Tiffany Jacobs

Climate & History: The Little Ice Age

HIST 141 (#71154)

*

**Period of reduced global temperatures

* Followed a warm period

* During the warm period, polar ice and glaciers melted and affected the balance in the ocean

* The temperature change of the ocean changed the weather patterns

*An era of cataclysmic events

* It wasn’t the decrease in

temperature that created the problem

* It was the change from what was

* considered normal that was

devastating

* Reshaped world and affected

significant historical events

* Destroyed Spanish armada

* French Revolution

Tiffany Jacobs

Climate & History: The Little Ice Age

HIST 141 (#71154)

*

*Followed the “Medieval Warm Period”

* Also known as the “Little Climate Optimum”

* This was a time of unparalleled farming & trade

* Building spree and unprecedented growth

*14th-19th centuries: Little Ice Age

* Began around 1300, near dawn of 14th century

* An unexpected and currently unseasonable chill settled on land

*Drop of 2-3 degrees Centigrade; 4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler

*Humans are alarmingly vulnerable to smallest drops in temperature

*The forces that definitely caused the Little Ice Age are a mystery

*Most believe it was not isolated event

Tiffany Jacobs

Climate & History: The Little Ice Age

HIST 141 (#71154)

*

* Millions of people died as a direct and indirect result of the Little Ice Age

* Over 1.5 Million perished due to great famine

* Parents abandoned children in the woods

* Most died of famine related diseases not starvation

* More vulnerable to Bubonic Plague “Black Death”– in 1347 (trading ships returning from Asia)

* Bubonic Plague, when it subsided in 1351, 25 million had died (1/3 of population)

* Plague was made worse by weakness, confinement due to the weather, and infestation of rats

* The invincible Vikings were humbled by the Little Ice Age

* Fertile farmlands were destroyed – mostly cereal crops

* Loss of crops resulted in increase in crime & rise of the potato

* 1.5 million Irish died during the Irish Potato Famine

* Volatility of climate affected French Revolution, American Revolution, French-Spanish wars

* Many think we are in the midst of another global warming period that could lead to another Ice Age

Tiffany Jacobs

Climate & History: The Little Ice Age

HIST 141 (#71154)