors spread that Jews were either poisoning wells themselves, or telling
lepers Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a Chronic condition, long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the Peripheral nervous system, nerves, respir ...
to poison the wells. To escape persecution, some Jews converted to Christianity, while others migrated to the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
or the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
, where they experienced greater toleration. Some populations blamed the cold periods and the resulting famine and disease during the Little Ice Age on a general divine displeasure. Particular groups took the brunt of the burden in attempts to cure it. In Germany, regulations were imposed upon activities such as gambling and
drinking Drinking is the act of ingesting water or other liquids into the body through the mouth, proboscis, or elsewhere. Humans drink by swallowing, completed by peristalsis in the esophagus. The physiological processes of drinking vary widely among ...
, which disproportionately affected the lower class and women were forbidden from showing their knees. Other regulations affected the wider population, such as prohibiting dancing, sexual activities and moderating food and drink intake. In Ireland, Catholics blamed the
Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
for the bad weather. The ''
Annals of Loch Cé The ''Annals of Loch Cé'' (also ''Annals of Lough Cé'') cover events, mainly in Connacht and its neighbouring regions, from 1014 to 1590. It takes its name from Lough Cé in the kingdom of Moylurg - now north County Roscommon - which was th ...
'', in its entry for 1588, describes a midsummer snowstorm as "a wild apple was not larger than each stone of it" and blames it on the presence of a "wicked, heretical, bishop in Oilfinn", the
Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
Bishop of Elphin The Bishop of Elphin (; ) is an Episcopal polity, episcopal title which takes its name after the village of Elphin, County Roscommon, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church it remains a separate title, but ...
, John Lynch.


Depictions of winter in European painting

William James Burroughs analyzes the depiction of winter in paintings, as does Hans Neuberger. Burroughs asserts that it occurred almost entirely from 1565 to 1665 and was associated with the climatic decline from 1550 onwards. Burroughs claims that there had been almost no depictions of winter in art, and he "hypothesizes that the unusually harsh winter of 1565 inspired great artists to depict highly original images and that the decline in such paintings was a combination of the 'theme' having been fully explored and mild winters interrupting the flow of painting." Wintry scenes, which entail technical difficulties in painting, have been regularly and well handled since at least the early 15th century by artists in
illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...
cycles that show the ''
Labours of the Months The term Labours of the Months refers to cycles in Medieval art, Medieval and early Renaissance art depicting in twelve scenes the rural activities that commonly took place in the months of the year. They are often linked to the signs of the Z ...
'', typically placed on the calendar pages of books of hours. January and February are typically shown as snowy, as in ''February'' in the famous cycle in the , painted in 1412–1416 and illustrated below. Since
landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...
had not yet developed as an independent genre in art, the absence of other winter scenes is not remarkable. On the other hand, snowy winter landscapes, particularly stormy seascapes, became artistic genres in the
Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...
during the coldest and stormiest decades of the Little Ice Age. Most modern scholars believe them to be full of symbolic messages and metaphors, which would have been clear to contemporary viewers. All of the famous winter landscape paintings by
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder ( , ; ; – 9 September 1569) was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaking, printmaker, known for his landscape art, landscape ...
, such as '' The Hunters in the Snow'' and the ''
Massacre of the Innocents The Massacre (or Slaughter) of the Innocents is a story recounted in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew ( 2:16– 18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and u ...
'', are thought to have been painted around 1565. His son
Pieter Brueghel the Younger Pieter Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger ( , ; ; between 23 May and 10 October 1564 – between March and May 1638) was a Flemish painting, Flemish painter known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's ...
(1564–1638) also painted many snowy landscapes, but according to Burroughs, he "slavishly copied his father's designs. The derivative nature of so much of this work makes it difficult to draw any definite conclusions about the influence of the winters between 1570 and 1600". Bruegel the Elder painted ''Hunters in the Snow'' in Antwerp, so the mountains in the picture probably mean it was based on drawings or memories from crossing of the
Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...
during his trip to Rome in 1551–1552. It is one of 5 known surviving paintings, probably from a series of 6 or 12, known as "the Twelve Months", that Breugel was commissioned to paint by a wealthy patron in
Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
, Nicolaes Jonghelinck (''Hunters in the Snow'' being for January): none of the other four that survive show a snow-covered landscape and both '' The Hay Harvest'' (July) and '' The Harvesters'' (August) depict warm summer days. Even '' The Return of the Herd'' (thought to be the painting for November) and '' The Gloomy Day'' (known to be for February) show landscapes free of snow. Burroughs says that snowy subjects return to
Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...
with works by Hendrick Avercamp from 1609 onwards. There is a hiatus between 1627 and 1640, which is before the main period of such subjects from the 1640s to the 1660s. That relates well with climate records for the later period. The subjects are less popular after about 1660, but that does not match any recorded reduction in severity of winters and may reflect only changes in taste or fashion. In the later period between the 1780s and 1810s, snowy subjects again became popular. Neuberger analyzed 12,000 paintings, held in American and European museums and dated between 1400 and 1967, for cloudiness and darkness. His 1970 publication shows an increase in such depictions that corresponds to the Little Ice Age, which peaks between 1600 and 1649. Paintings and contemporary records in Scotland demonstrate that
curling Curling is a sport in which players slide #Curling stone, stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area that is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take t ...
,
ice skating Ice skating is the Human-powered transport, self-propulsion and gliding of a person across an ice surface, using metal-bladed ice skates. People skate for various reasons, including recreation (fun), exercise, competitive sports, and commuting. ...
and icesailing were popular outdoor winter sports, with curling dating to the 16th century and becoming widely popular in the mid-19th century. An outdoor curling pond constructed in
Gourock Gourock ( ; ) is a town in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area and formerly a burgh of the County of Renfrew in the west of Scotland. It was a resort town, seaside resort on the East shore of the upper Firth of Clyde. Its ma ...
in the 1860s remained in use for almost a century, but increasing use of indoor facilities, problems of vandalism, and milder winters led to the pond being abandoned in 1963.


General Crisis of the seventeenth century

The General Crisis The General Crisis is a term used by some historians to describe an alleged period of widespread regional conflict and instability that occurred from the early 17th century to the early 18th century in Europe, and in more recent historiography ...
of the seventeenth century in Europe was a period of inclement weather, crop failure, economic hardship, extreme intergroup violence, and high mortality linked to the Little Ice Age. Episodes of social instability track the cooling with a time lapse of up to 15 years, and many developed into armed conflicts, such as the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...
(1618–1648). The war started as a war of succession to the Bohemian throne. Animosity between
Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire (most of which is now in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic) added fuel to the fire. It soon escalated to a huge conflict that involved all the major European powers and devastated much of Germany. When the war ended, some regions of the Holy Roman Empire had seen their population drop by as much as 70%.


North America

Early European explorers and settlers of North America reported exceptionally severe winters. In southwestern Alaska, preexisting flexibility in foraging habits among the native people lent itself to high adaptability to the LIA. Both Europeans and indigenous peoples suffered excess mortality in
Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
during the winter of 1607–1608, and extreme frost was meanwhile reported in the
Jamestown, Virginia The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent British colonization of the Americas, English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James River, about southwest of present-day Willia ...
, settlement. Native Americans formed leagues in response to food shortages. The journal of
Pierre de Troyes, Chevalier de Troyes Pierre de Troyes (born at unknown date – died 1688) was a captain that led the French capture of Moose Factory, Rupert House, and Fort Albany on Hudson Bay 1686. Arrival in Canada A captain in the French army de Troyes arrived at Quebec in A ...
, who led an expedition to
James Bay James Bay (, ; ) is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. It borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and is politically part of Nunavut. Its largest island is Akimiski Island. Numerous waterways of the ...
in 1686, recorded that the bay was still littered with so much floating ice that he could hide behind it in his canoe on 1 July. In the winter of 1780,
New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...
froze, which allowed people to walk from
Manhattan Island Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the smallest county by area in the U.S. state of New York. Located almost entire ...
to
Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...
. The extent of mountain glaciers had been mapped by the late 19th century. In the north and the south temperate zones, Equilibrium Line Altitude (the boundaries separating zones of net accumulation from those of net ablation) were about lower than they were in 1975. Southwestern Alaska experienced a temperature nadir around 135 BP, and in south-central Alaska, mountain hemlock forests severely declined. In Glacier National Park, the last episode of glacier advance came in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries. In 1879, the famed naturalist
John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the national park, National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologi ...
found that Glacier Bay ice had retreated . In
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
, large temperature excursions were possibly related to changes in the strength of the North Atlantic
thermohaline circulation Thermohaline circulation (THC) is a part of the large-scale Ocean current, ocean circulation driven by global density gradients formed by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The name ''thermohaline'' is derived from ''wikt:thermo-, thermo-'', r ...
. Because the Little Ice Age took place during the
European colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe a ...
, it discouraged many early colonists, who had expected the climate of North America to be similar to the climate of Europe at similar latitudes. They found that North America, at least in what would become Canada and the northern United States, had hotter summers and colder winters than Europe. That effect was aggravated by the Little Ice Age, and unpreparedness led to the collapse of many early European settlements in North America. Historians agree that when colonists settled at Jamestown, it was one of the coldest periods in the last 1000 years. Drought was also a problem in North America during the Little Ice Age, and the settlers arrived in Roanoke during the largest drought of the past 800 years. Tree ring studies by the University of Arkansas discovered that many colonists arrived at the beginning of a seven-year drought. The droughts also decreased the Native American populations and led to conflict because of food scarcity. English colonists at Roanoke forced Native Americans of Ossomocomuck to share their depleted supplies with them. That led to warfare between the two groups, and Native American towns were destroyed. That cycle would repeat itself many times at Jamestown. The combination of fighting and cold weather also led to the spread of diseases. The colder weather helped the parasites brought by Europeans in mosquitoes to develop faster. That in turn led to many malaria deaths among Native Americans. Thomas Gorges wrote that between 1637 and 1645, colonists in Maine (then part of Massachusetts) experienced horrendous weather conditions. In June 1637, temperatures were so high that numerous European settlers died; travelers were forced to travel at night to stay cool. Gorges also wrote that the winter of 1641–1642 was "piercingly Intolerable" and that no Englishman or Native American had ever seen anything like it. He also stated that the Massachusetts Bay had frozen as far as one could see, and that horse carriages now roamed where ships used to be. He stated that the summers of 1638 and 1639 were very short, cold, and wet, which compounded food scarcity for a few years. To make matters worse, creatures like caterpillars and pigeons fed on crops and devastated harvests. Every year about which Gorges wrote featured unusual weather patterns, including high precipitation, drought, and extreme cold or heat. Many inhabitants of North America had their own theories about the extreme weather. The colonist
Ferdinando Gorges Sir Ferdinando Gorges ( – 24 May 1647) was a naval and military commander and governor of the important port of Plymouth in England. He was involved in Essex's Rebellion against the Queen, but escaped punishment by testifying against the ma ...
blamed the cold weather on cold ocean winds. Humphrey Gilbert tried to explain Newfoundland's icy and foggy weather by saying that the Earth drew cold vapors from the ocean and drew them west. Many others had their own theories for North America being so much colder than Europe; their observations and hypotheses offer insight on the Little Ice Age's effects in North America.


Mesoamerica

An analysis of several climate proxies undertaken in Mexico's
Yucatán Peninsula The Yucatán Peninsula ( , ; ) is a large peninsula in southeast Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west of the peninsula from the C ...
, which was linked by its authors to
Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...
and
Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...
chronicles relating periods of cold and drought, supports the existence of the Little Ice Age in the region. Cold and drought led to a terrible famine in the Aztec Empire in 1454 and the Chilam Balam Book of Mani mentions a decrease in temperature between 1441 and 1460 during the final years of
Mayapan Mayapan (Màyapáan in Yucatec Maya language, Modern Maya; in Spanish language, Spanish Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, Maya site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately ...
. Another study conducted in several sites in Mesoamerica like Los Tuxtlas and Lake Pompal in Veracruz, Mexico show a decrease in human activity in the area during the Little Ice Age. That was proven by studying charcoal fragments and the amount of maize pollen taken from sedimentary samples by using a nonrotatory piston corer. The samples also showed volcanic activity which caused forest regeneration between 650 and 800. The instances of volcanic activity near Lake Pompal indicate varying temperatures, not a continuous coldness, during the Little Ice Age in Mesoamerica.


Atlantic Ocean

In the North Atlantic, sediments accumulated since the end of the last ice age, which occurred nearly 12,000 years ago, show regular increases in the amount of coarse sediment grains deposited from icebergs melting in the now-open ocean, indicating a series of cooling events that recur every 1,500 years or so. The most recent cooling event was the Little Ice Age. The same cooling events are detected in sediments accumulating off Africa, but the cooling events appear to be larger: . δ18O values from chironomid remains in the Azores reflect the cooling of the LIA.


Asia

Although the original designation of a Little Ice Age referred to the reduced temperature of Europe and North America, there is some evidence of extended periods of cooling outside those regions although it is not clear whether they are related or independent events. Mann states: In China, warm-weather crops such as oranges were abandoned in
Jiangxi Province ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...
, where they had been grown for centuries. Also, the two periods of most frequent
typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...
strikes in
Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...
coincide with two of the coldest and driest periods in northern and central China (1660–1680, 1850–1880). Scholars have argued that one of the reasons for the fall of the Ming dynasty may have been the droughts and famines that were caused by the Little Ice Age. There are debates on the start date and the periods of Little Ice Age's effects. Most scholars agree on categorizing the Little Ice Age period into three distinct cold periods: in 1458–1552, 1600–1720, and 1840–1880. According to data from the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...
, the eastern
monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...
area of China was the earliest to experience the effects of the Little Ice Age, from 1560 to 1709. In the western region of China surrounding the
Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...
, the effects of the Little Ice Age lagged behind the eastern region, with significant cold periods from 1620 to 1749. As the Medieval Warm Period transitioned into the Little Ice Age, the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) became much weaker and the summer monsoon limit (SML) migrated southeastwards. Southwestern China became significantly colder and drier as a result of the weakening of the EASM caused by the decreased pressure gradient resulting from the cooling of the southern Eurasian landmass, while northwestern China, dominated by westerlies, saw an increase in precipitation. The temperature changes were unprecedented for the farming communities in China. According to Coching Chu's 1972 study, the Little Ice Age from the end of the Ming dynasty to the start of the Qing dynasty (1650–1700) was one of the coldest periods in recorded Chinese history. Many major droughts during the summer months were recorded, and significant freezing events occurred during the winter months. That greatly worsened the food supply during the Ming dynasty. This period of Little Ice Age corresponded to the period's major historical events. The
Jurchen people Jurchen (, ; , ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian people, East Asian Tungusic languages, Tungusic-speaking people. They lived in northeastern China, also known as Manchuria, before the 18th century. The Jurchens wer ...
lived in Northern China and formed a tributary state to the Ming dynasty and its
Wanli Emperor The Wanli Emperor (4 September 1563 – 18 August 1620), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shenzong of Ming, personal name Zhu Yijun, art name Yuzhai, was the 14th List of emperors of the Ming dynasty, emperor of the Ming dynasty, reig ...
. From 1573 to 1620, Manchuria experienced famine caused by extreme snowfall, which depleted agriculture production and devastated the livestock population. Scholars have argued that it had been caused by the temperature drops during the Little Ice Age. Despite the lack of food production, the Wanli Emperor ordered the Jurchens to pay the same amount of tribute each year. That led to anger and sowed seeds to the rebellion against the Ming dynasty. In 1616, Jurchens established the Later Jin dynasty. Led by
Hong Taiji Hong Taiji (28 November 1592 – 21 September 1643), also rendered as Huang Taiji and sometimes referred to as Abahai in Western literature, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizong of Qing, was the second khan of the Later Jin ...
and
Nurhaci Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing, was the founding khan of the Jurchen people, Jurchen-led Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin dynasty. As the leader of the House of Aisin-Gi ...
, the Later Jin dynasty moved South and achieved decisive victories in battles against the Ming dynasty's military, such as during the 1618 Battle of Fushun. After the earlier defeats and the death of the Wanli Emperor, the
Chongzhen Emperor The Chongzhen Emperor (6 February 1611 – 25 April 1644), personal name Zhu Youjian, courtesy name Deyue,Wang Yuan (王源),''Ju ye tang wen ji'' (《居業堂文集》), vol. 19. "聞之張景蔚親見烈皇帝神主題御諱字德約,行� ...
took over China and continued the war effort. From 1632 to 1641, the Little Ice Age began to cause drastic climate changes in the Ming dynasty's territories. For example, rainfall in the Huabei region dropped by 11% to 47% from the historical average. Meanwhile, the Shaanbei region, along the
Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
experienced six major floods, which ruined cities such as
Yan'an Yan'an; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternatively spelled as Yenan is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi Province of China, province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several c ...
. The climate factored heavily in weakening the government's control over China and accelerated the fall of the Ming dynasty. In 1644,
Li Zicheng Li Zicheng (22 September 1606 – 1645), born Li Hongji, also known by his nickname, the Thunder King, was a Chinese Late Ming peasant rebellions, peasant rebel leader who helped overthrow the Ming dynasty in April 1644 and ruled over northe ...
led the Later Jin's forces into Beijing, overthrew the Ming dynasty, and established the short-lived
Shun dynasty The Shun dynasty, officially the Great Shun, also known as Li Shun, was a short-lived Dynasties of China, dynasty of China that existed during the Transition from Ming to Qing, Ming–Qing transition. The dynasty was founded in Xi'an on 8 Februa ...
which were soon overthrown by
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
. During the early years of the Qing dynasty, the Little Ice Age continued to have a significant impact on Chinese society. During the rule of the
Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ...
(1661–1722), most Qing territories were still much colder than the historical average. However, the Kangxi Emperor pushed reforms and managed to increase the socio-economic recovery from the natural disasters. He benefited partly from the peacefulness of the early Qing dynasty. That essentially marked the end of the Little Ice Age in China and led to a more prosperous era of Chinese history that is known as the High Qing era. In the
Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...
, the general assumption is that the cooling events were synchronous with those in Europe during the Little Ice Age because of the characteristics of moraines. However, applications of
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...
dating methods such as
surface exposure dating Surface exposure dating is a collection of geochronological techniques for estimating the length of time that a rock has been exposed at or near Earth's surface. Surface exposure dating is used to date glacial advances and retreats, erosion hist ...
have shown that glacial maxima occurred between 1300 and 1600, slightly earlier than the recorded coldest period in the Northern Hemisphere. Many large Himalayan glacial debris fields have remained close to their limits since the Little Ice Age. The Himalayas also experienced an increase in snowfall at higher altitudes, which results in a southward shift in the Indian summer monsoon and an increase in precipitation. Overall, the increase in winter precipitation may have caused some glacial movements. Since the end of the Little Ice Age, there has been an almost continuous retreat of glaciers to present. The region in
Balochistan Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region o ...
became colder, and its native
Baloch people The Baloch ( ) or Baluch ( ; , plural ) are a nomadic, Pastoralism, pastoral, ethnic group which speaks the Western Iranian, Western Iranic Balochi language and is native to the Balochistan region of South Asia, South and Western Asia, encompas ...
started a
mass migration Mass migration refers to the migration of large groups of people from one geographical area to another. Mass migration is distinguished from individual or small-scale migration; and also from seasonal migration, which may occur on a regular basi ...
and began to settle along the
Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayas, Himalayan river of South Asia, South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northw ...
in
Sindh Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...
and
Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...
. On Rebun Island, a rapid cooling event occurred around 390 BP (as measured from pollen samples in 2018) amidst a longer-term trend of cooling; this cooling event marked the onset of the Little Ice Age in the region.


Africa

The Little Ice Age influenced the African climate from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Despite variances throughout the continent, a general trend of declining temperatures in Africa led to an average cooling of 1 °C. In Ethiopia and North Africa, permanent snow was reported on mountain peaks at levels at which it does not occur today.
Timbuktu Timbuktu ( ; ; Koyra Chiini: ; ) is an ancient city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. It is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali, having a population of 32,460 in the 2018 census. ...
, an important city on the trans-
Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...
n caravan route, was flooded at least 13 times by the
Niger River The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali, Nige ...
, but there are no records of similar flooding before or since that time. Several paleoclimatic studies of Southern Africa have suggested significant changes in relative changes in climate and environmental conditions. In Southern Africa, sediment cores retrieved from
Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is ...
show colder conditions between 1570 and 1820, which "further support, and extend, the global expanse of the Little Ice Age". A novel 3,000-year temperature reconstruction method, based on the rate of
stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; ; ) is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist ...
growth in a cold cave in South Africa, further suggests a cold period from 1500 to 1800 "characterizing the South African Little Ice Age". The δ18O stalagmite record temperature reconstruction over a 350-year period (1690–1740) suggests that South Africa may have been the coldest region in Africa and have cooled by as much as 1.4 °C in summer. Also, the solar magnetic and Niño-Southern Oscillation cycles may have been key drivers of climate variability in the subtropical region. Periglacial features in the eastern Lesotho Highlands might have been reactivated by the Little Ice Age. Another archaeological reconstruction of Southern Africa reveals the rise of
Great Zimbabwe Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was settled from 1000 AD, and served as the capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe from the 13th century. It is the largest stone struc ...
because of ecological advantages from the increased rainfall over other competitor societies, such as the
Mapungubwe The Kingdom of Mapungubwe (pronounced ) was an ancient state located at the confluence of the Shashe River, Shashe and Limpopo River, Limpopo rivers in South Africa, south of Great Zimbabwe. The capital's population was 5,000 by 1250, and the s ...
. Pollen records derived from
rock hyrax The rock hyrax (; ''Procavia capensis''), also called dassie, Cape hyrax, rock rabbit, and (from some interpretations of a word used in the King James Bible) coney, is a medium-sized terrestrial mammal native to Africa and the Middle East. Common ...
middens in the Cederberg Mountains of southwestern South Africa indicate an increase in humidity in the region at the start of the LIA. Other than temperature variability, data from equatorial East Africa suggest impacts to the hydrologic cycle in the late 1700s. Historical data reconstructions from ten major African lakes indicate that an episode of *drought and desiccation" occurred throughout East Africa. The period showed drastic reductions in the depths of lakes, which were transformed into desiccated puddles. It is very likely that locals could cross Lake Chad, among others, and that bouts of "intense droughts were ubiquitous". That indicates local societies were probably launched into long migrations and warfare with neighboring tribes, since agriculture was made virtually useless by the dry soil.


Antarctica

Kreutz et al. (1997) compared results from studies of West Antarctic ice cores with the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two GISP2; they suggested a synchronous global cooling. An
ocean sediment Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor. These particles either have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the ...
core from the eastern Bransfield Basin in the
Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martin in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica. ...
shows centennial events, which the authors link to the Little Ice Age and to the Medieval Warm Period. The authors note that "other unexplained climatic events comparable in duration and amplitude to the LIA and MWP events also appear". The Siple Dome (SD) had a climate event with an onset time that is coincident with that of the Little Ice Age in the North Atlantic, based on a correlation with the GISP2 record. The Little Ice Age is the most dramatic climate event in the SD Holocene glaciochemical record. The Siple Dome ice core also contained its highest rate of melt layers (up to 8%) between 1550 and 1700, most likely because of warm summers. Law Dome ice cores show lower levels of CO2 mixing ratios from 1550 to 1800, which Etheridge and Steele believe to be "probably as a result of colder global climate". Sediment cores in Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula, have neoglacial indicators by
diatom A diatom (Neo-Latin ''diatoma'') is any member of a large group comprising several Genus, genera of algae, specifically microalgae, found in the oceans, waterways and soils of the world. Living diatoms make up a significant portion of Earth's B ...
and sea-ice taxa variations during the Little Ice Age. Stable isotope records from the Mount Erebus Saddle ice core site suggests that the Ross Sea region experienced average temperatures 1.6 ± 1.4 °C cooler during the Little Ice Age than the last 150 years.


Australia and New Zealand

Its location in the Southern Hemisphere made Australia not experience a regional cooling like that of Europe or North America. Instead, the Australian Little Ice Age was characterized by humid, rainy climates, which were followed by drying and
aridification Aridification is the process of a region becoming increasingly arid, or dry. It refers to long term change, rather than seasonal variation. It is often measured as the reduction of average soil moisture content. It can be caused by reduced preci ...
in the 19th century. As studied by Tibby et al. (2018), lake records from Victoria,
New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
, and
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
suggest that conditions in the east and the south-east of Australia were wet and unusually cool from the 16th to the early 19th centuries. That corresponds with the "peak" of the global Little Ice Age from 1594 to 1722. For example, North Stradbroke Island's Swallow Lagoon data reveals a period of persistent wetness from 1500 to 1850 CE (exceeding 300 mm above average), followed by a significant decrease in rainfall after 1891. The rainfalls significantly reduced after around 1890. Similarly, the hydrological records of Lake Surprise's
salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...
levels reveal high humidity levels around from 1440 to 1880, and an increase in salinity from 1860 to 1880 points to a negative change to the once-humid climate. The mid-19th century marked a notable change to eastern Australia's rainfall and humidity patterns. Tibby et al. (2018) note that in eastern Australia, the paleoclimatic changes of the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s coincided with the agricultural changes resulting from European colonization. After the 1788 establishment of British colonies in the Australia, which were concentrated primarily in the eastern regions and cities like Sydney and later Melbourne and Brisbane, the British introduced new agricultural practices like
pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The anim ...
. Such practices required widespread deforestation and clearance of vegetation. Pastoralism and the clearing of land are captured in works of art such as the 1833 painting by the prominent landscape artist John Glover ''Patterdale Landscape with Cattle''. Over the next century, the deforestation led to a loss of biodiversity, wind and water-based soil erosion, and soil salinity. Furthermore, as argued by Gordan et al. (2003), such land and vegetation clearance in Australia resulted in a 10% reduction in the transport of water vapor to the atmosphere. That occurred in Western Australia as well, where 19th-century land clearing resulted in reduced rainfall over the region. By 1850 to 1890, those human agricultural practices, which were concentrated in eastern Australia, had most likely amplified the drying and aridification that marked the end of the Little Ice Age. In the north, evidence suggests fairly dry conditions, but coral cores from the
Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...
show rainfall similar to today but with less variability. A study that analyzed isotopes in Great Barrier Reef corals suggested that increased water vapor transport from the southern tropical oceans to the poles contributed to the Little Ice Age.
Borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petr ...
reconstructions from Australia suggest that over the last 500 years, the 17th century was the coldest on the continent. The borehole temperature reconstruction method further indicates that the warming of Australia over the past five centuries is only around half that of the warming experienced by the Northern Hemisphere, which further proves that Australia did not reach the same depths of cooling as the continents in the north. On the west coast of the
Southern Alps The Southern Alps (; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) are a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand, New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The n ...
of New Zealand, the Franz Josef Glacier advanced rapidly during the Little Ice Age and reached its maximum extent in the early 18th century. That was one of the few cases of a glacier thrusting into a
rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...
. Evidence suggests, corroborated by tree ring proxy data, that the glacier contributed to a temperature anomaly over the course of the Little Ice Age in New Zealand. Based on dating of a yellow-green lichen of the '' Rhizocarpon'' subgenus, the Mueller Glacier, on the eastern flank of the Southern Alps within
Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park is a national park located in the Canterbury Region in the central-west of the South Island of New Zealand. It was established in October 1953 and takes its name from the highest mountain in New Zealand, Aora ...
, is considered to have been at its maximum extent between 1725 and 1730.


Pacific islands

Sea-level data for the
Pacific islands The Pacific islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of several ...
suggest that sea level in the region fell, possibly in two stages, between 1270 and 1475. That was associated with a 1.5 °C fall in temperature, as determined from oxygen-isotope analysis, and an observed increase in the frequency of
El Niño EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...
. Tropical Pacific
coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...
records indicate the most frequent and intense
El Niño–Southern Oscillation El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global climate phenomenon that emerges from variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical Pacific Ocean. Those variations have an irregular pattern but do have some semblance of cyc ...
activity was in the mid-17th century. Foraminiferal 18 O records indicate that the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool was warm and saline between 1000 and 1400, with temperatures approximating current conditions, but that it cooled from 1400 onwards and reached its lowest temperatures in 1700. That is consistent with the transition from the mid-
Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...
warming to the Little Ice Age. The nearby southwestern Pacific, however, experienced warmer-than-average conditions over the course of the Little Ice Age, which is thought to be from the increased trade winds, which increased the evaporation and the salinity in the region. The dramatic temperature differences between the higher latitudes and the equator are thought to have resulted in drier conditions in the subtropics. Independent multiproxy analyses of Raraku Lake (sedimentology, mineralology, organic and inorganic geochemistry, etc.) indicate that
Easter Island Easter Island (, ; , ) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, ...
was subject to two phases of arid climate that led to drought. The first occurred between 500 and 1200, and the second occurring during the Little Ice Age from 1570 to 1720. In between both arid phases, the island enjoyed a humid period from 1200 to 1570. That coincided with the peak of the Rapa Nui civilization.


South America

Tree-ring data from
Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...
show cold episodes from 1270 and 1380 and from 1520 to 1670, during the events in the Northern Hemisphere. Eight sediment cores taken from
Puyehue Lake Puyehue Lake (), (Mapudungun: ''puye'', "small fish" and ''hue'', "place") is an Andean piedmont lake on the border of Los Lagos Region with Los Ríos Region of Chile. Puyehue is a lake of glacial origin. Several times during the Pleistocene gl ...
have been interpreted as showing a humid period from 1470 to 1700, which the authors describe as a regional marker of the onset of the Little Ice Age. A 2009 paper details cooler and wetter conditions in southeastern South America between 1550 and 1800 by citing evidence obtained via several proxies and models. 18O records from three Andean ice cores show a cool period from 1600 to 1800. Although it is only anecdotal evidence, the Antonio de Vea expedition entered San Rafael Lake in 1675 through Río Témpanos (Spanish for "Ice Floe River"). The Spanish mentioned no ice floe but stated that the San Rafael Glacier did not reach far into the lagoon. In 1766, another expedition noticed that the glacier reached the lagoon and calved into large icebergs. Hans Steffen visited the area in 1898 and noticed that the glacier penetrated far into the lagoon. Such historical records indicate a general cooling in the area between 1675 and 1898: "The recognition of the LIA in northern Patagonia, through the use of documentary sources, provides important, independent evidence for the occurrence of this phenomenon in the region." As of 2001, the borders of the glacier had significantly retreated from those of 1675. It has been suggested that all glaciers of
Gran Campo Nevado The Gran Campo Nevado is a small ice field located in the southern portion of the Muñoz Gamero Peninsula, in Chile. It covers an area of approximately and feeds 19 outlet glaciers, the largest of which is long. See also * Monte Burney *Riesco ...
next to the
Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natura ...
reached their largest extent of the whole Holocene epoch during the Little Ice Age. It has been proposed that the Little Ice Age, locally lasting from the 17th to the 19th centuries, may have had a negative impact on the productivity of marine ecosystems and on the navigability of the Patagonian fjords and channels being thus detrimental to the sea-faring Kawésqar.


Middle East

The Ottoman LIA occurred from the early 14th century until the mid-19th century, with its most intense phase taking place between the 16th and 17th centuries. From the 14th to 15th century, the Ottoman Empire transformed from a small group of soldiers to a major world power. By the end of the 16th century, the LIA began and had a profound impact on the Ottoman economy, society, and culture. During February 1621, it is noted that the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul had frozen over completely. In the years 1265, 1277 and 1297–1298 Byzantine sources describe extremely harsh cold. Also, around 1300, there were harsh winters in 1298/1299 in the Middle East. This is followed by a drought which takes place in Asia Minor in 1302-1304 while there is the flooding of the Sangarious River in the summer of 1302. The Ottoman Empire, whose territories stretched across three continents, and its economy was based on agriculture and trade, had a diverse range of climates and ecosystems, and was greatly affected by this phenomenon. The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most powerful empires in the world during the Little Ice Age. The effects of the Little Ice Age on the Ottoman Empire were significant, leading to changes in agricultural practices, increased food prices, and social unrest. During the 1590s the beginning of a wave of extremely cold winters began and the middle eastern longest drought in six centuries marked the beginning of the Little Ice Age in the Middle East. Due to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century, the population of the empire reached around 30 million people which led to a shortage of land and an increase in tax. The second half of the 16th century included inflation and rising cost in both the Middle East and Europe. The effect of this large population and lack of supplies created a strain on the Ottoman government. The cooling climate disrupted agricultural production, leading to food shortages and famines. The Ottoman Empire did not often have a shortage of grain due to its location, close to the Danube, Nile and the Black Sea, however, once the Little Ice Age began that all changed, and grain was rare due to the cooler temperatures which led to a shorter growing season, resulting in lower crop yields and decreased food production. The effects of the colder climate were exacerbated by extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, and storms, which further reduced crop yields. Each ancient Middle Eastern empire had a significant supply of food: the Byzantines had Anatolia and Syria, the Abbasids had the lower Tigris-Euphrates region, as well as Khurasan and Bukhara, and the Ottomans had Egypt. However, there was an inherent political risk in such agricultural dependency, which finally materialised. Farmers who are unable or unwilling to relocate may be driven into revolt against the established authority if weather patterns shift. Nomads had the flexibility to move in response to climate shifts, unlike settled peasants who were unwilling to leave their traditional lands. The impact of the Little Ice Age on the Ottoman Empire was not limited to agriculture and trade. The cooling climate led to changes in migration patterns, as some regions became uninhabitable while others became more attractive. This in turn affected the demographics of the empire and contributed to the emergence of new political and social structures. The lengthy drought as well as the cold winters led to the destruction of imperial systems which all led to a series of uprisings collectively known as the Celali Rebellion, c. 1596–1610. The rebellion became the longest-lasting internal challenge to state power in the Ottoman Empire's six centuries of existence. The goal of the Celali Rebellion was not to overthrow the Ottoman government; rather, it was an attempt to get newly appointed governorships. The Ottoman Empire did not fully recover from the Little Ice Age for around a hundred years, even then they were considered weakened with a large population loss.


Central England temperature series

The Central England temperature (CET) is the longest instrumental temperature record in existence anywhere in the world, and extends back continuously from the present day to 1659. Hence it starts in the middle of the Little Ice Age (LIA), however the LIA interval is defined. CET holds some very important implications for our understanding of the LIA. The CET data show that during the LIA there was an increased occurrence of exceptionally cold winters and these years coincided with years when frost fairs were held on the Thames and when exceptionally low temperatures were reported elsewhere in Europe. It also agrees well with paleoclimate estimates in average trends. However, winters were not unremittingly cold during the LIA in the CET record. For example, the coldest winter (defined by the average temperature for December, January and February) in the whole CET data series is 1684 (the year of one of the most famous frost fairs) yet the fifth warmest winter in the whole CET data series to date occurred just two years later, in 1686. Furthermore, summer temperatures are not greatly depressed during the LIA and when they are these lower temperatures correlate highly with volcanic eruptions. Hence the CET data strongly argue that the LIA, at least in Europe, should be regarded as a period of enhanced occurrence of exceptionally cold winters and hence lower average temperatures and not as an interval of unremitting cold.


Possible causes

Scientists have tentatively identified seven possible causes of the Little Ice Age: orbital cycles, decreased
solar activity Solar phenomena are natural phenomena which occur within the Stellar atmosphere, atmosphere of the Sun. They take many forms, including solar wind, Solar radio emission, radio wave flux, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, Stellar corona#Coron ...
, increased volcanic activity, altered ocean current flows, fluctuations in the human population in different parts of the world causing
reforestation Reforestation is the practice of restoring previously existing forests and woodlands that have been destroyed or damaged. The prior forest destruction might have happened through deforestation, clearcutting or wildfires. Three important purpose ...
or
deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...
, and the inherent variability of global climate.


Orbital cycles

Orbital forcing from cycles in the Earth's orbit around the Sun has for the past 2,000 years caused a long-term northern hemisphere cooling trend, which continued through the Middle Ages and the Little Ice Age. The rate of
Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
cooling is roughly 0.02 °C per century.

That trend could be extrapolated to continue into the future and possibly lead to a full ice age, but the 20th-century
instrumental temperature record Global surface temperature (GST) is the average temperature of Earth's surface. More precisely, it is the weighted average of the temperatures over the ocean and land. The former is also called sea surface temperature and the latter is calle ...
shows a sudden reversal of that trend, with a rise in global temperatures attributed to
greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...
.


Solar activity

Solar activity includes any disturbances on the Sun such as sunspots and solar flares associated with the variable magnetic field of the solar surface and solar atmosphere (corona). Because Alfvén's theorem applies, the coronal magnetic field is dragged out into the heliosphere by the
solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the Sun's outermost atmospheric layer, the Stellar corona, corona. This Plasma (physics), plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy betwee ...
. Irregularities in this heliospheric magnetic field shield Earth from galactic
cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...
s by scattering them, which allows scientists to track solar activity in the past by analyzing both the carbon-14 or beryllium-10 isotopes generated by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere and which are deposited in terrestrial reservoirs such as tree rings and ice sheets. In the intervals 1400–1550 (the Spörer Minimum) and 1645–1715 (the Maunder Minimum) there were very low recorded levels of solar activity and they are both within, or at least overlapped with, the LIA for most definitions. However, solar activity deduced from cosmogenic isotopes was as high between the Spörer Minimum and the Maunder Minimum as it was in about 1940, yet this interval is also within the LIA. Hence any relationship between solar activity and the LIA is far from a simple one. A drop in solar activity circa 1230 AD as measured by biogenic silica corrected ignition residue (IR-BSi) has been suggested by one study as a forcing potentially responsible for initiating the LIA, with the authors noting that this drop in solar output preceded the onset of significant volcanism. A study by Dmitri Mauquoy et al. confirmed that at the beginning of the Spörer Minimum, the carbon-14 production rate rose rapidly. These authors argued this rise coincided with a sharp drop in temperatures deduced from European peat bogs. This temperature drop is also seen in mean northern hemisphere temperatures deduced from a wide variety of paleoclimate indicators but the timing of the onset of the Spörer Minimum is actually some 50 years earlier. A 50-year response lag is possible but is not consistent with subsequent variations in inferred solar activity and average northern hemisphere temperature. For example, the peak in solar activity between the Spörer Minimum and the Maunder Minimum is 50 years after the only peak in average northern hemisphere temperature that it could be associated with. A study by Judith Lean in 1999 also pointed to a relationship between the Sun and the Little Ice Age. Her research found that there was a 0.13% total
solar irradiance Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ( ...
(TSI) increase (1.8 Wm) over 1650–1790 which could have raised the temperature of the Earth by 0.3 °C. In the calculated correlation coefficients of the global temperature response to their reconstruction of the solar forcing over three different periods, they found an average coefficient of 0.79 (i.e. 62% of the variation could be explained by the TSI) which indicates a possible relationship between the two components. Lean's team also formulated an equation in which the temperature change is 0.16 °C increase in temperature for every 0.1% increase in total solar irradiance. However, the main problem with quantifying the longer-term trends in TSI lies in the stability of the absolute radiometry measurements made from space, which has improved since the pioneering work of Judith Lean discussed above, but still remains a problem. Analysis comparing trends in modern observations of TSI and cosmic ray fluxes shows that the uncertainties mean that it is possible that TSI was actually higher in the Maunder Minimum than present-day levels, but uncertainties are high with best estimates of the difference between the modern-day TSI and the Maunder-Minimum TSI in the range ±0.5 Wm but with a 2 σ uncertainty range of ±1 Wm. At the center of the LIA, during the Spörer Minimum and the Maunder Minimum, sunspots were minimal and cosmogenic isotope deposition (carbon-14 and beryllium-10) was increased in these minima as a result. However, detailed studies from multiple paleoclimate indicators show that the lower Northern Hemisphere temperatures in the Little Ice Age began before the start of the Maunder Minimum but after the start of the Spörer Minimum and persisted until after the Maunder Minimum (and even after the much weaker Dalton Minimum) had ceased. The return to more active solar conditions between these two grand solar minima had no obvious effect on either global or Northern Hemisphere temperatures. The Central England Temperature provide evidence that low solar activity may have contributed to the LIA through the increased occurrence of cold winters, at least in Europe, but colder summers are more correlated with volcanic activity. Comparison of TSI records with Greenland ice core δ18O trends suggests that solar activity only accounted for 55% of the observed trend variance. Numerical climate modelling indicates that volcanic activity was the greater driver of the overall lower temperatures in the LIA, as seen in a variety of paleoclimate proxies.


Volcanic activity

In a 2012 paper, Miller ''et al.'' link the Little Ice Age to an "unusual 50-year-long episode with four large sulfur-rich explosive eruptions, each with global sulfate loading >60 Tg" and notes that "large changes in
solar irradiance Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ( ...
are not required." Throughout the LIA, there was heightened volcanic activity. When a
volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...
erupts, its ash reaches high into the atmosphere and can spread to cover the whole earth. The ash cloud blocks out some of the incoming solar radiation, which leads to worldwide cooling for up to two years after an eruption. Also emitted by eruptions is
sulfur Sulfur ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms ...
in the form of
sulfur dioxide Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless gas with a pungent smell that is responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is r ...
. When sulfur dioxide reaches the
stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is composed of stratified temperature zones, with the warmer layers of air located higher ...
, the gas turns into sulfuric and
sulfurous acid Sulfuric(IV) acid (United Kingdom spelling: sulphuric(IV) acid), also known as sulfurous (UK: sulphurous) acid and thionic acid, is the chemical compound with the chemical formula, formula . Raman spectroscopy, Raman spectra of solutions o ...
particles, which reflect the Sun's rays. That further reduces the amount of radiation reaching the Earth's surface. A recent study found that an especially severe tropical volcanic eruption in 1257, possibly Mount Samalas (pre-caldera edifice of the active Rinjani) near
Mount Rinjani Mount Rinjani ( Sasak: ''Gunong Rinjani'', ) is an active volcano in Indonesia on the island of Lombok. Administratively the mountain is in the Regency of North Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara ( Indonesian: ''Nusa Tenggara Barat'', NTB). It rises t ...
, both in
Lombok Lombok, is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is rou ...
, Indonesia, followed by three smaller eruptions in 1268, 1275, and 1284, did not allow the climate to recover. That may have caused the initial cooling, and the
1452/1453 mystery eruption A mysterious volcanic eruption in 1452 or 1453 triggered the first large sulfate spike in the 1450s, succeeded by another spike in 1458 caused by another mysterious eruption. The eruption caused a severe volcanic winter, leading to one of the s ...
triggered a second pulse of cooling. The cold summers can be maintained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks long after volcanic aerosols are removed. Other volcanoes that erupted during the era and may have contributed to the cooling include
Billy Mitchell William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who had a major role in the creation of the United States Air Force. Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, ...
(c. 1580), Huaynaputina (1600), Mount Parker (1641), Long Island (Papua New Guinea) (ca. 1660), and
Laki Laki () or Lakagígar (, ''Craters of Laki'') is a volcanic fissure in the western part of Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland, not far from the volcanic fissure of Eldgjá and the small village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The fissure is proper ...
(1783). The 1815 eruption of Tambora, also in Indonesia, blanketed the atmosphere with ash, and the following year came to be known as the
Year Without a Summer The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by . Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest of any on record between 1766 and 2000, resultin ...
, when
frost Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor that deposits onto a freezing surface. Frost forms when the air contains more water vapor than it can normally hold at a specific temperature. The process is simila ...
and snow were reported in June and July in both
New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
and Northern Europe.


Ocean circulation

In the early 2000s, a slowing of
thermohaline circulation Thermohaline circulation (THC) is a part of the large-scale Ocean current, ocean circulation driven by global density gradients formed by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The name ''thermohaline'' is derived from ''wikt:thermo-, thermo-'', r ...
was proposed as an explanation for the LIA, specifically, through the weakening of the
North Atlantic Gyre The North Atlantic Gyre of the Atlantic Ocean is one of five great oceanic gyres. It is a circular ocean current, with offshoot eddies and sub-gyres, across the North Atlantic from the Intertropical Convergence Zone (calms or doldrums) to the pa ...
. The circulation could have been interrupted by the introduction of a large amount of fresh water into the North Atlantic and might have been caused by a period of warming before the LIA that is known as the
Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about to about . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occu ...
. Some researchers have thus classified the LIA as a Bond event. In 2005 there was some concern that a shutdown of thermohaline circulation could happen again as a result of the present warming. More recent research indicates that the overall Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation may already be weaker now than it was during the LIA,
PDF in UNEP Document Repository
or perhaps even over the past millennium. While there is still a robust debate about the present-day AMOC strength, these findings make the link between AMOC and the LIA unlikely. However, some research instead suggests that a far more localized disruption of the North Subpolar Gyre convection was involved in the LIA. This is potentially relevant for the near future, as a minority of
climate model Numerical climate models (or climate system models) are mathematical models that can simulate the interactions of important drivers of climate. These drivers are the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. Scientists use climate models to st ...
s project a permanent collapse of this convection under some scenarios of future
climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
.


Decreased human populations

Some researchers have proposed that human influences on climate began earlier than is normally supposed (see Early anthropocene for more details) and that major population declines in Eurasia and the Americas reduced that impact and led to a cooling trend.


The Black Death in Europe

The
Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...
is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of the European population. In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level. William Ruddiman ''et al.'' proposed that those large population reductions in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East caused a decrease in agricultural activity that allowed
reforestation Reforestation is the practice of restoring previously existing forests and woodlands that have been destroyed or damaged. The prior forest destruction might have happened through deforestation, clearcutting or wildfires. Three important purpose ...
to cause additional carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere, leading to LIA cooling.


Mongol invasions

A 2011 study by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology asserts that the
Mongol invasions and conquests The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire, the Mongol Empire (1206–1368), which by 1260 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the destruction under ...
, which lasted almost two centuries, contributed to global cooling by depopulating vast regions and replacing cultivated land by carbon-absorbing forest.


Destruction of native populations and biomass of the Americas

William Ruddiman further hypothesized that a reduced population in the Americas after European contact started in the 16th century could have had a similar effect. In a similar vein, Koch and others in 1990 suggested that as European conquest and disease brought by Europeans killed as many as 90% of Indigenous Americans, around 50 million hectares of land may have returned to a wilderness state, causing increased carbon dioxide uptake. Other researchers have supported depopulation in the Americas as a factor and have asserted that humans cleared considerable amounts of forest to support agriculture there before the arrival of Europeans brought on a population collapse. Richard Nevle, Robert Dull and colleagues further suggested not only that anthropogenic forest clearance played a role in reducing the amount of carbon sequestered in
Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...
forests but also that human-set fires played a central role in reducing biomass in Amazonian and Central American forests before the arrival of the Europeans and the concomitant spread of diseases during the
Columbian exchange The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the New World (the Americas) in the Western Hemisphere, and the Old World (Afro-Eurasia) in the Eastern Hemis ...
. Dull and Nevle calculated that reforestation in the tropical biomes of the Americas alone from 1500 to 1650 accounted for net
carbon sequestration Carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon pool. It plays a crucial role in Climate change mitigation, limiting climate change by reducing the amount of Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, carbon dioxide in the atmosphe ...
of 2–5 Pg. Brierley conjectured that the European arrival in the Americas caused mass deaths from epidemic disease, which caused much abandonment of farmland. That caused much forest to return, which sequestered more CO2. A study of sediment cores and soil samples further suggests that CO2 uptake via reforestation in the Americas could have contributed to the LIA. The depopulation is linked to a drop in CO2 levels observed at Law Dome, Antarctica. However, the hypothesis is criticized on the grounds that the kind of
agroforestry Agroforestry (also known as agro-sylviculture or forest farming) is a land use management system that integrates trees with crops or pasture. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies. As a polyculture system, an agroforestry system c ...
practiced by the pre-Columbian farmers in South America didn't actually result in a large-scale deforestation typical for modern agriculture so the reforestation shouldn't have had such a huge effect.


Population increases at mid- to high latitudes

It is suggested that during the Little Ice Age, increased deforestation had enough effect on the Earth's
albedo Albedo ( ; ) is the fraction of sunlight that is Diffuse reflection, diffusely reflected by a body. It is measured on a scale from 0 (corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation) to 1 (corresponding to a body that reflects ...
(reflectiveness) to cause regional and global temperature decreases. Changes in albedo were caused by widespread deforestation at high latitudes, which exposed more snow cover and thus increased reflectiveness of the Earth's surface, as land was cleared for agricultural use. The theory implies that over the course of the Little Ice Age, enough land was cleared to make deforestation a possible cause of climate change. It has been proposed that the Land Use Intensification theory could explain this effect. The theory was originally proposed by Ester Boserup and suggests that agriculture advances only as the population demands it. Furthermore, there is evidence of rapid population and
agricultural expansion Agricultural expansion describes the growth of agricultural land ( arable land, pastures, etc.) especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. The agricultural expansion is often explained as a direct consequence of the global increase in food and e ...
, which could warrant some of the changes observed in the climate during this period. This theory is still under speculation for multiple reasons: primarily, the difficulty of recreating climate simulations outside of a narrow set of land in those regions; so that one cannot rely on data to explain sweeping changes or to account for the wide variety of other sources of climate change globally. As an extension of the first reason, climate models including this period have shown increases and decreases in temperature globally. That is, climate models have shown deforestation as neither a singular cause for climate change nor a reliable cause for the global temperature decrease.


Inherent variability of climate

Spontaneous fluctuations in global climate might explain the past variability. It is very difficult to know what the true level of variability from internal causes might be given the existence of other forces, as noted above, whose magnitude may not be known. One approach to evaluating internal variability is the use of long integrations of coupled ocean-atmosphere
global climate model A general circulation model (GCM) is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamics, thermod ...
s. They have the advantage that the external forcing is known to be zero, but the disadvantage is that they may not fully reflect reality. The variations may result from
chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Science, technology, and astronomy * '' Chaos: Making a New Science'', a 1987 book by James Gleick * Chaos (company), a Bulgarian rendering and simulation software company * ''Chaos'' (genus), a genus of amoebae * ...
-driven changes in the oceans, the atmosphere, or interactions between the two. Two studies have concluded that the demonstrated inherent variability was not great enough to account for the Little Ice Age. The severe winters of 1770 to 1772 in Europe, however, have been attributed to an anomaly in the North Atlantic oscillation.


See also

* * * * * * * * * *


References


Further reading

* * * Waldinger, Maria (2022). "The Economic Effects of Long-Term Climate Change: Evidence from the Little Ice Age". ''Journal of Political Economy.'' *


External links


Abrupt Climate Change Information from the Ocean & Climate Change Institute
, links to
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...
articles * (discussion of Woods Hole research) *
Dansgaard cycles and the Little Ice Age (LIA)
(It is not easy to see an LIA in the graphs.) *
Was El Niño unaffected by the Little Ice Age?
(2002)

c. 2003

updated 2009 * undated review article

(2008)
HistoricalClimatology.com
links, resources, and feature articles on the Little Ice Age and its present-day relevance
Climate History Network
association of historical climatologists and climate historians, many of whom study the Little Ice Age and its social consequences {{Authority control 2nd millennium History of climate variability and change Holocene 1930s neologisms Historical eras Volcanic winters