scholarly journals Gun Island: A Tale of Myth, Migration and Climate Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-35
Author(s):  
Ashna Francis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Native Land ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Migratory Patterns

Gun Island is a story of travel and migrations, overlaid with myth and folktales, and the deepening crisis of climate change. It presents an intricately interwoven plot which connects human and animal, past and present, natural and the supernatural. This paper attempts to explore how the notion of interconnectedness manifests itself in each of these elements. Gun Island uses the myth of the Gun Merchant as a nexus to draw parallels between the Little Ice Age and our present-day scenario where droughts, floods, cyclones, wildfires and epidemics have become a part of our everyday lives. Gun Island projects unprecedented climatic conditions as the primary cause for these natural disasters. It becomes a clarion call for climate induced migrations as it skillfully portrays people and entire communities being uprooted from their native land and the drastic changes in the migratory patterns of different species due to changing climes and warming waters. Instead of projecting warnings of impending doom and apocalypse Gun Island focuses on giving the readers hope for a better tomorrow.

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.

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.

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

Climate change during the Little Ice Age from the Lake Hamana sediment record

2019 ◽  
Vol 223 ◽  
pp. 39-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ara Cho ◽  
Kaoru Kashima ◽  
Koji Seto ◽  
Kazuyoshi Yamada ◽  
Takumi Sato ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Sediment Record ◽  
Lake Hamana

scholarly journals Climate and social change at the start of the Late Antique Little Ice Age

The Holocene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 1643-1648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N Peregrine
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Social Disruption ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
The Relationship

The Late Antique Little Ice Age, spanning the period from 536 CE to roughly 560 CE, saw temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere drop by a degree C in less than a decade. This rapid cooling is thought to have caused widespread famine, epidemic disease, and social disruption. The relationship between cooling and social disruption is examined here using a set of high-resolution climate and historical data. A significant link between cooling and social disruption is demonstrated, but it is also demonstrated that the link is highly variable, with some societies experiencing dramatic cooling changing very little, and others experiencing only slight cooling changing dramatically. This points to variation in vulnerability, and serves to establish the Late Antique Little Ice Age as a context within which naturalistic quasi-experiments on vulnerability to climate change might be conducted.

scholarly journals Record of the Climatic Variability and the Sedimentary Dynamics during the Last Two Millennia at Sebkha Dkhila, Eastern Tunisia

ISRN Geology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elhoucine Essefi ◽  
Jamel Touir ◽  
Mohamed Ali Tagorti ◽  
Chokri Yaich
Keyword(s):  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Medieval Climatic Anomaly ◽  
Grey Scale ◽  
Sedimentary Dynamics ◽  
The Last Two Millennia

This paper aimed to study the record of the climatic variability during the last two millennia within the sebkha of Dkhila. Six climatic stages were recognized along the 104 cm core: the Warming Present (WP), the Late Little Ice Age (Late LIA), the Early Little Ice Age (ELIA), the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), the Dark Age (DA), and the Roman Warm Period (RWP). The WP stretches along the uppermost 1 cm with a high grey scale as sign of a dry climate. The Late LIA is located between 1 cm and 6 cm. The ELIA is located between 6 cm and 40 cm. The MCA spanning from 40 cm to 72 cm is marked by a sharp increase of the GS revealing a wet period. The DA appears along the part between 72 cm and 84 cm; a shift from light to dark sediments is recorded. The RWP appears between 84 cm and 104 cm. Based on the grain size distribution, two low frequency cycles were identified indicating radical global changes of climatic conditions, the differential tectonics, and the groundwater fluctuations. On the other hand, high frequency cycles indicate local modifications of the climatic conditions.

Oxygen isotope evidence of Little Ice Age aridity on the Caribbean slope of the Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic

2011 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad S. Lane ◽  
Sally P. Horn ◽  
Kenneth H. Orvis ◽  
John M. Thomason
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Oxygen Isotope ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Cordillera Central ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The Caribbean

AbstractClimate change during the so-called Little Ice Age (LIA) of the 15th to 19th centuries was once thought to be limited to the high northern latitudes, but increasing evidence reflects significant climate change in the tropics. One of the hypothesized features of LIA climate in the low latitudes is a more southerly mean annual position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which produced more arid conditions through much of the northern tropics. High-resolution stable oxygen isotope data and other sedimentary evidence from Laguna de Felipe, located on the Caribbean slope of the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic, support the hypothesis that the mean annual position of the ITCZ was displaced significantly southward during much of the LIA. Placed within the context of regional paleoclimate and paleoceanographic records, and reconstructions of global LIA climate, this shift in mean annual ITCZ position appears to have been induced by lower solar insolation and internal dynamical responses of the global climate system. Our results from Hispaniola further emphasize the global nature of LIA climate change and the sensitivity of circum-Caribbean climate conditions to what are hypothesized to be relatively small variations in global energy budgets.

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