The little ice age
The Little Ice Age
the phenomenon of the Little Ice Age.
The term “little ice age” is used to describe the period from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, of cooling by comparison with the late medieval and the modern warming epochs. Climatologists and Climate historians describe the three phases- a change from the warm medieval era to a significantly cooler regime in the early modern centuries followed by a considerably warmer trend in the twentieth century. In this climate interval that occurred from the early 14th century through the mid-19th century, many parts of Europe experienced cooler than normal conditions during this period. The world’s climate has changed significantly in the early modern world
According to Jean Grove, for geologists, geographers, and glacialists “the term ‘Little Ice age’ is widely used to describe the period of a few centuries between the middle ages and warm period of the world expanded and fluctuated about more advanced positions than those they occupied in the centuries before or after this generally cooler intervals”, for Climatologists the Little ice age “was a period of lower temperature over most if not all, the globe.
Since the people of the little ice age didn’t keep accurate weather records, Climate Historians and Scientists looking “natural archives” i.e proxy and indirect sources of climate, such as - annual rings in a tree, ice cores, cores of lake sediments, and coral reefs in order to understand and reconstruct the past climate of little ice age, there are following sources -
Dendrochronology- the study of annual growth and analysis of the width or other qualities of rings in long-lived trees. The systematic comparisons of cores bored in the trunk allow us to ascertain temperature, precipitation, drought, and pressure pattern which determined the tree’s growth
in Alpine and Polar ice caps and ice sheets- scientists measure annual snow accumulation for each layer of core and chemical isotopic analysis also gives important clues related to temperature, precipitation, weather, and climate variation.
Coral reefs- the coral reefs deposit skeletal growth continuously each year, material incorporation into coral skeletal shows climate variations. Its analysis tells us the temperature and precipitation variations
In Sediments from coastal basins of lake beds- scientists measure the variations in thickness changes in fossils pollen and geochemical compositions of each layer.
Narrative information contained in the written texts, Numerical information compiled from documentary proxy data, pictorial pieces of information contained in the dated visual representations of natural phenomena, and Epigraphic or archaeological information
Thus, this paleoclimate research shows that a significant shift towards a cooler climate in the northern hemisphere during the early modern period, and the mean annual temperatures across the northern hemisphere fell by 0.6 Celcius or 1.1 ferrite relatives to the average temperature between 1000 and 2000 ce
R. D. D’Arrigo and G. C. Jacoby reconstruct annual North American temperature for the period 1601-1972, through dendroclimatic data and concluded that there was a below-average temperature in the early 1600s and cooling in the 1700s, then relative warming in the late 1700, and an abrupt transition to cold temperature in early to mid-1800s
Russian scientists have measured the lengthy cores from glaciated ice sheets of archipelagos of the kara sea and reconstructed the climate of the past five hundred years and contributed to the study of the Little ice age. Historians, Climatologists not just reconstruct climate history on the basis of natural “natural archives” i.e data obtained from ice cores, sediments, tree rings, and other proxy data but used notations from written documents, including the diaries that often contain the weather observations of relative temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation. These written documents also contain records of other natural phenomena - floods, droughts, freezing, and break-up of lakes and rivers
What caused the little ice age
The most dominant hypothesis about possible causes responsible for the Little Ice Age is the “Maunder Minimum”(1645-1715). There was a low incidence of the sunspots responsible for lower solar radiation, which resulted in lower temperatures in the early modern world. A reduced number of sunspots did contribute to lowering the global temperature, more sunspots generally increase the solar luminosity, which in turn causes the Earth’s average temperature
Sporer and Maunder made the following striking assertions -
There was no sunspot seen, for 70 years period approximately 1645 to 1715.
For nearly half of this time (1672 through 1704) not a single sunspot was observed in the northern hemisphere of the sun
For 60 years, until 1705, no more than one sunspot group was seen at a time
During the entire 70 years period no more than “a handful” of spots was observed and these were mostly single spots and at low latitude.
The total number of the sunspot observed from 1645 to 1715 was less than the single active year in normal conditions
J. Luterbacher argued that intense volcanic activity, such as - Huaynaputina, Peru, etc, which produced a large amount of gas and fine ashes spread globally, and sulphuric acid produced from such eruptions in the stratosphere which prevent solar radiations to reach the surface of the earth, thus responsible for the cooling of global temperature in the early modern period and can be linked to the lower solar radiation, and severe European weather in the early modern period.
George C. Reid, also argues that solar irradiance is responsible for cooler temperatures in the early modern period.
The little ice age and human society
General Crisis - a world phenomenon
Historians began to treat climate as a variable rather than a constant making their task more difficult. Historians have debated the various questions related to the impact of the little ice age on human society? and how did humans adapt to these climate changes? and can a relatively small region’s trend apply to a wider area?
Although it seems very simple and straightforward that the adverse climate led to destruction and disastrous impact on humans due to failed food-grain harvest, drought, higher prices, scarcities, famine, and so on in Europe and in other temperate zones, this view is challenged by many historians
Jan de Vries argued that we can't connect the cooler temperature with economic distress, he further said that there were many socio-economic and political variables that perform well and even better, such as Netherland
John L Brooke- said that if the cold summers and winters of the second stage of the little Ice Age shaped a wider “ Seventeeth- century crisis” across much of the old world, England escaped the worst of its material effects. He also believes that it was a Global rather than a Eurasian crisis.
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, a historian of early modern Europe, concluded that “In the present state of our knowledge it still seems as if the long ‘crisis’, hypothetical or real, of the seventeenth century, had some other explanation than Climate change”
Above all one of the most significant questions is that can we make generalizations that extend to the major world regions such as Europe, Eurasia, or even to hemispheres or the globe?
Unlike Europe, where cooler temperatures played a major role, there were many regions in the world where precipitation was the major factor rather than temperature, especially in tropical regions
There are three world regions- Europe, which is a temperate area; China, which is a partly temperate and partly tropical region; West Africa, a tropical region.
Europe
In Europe, Christian Pfister, Rudolf Brazdil, and Rudiger Glaser, edited and published in the journal - Climate change, played a leading role in organizing cooperative efforts to build a Climate history database from all possible documents for Europe. They showed that the temperature in all seasons, especially in winter and spring averaged one-half degree centigrade cooler and precipitation also increased, especially in winter, 9.8% higher; and Autumn 5.8% higher. Although, there were also considerable variations as warmer phases after cool and wetter phases after drier ones. Long term data from dendrochronological studies in Fennoscandia in Northern Europe and the Urals in Western Serbia, confirms this cooling trend, it also shows that there was a marked reduction in average summer and temperature as well, this occurred abruptly in 1570, which also marked the period of general cooling lasted for next century.
According to F.S. Rodrigo, M. J. Esteban-Parra, and Y. Castro-Dier, “ among the principal meteorological phenomena detected in the period 1634- 1648, there were intense rains and cold weather with heavy snowfalls”.
The cooler and wetter climate reduced the output of wine and grains, which was the most important food crops of central Europe, because the cooler summer cut the sugar content in grapes that were harvested, therefore consumers shifted from wine to Beer
Pfister and Brazdil, argue “that in the last third of the sixteenth century, climate change became the most significant element affecting food prices”. And also demonstrated that annual climate data for Switzerland correlates with annual food price data. They challenged the conventional view of that time, that the prices were determined by the increase in Bullion or precious metals or population
Wolfgang Behringer argues that “there is a causal connection between worsening weather conditions reflected in dwindling harvests and the dramatic increase in burning of witches after 1560.
Thus, the parts of central Europe were affected the most due to little ice age in the early modern period, unlike the maritime and coastal countries which were able to offset harvest deficiencies by food import due to access to maritime trade.
China
China’s climate history conforms to the general little ice age patterns. Chinese climate history is well documented and can be reconstructed on the basis of local gazetteers, which were maintained by the local gentry. The two studies of geographer, Zheng Sizhong and Zhu Kezhen, shows that China’s annual temperature dropped approximately one-degree centigrade from 1470 to 1850, with an alternating warmer period.
Bradley and Jones reconstructed summer temperatures for five regions - East China, North China, Lower yellow river, Southeast China, and Lower Yangzi region in China for the period 1400 to 1950. According to him the overall pattern of Chinese climate history was that “temperature declined, especially 1650 were extremely cold throughout eastern China and Korea
In China, the precipitation and extreme rainfall occurred at their highest intensity during the 1600s. There was a more favorable eighteenth century. The adverse climatic conditions in China contributed to the “seventeenth-century crisis in china”. The Ming dynasty, one of the most powerful dynasties of all time fall, due to cataclysmic upheavals, the Manchu invasions, wars of Han Chinese resistance against Manchus, the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1644, China also suffered from famine, disease and war led to the demographic crisis in China
Robert Marks said that “Lingan (a subtropical and tropical region in southeast china coast) in depths of a mortality crisis, attended by, if not caused by, a subsistence crisis”, and he further said that, “there was snow, frost, and ice four or five inches deep on ponds……. They had never experienced anything like it before” on the basis of the result of data assembled by a Chinese historian in the context of China.
According to local gazetteer writers, due to the cold springs, rice transplanting was delayed and even the cold climate forced farmers to grow single planting instead of the double crops of rice in a year. The late spring freezes destroyed the rice crop, fruits tree, fish in ponds, and livestock, therefore, rice prices spiraled upward.
West Africa
West Africa, unlike Europe, where little ice age was associated with cooling of temperature, snowfall, cold summer, and so on; West Africa enjoyed a more favorable and wetter climate in the period between the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
During the little ice age, between 1500 and 1800, there was an increase in rainfall, unlike in the preceding periods. Most of West Africa's annual precipitation occurs in summer, due to the meeting of the three great air masses at the intertropical convergence zone. In summer the anticyclone, which is a high, dry, and hot air mass meet with two moist, low-lying ocean air, resulting in intense precipitation in west Africa.
Sharon Nicholson, a historical meteorologist, reconstructed the climate history of West Africa, she find variations in precipitation and argued that there were wetter conditions than those prevailing in this region today.
These shifts had a profound impact on the natural
environment and human society of West Africa. In order to understand we need to understand the social structure and its relation with nature.
During the little ice age, due to a wetter climate, the isohyets advanced northwards and the Sahelian cattle zone extended into the Adrar region, north. The cultivators of Savanna started to grow the maize (which requires at least 6000-millimeter rainfall), which was introduced by the Portuguese in this region. But In the early eighteenth century, the region became drier, therefore rainfall boundaries began to move southwards again, black African agriculturists move back to the south; Arab camel nomads advanced that’s why Arabs were able to impose their patrilineal culture on Berbers and black Africans to create a newly Arabized ethnic identity in cattle raising Sahel region.
Thus, the little ice age had a great impact on the early modern world, its impact isn’t uniform but differs from region to region. Europe and North America i.e the temperate region had greatly impacted due to adverse climates, such as cooler temperatures, and less favorable precipitation which increased mortality devastated the food crops and forced the people to shift to a different mode of production. Even it also impacted the tropical region like West Africa, this is how the climate shapes the world.
Bibliography
John F Rechards - “The Unending Frontier”
Gustaf Utterstrom - “Climate Fluctuations and populations”
Jan de Vries - “The Economic Crisis of the seventeenth century”
John A Eddy - “The Maunder Minimum”
Geoffrey Parker - “Crisis and Catastrophe- The Global crisis of the seventeenth century”
Dendrochronology- the study of annual growth and analysis of the width or other qualities of rings in long-lived trees. The systematic comparisons of cores bored in the trunk allow us to ascertain temperature, precipitation, drought, and pressure pattern which determined the tree’s growth
in Alpine and Polar ice caps and ice sheets- scientists measure annual snow accumulation for each layer of core and chemical isotopic analysis also gives important clues related to temperature, precipitation, weather, and climate variation.
Coral reefs- the coral reefs deposit skeletal growth continuously each year, material incorporation into coral skeletal shows climate variations. Its analysis tells us the temperature and precipitation variations
In Sediments from coastal basins of lake beds- scientists measure the variations in thickness changes in fossils pollen and geochemical compositions of each layer.
Narrative information contained in the written texts, Numerical information compiled from documentary proxy data, pictorial pieces of information contained in the dated visual representations of natural phenomena, and Epigraphic or archaeological information
There was no sunspot seen, for 70 years period approximately 1645 to 1715.
For nearly half of this time (1672 through 1704) not a single sunspot was observed in the northern hemisphere of the sun
For 60 years, until 1705, no more than one sunspot group was seen at a time
During the entire 70 years period no more than “a handful” of spots was observed and these were mostly single spots and at low latitude.
The total number of the sunspot observed from 1645 to 1715 was less than the single active year in normal conditions
John F Rechards - “The Unending Frontier”
Gustaf Utterstrom - “Climate Fluctuations and populations”
Jan de Vries - “The Economic Crisis of the seventeenth century”
John A Eddy - “The Maunder Minimum”
Geoffrey Parker - “Crisis and Catastrophe- The Global crisis of the seventeenth century”
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