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

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-484 ◽  
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.

Debating the Little Ice Age

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan Kelly ◽  
Cormac Ó Gráda
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Temperature Series ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Europe

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.

scholarly journals Little Ice Age glaciers and climate in the Mediterranean mountains: a new analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.D. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
High Atlas ◽  
Mediterranean Mountains ◽  
The Mediterranean

Glaciers were common across the Mediterranean mountains during the Little Ice Age. In parts of Turkey some glaciers were several kilometres longer than they are today, whilst in the Pyrenees glaciers were up to several hundred metres longer. In the wettest Mediterranean mountains, such as the Dinaric Alps, many small glaciers and perennial snow patches would have been present. Even in driest and most southerly mountains, such as the High Atlas, small glaciers and perennial snowfields were present. This paper examines the evidence from these two contrasting regions (the western and southern Balkans and the High Atlas) and the climatic significance of glaciers in these areas during the Little Ice Age. Particular focus is given on the climatological controls on glacier mass balance in different climatic conditions. Glaciers in cold and dry climates exhibit different sensitivity to regional climate change compared with glaciers in cold and wet climates. In addition, the factors controlling ablation of glaciers in different climatic regimes can differ considerably, especially the relative contributions and effects of melting and sublimation. All Mediterranean mountain glaciers were strongly controlled by local topoclimatic factors. Avalanche-fed glaciers have proven to be the most resilient to climate change and dramatically increased accumulation from avalanching snow explains the surviving glaciers in the Dinaric Alps and the semi-perennial snow fields of the High Atlas. In addition, geology as well as landscape morphology inherited from Pleistocene glaciations plays a role in explaining the patterns of Little Ice Age glacier distribution and especially the patterns of retreat and survival of these glaciers. The resilience of some of the last remaining Mediterranean glaciers, in the face of warming climate, presents a contradiction and comparisons between glaciers gone and those that remain provides important insight into the future of similar glaciers globally.

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

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-325 ◽  
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.

Climate-induced treeline mortality during the termination of the Little Ice Age in the Greater Yellowstone Ecoregion, USA

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110116
Author(s):  
Maegen L Rochner ◽  
Karen J Heeter ◽  
Grant L Harley ◽  
Matthew F Bekker ◽  
Sally P Horn
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Tree Ring ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Frost Damage ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Whitebark Pine ◽  
Engelmann Spruce ◽  
Greater Yellowstone

Paleoclimate reconstructions for the western US show spatial variability in the timing, duration, and magnitude of climate changes within the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, ca. 900–1350 CE) and Little Ice Age (LIA, ca. 1350–1850 CE), indicating that additional data are needed to more completely characterize late-Holocene climate change in the region. Here, we use dendrochronology to investigate how climate changes during the MCA and LIA affected a treeline, whitebark pine ( Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) ecosystem in the Greater Yellowstone Ecoregion (GYE). We present two new millennial-length tree-ring chronologies and multiple lines of tree-ring evidence from living and remnant whitebark pine and Engelmann spruce ( Picea engelmannii Parry ex. Engelm.) trees, including patterns of establishment and mortality; changes in tree growth; frost rings; and blue-intensity-based, reconstructed summer temperatures, to highlight the terminus of the LIA as one of the coldest periods of the last millennium for the GYE. Patterns of tree establishment and mortality indicate conditions favorable to recruitment during the latter half of the MCA and climate-induced mortality of trees during the middle-to-late LIA. These patterns correspond with decreased growth, frost damage, and reconstructed cooler temperature anomalies for the 1800–1850 CE period. Results provide important insight into how past climate change affected important GYE ecosystems and highlight the value of using multiple lines of proxy evidence, along with climate reconstructions of high spatial resolution, to better describe spatial and temporal variability in MCA and LIA climate and the ecological influence of climate change.

ON IMPACT OF REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE IN RUSSIAN ARCTIC ON SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSITION TO GREEN GROWTH

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 141-146
Author(s):  
N. E. TERENTIEV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
General Description ◽  
Green Growth ◽  
Development Paradigm ◽  
Working Out

The paper, regarding the latest data on climate change in the Arctic, is focused on selected methodological issues of estimating socioeconomic impact of climate change. A general description of forecasting models, considering climatic risks at regional level. It is shown that such models can be utilized as a tool for supporting working out and monitoring of long-term development of a region. Role and selected directions of transition to green growth at regional level within sustainable development paradigm.

scholarly journals Eolian Response to Little Ice Age Climate Change, Tana Dunes, Chugach Mountains, Alaska, U.S.A.

2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory C. Wiles ◽  
Ryan P. McAllister ◽  
Nicole K. Davi ◽  
Gordon C. Jacoby
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document