Ice Age, Little

Throughout this chapter many of the arguments are based on an assumption of steady state. Before the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the carbon cycle presumably was in a quasi-balanced state. Natural variations still occur in this unperturbed environment the Little Ice Age, 300-400 years ago, may have influenced the carbon cycle. The production rate of varies on time scales of decades and centuries (Stuiver and Quay, 1980,1981), implying that the pre-industrial radiocarbon distribution may not have been in steady state. 

A rise in average temperature of 1 °C may not seem enough to cause dramatic shifts in the weather, but the historical record shows otherwise. The period from 1500 to 1850 is called the Little Ice Age, because there were extensive increases in the sizes of the glaciers in all alpine regions. During that period, the average global temperature was just 0.5 °C lower than in 1900. 

Chinese records make mention of extensive loess deposition between 400 and 600 AD, between 1000 and 1200 AD and between 1500 and 1900 AD (during the Little Ice Age ). However, the most extensive... 

Little Ice Age, which caused civilian hardships which have been... 

During the colder periods, icebergs floated as far south as Portugal. One of these cold spells probably forced the Vikings out of Greenland. This period is known as the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1400 to 1900. 

Man-induced climate change is not just a scenario for the future it has been experienced since the beginning of industrialization, which coincided with the so-called Little Ice Age in the mid-nineteenth century. This contribution analyses the changes in climate and especially in the hydrological cycle and water resources mainly over the last 150 years and for the Swiss Alps. Fortunately, in Switzerland and therefore in the Swiss alpine region, climate and water resources have been under observation for this entire period. 

Table 1 Water storage in European alpine glaciers from the Little Ice Age to the present [17-20]...

First, the temperature changes. The mean environmental temperature is readily accessible, but data for the past are to be taken with prudence since the measurement of temperature is a recent acquisition. Indirect evidence (Fig. 16.2.3.1) suggests that the Little Ice Age, which lasted from the end of the Middle Ages until the mid 19 century, was colder than now (0.5 C). Such conclusions derive mainly from the analysis of proxies, which are geographically scattered indicators, in the form of both natural (physical and biological) and documentary (written) archives for the last millenniiun... 

Bradley, R. S., and P. D. Jones, Little Ice Age Summer Temperature Variations Their Nature and Relevance to Recent Global Warming Trends, The Holocene, 3, 367-376 (1993). 

Typical changes in the global mean temperature over the past 1000 years seem to have been of order 1°C, although climate has changed considerably as in the Little Ice Age from about a.d. 1500 to 1900. The difference between average Ice Age (1.75 million to 10,000 years ago) temperatures and the... 

Most people consider malaria to be a tropical disease, and indeed today it is, but that was not always the case. In the period called the Little Ice Age (over 300 years ago) malaria was common in England and was commonly referred to as ague. ... 

P. Reiter, From Shakespeare to Defoe Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age (San Juan, Puerto Rico Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,... 

Analysis of the data on temperature measured in boreholes made an important contribution ito ideas about SAT changes in the past. For instance, Bodri and Cermak (1999) noted that if the amplitude of long-term SAT variations during transitions from glaciations to interglacial periods had reached 10K-15K in the Holocene (the last 10,000-14,000 years), changes of several °K would have taken place on time scales from decades to centuries. In this connection, analysis has been made of the data on the vertical profiles of temperature measured at different depths in boreholes, and maps have been drawn of SAT changes over the Czech Republic, which took place between 1100 bc to 1300 bc (small climatic optimum), between 1400 and 1500, and between 1600 and 1700 (main phases of the Little Ice Age). 

Not a coincidence. It was a period known as the Little Ice Age. Similarly, the Sun appears to be most active when the sunspots are most numerous. Astronomers try to understand the sunspot cycle in order to make more reliable weather forecasts. ... 

The natural increase in the water runoff and sediment load during cold, wet periods, which occurred in Europe in 1400-1300 and 900-300 B.C. and in 400-750,1150-1300, and 1550-1850 A.D. The latter interval is called the Little Ice Age. 

Different causes can coincide in time and strengthen their effect on the rivers. For example, in the 16th-19th centuries, the human-induced erosion caused by deforestation and land ploughing coincided with the little Ice Age. Under these circumstances, the sediment load of rivers noticeably increased. 

Broecker W. S. and Sutherland S. (2000) The distribution of carbonate ion in the deep ocean support for a post-Little Ice Age change in Southern Ocean ventilation. Geochem. Geophys. Geosys. 1, 2000GC000039, July 10. 

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