Debating the Little Ice Age

The commentaries of White and of Büntgen and Hellmann in this journal fail to prove that Europe experienced the kind of sustained falls in temperature between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries that can justify the notion of a Little Ice Age. Neither of them adequately addresses the cogency of the anecdotal or statistical evidence as presented in Kelly and Ó Gráda's article, “The Waning of the Little Ice Age: Climate Change in Early Modern Europe,” especially with regard to the spurious peaks and troughs created by the smoothing of temperature series—the so-called Slutsky Effect.

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The Waning of the Little Ice Age: Climate Change in Early Modern Europe

Journal of Interdisciplinary History ◽

10.1162/jinh_a_00573 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 44 (3) ◽

pp. 301-325 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Morgan Kelly ◽

Cormac Ó Gráda

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Early Modern ◽

Cultural History ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Temperature Series ◽

Ice Age ◽

Early Modern Europe ◽

Late Middle Ages ◽

As Effects

The supposed ramifications of the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures straddling several centuries in northwestern Europe, reach far beyond meteorology into economic, political, and cultural history. The available annual temperature series from the late Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century, however, contain no major breaks, cycles, or trends that could be associated with the existence of a Little Ice Age. Furthermore, the series of resonant images, ranging from frost fairs to contracting glaciers and from dwindling vineyards to disappearing Viking colonies, often adduced as effects of a Little Ice Age, can also be explained without resort to climate change.

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Testing the Limits of Climate History: The Quest for a Northeast Passage during the Little Ice Age, 1594–1597

Journal of Interdisciplinary History ◽

10.1162/jinh_a_00755 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 45 (4) ◽

pp. 459-484 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Dagomar Degroot

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Early Modern ◽

Intellectual History ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Ice Age ◽

The Arctic ◽

Human History ◽

Climate History ◽

Local Environments

Although interdisciplinary scholars have firmly established the existence of an early modern Little Ice Age, methodologies that link climate, weather, and human history remain in their infancy. Journals kept during three Dutch expeditions to find a northeast passage through the Arctic between 1594 and 1597 demonstrate the complexity of establishing relationships between climate and human affairs. They confirm scientific reconstructions of the Little Ice Age in the Arctic, but they also record counterintuitive relationships between regional climate and local environments. These local manifestations of climate change shaped the course of the Dutch quest for a northeast passage in the 1590s, with important ramifications for Dutch economic and intellectual history. The journals reveal that historians must carefully establish distinct relationships between shifting environmental conditions and human activities across different scales before attempting to tie climate change to human history.

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