A cold period that lasted from about A.D. 1550 to about A.D. 1850. This was the coldest period in about 1,500 years. There are many records - both scientific and historic that substantiate this. This period was marked by rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland, and Alaska. There were three maxima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming trend.[1]
- During the Little Ice Age, the River Thames froze over, the Dutch improved the ice skate and the great artists of the day learned to love a new genre: the winter landscape.[2]
An attempt was made by the UN's global warming study panel to dismiss the existence of the Little Ice Age, using the notorious hockey stick graph of Dr. Michael Mann.
During the 1600s, the sun's activity declined to a point known as the Maunder minimum.
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See also
- A 700-year record of Southern Hemisphere extratropical climate variability (Annals of Glaciology, vol. 39, p. 127-132, 2004) - P.A Mayewski, K. Maasch, J.W.C White, E.J. Steig, E. Meyerson, I. Goodwin, V.I. Morgan, T. van Ommen, M.A.J. Curran, J. Sourney, K. Kreutz
- Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability (Science, vol. 295. no. 5563, pp. 2250 - 2253, 22 March 2002) - Jan Esper, Edward R. Cook, Fritz H. Schweingruber
- Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and 20th century temperature variability from Chesapeake Bay (Global and Planetary Change, vol. 36, issues 1-2, March 2003, Pages 17–29) - T. M. Cronin, G. S. Dwyer, T. Kamiya, S. Schwede, D. A. Willard
- The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea (Science, vol. 274. no. 5292, pp. 1503 - 1508, 29 November 1996) - Lloyd D. Keigwin
- The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming in South Africa (South African Journal of Science 96: 121-126, 2000) - P. D. Tyson, W. Karlén, K. Holmgren and G. A. Heiss
- Torneträsk tree-ring width and density ad 500–2004: a test of climatic sensitivity and a new 1500-year reconstruction of north Fennoscandian summers (Climate Dynamics, January, 2008) - Håkan Grudd
- Tree-ring and glacial evidence for the medieval warm epoch and the little ice age in southern South America (Climatic Change, vol. 26, nos. 2-3, March, 1994) - Ricardo Villalba