The Little Ice Age in Europe

- Evidence for Climactic Change

Key Information•Worst cold occurred between 1560 and 1850

•The climate cooled from the around 1250 onwards

•Well documented in both anecdotal and statistical evidence

•Much of the contemporary Europe affected, including:

•Agriculture - reduced growing season, food production adapted to use the full-season warm climactic periods suffered, no extreme-weather-resistant seed varieties available, famines resulted. Snow-thriving parasites destroyed crops on Swiss farms. Hay stocks ran out - livestock fed on poor alternatives, and many cows needed to be slaughtered. High altitude farms in Norway were abandoned for relatively better land in the valleys.

German Rye Prices

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Key Information

•Wine Production - grape cultivation in southern England absolutely stopped as crops could not stand the colder temperatures.

•Forests - tree populations much altered - warmth-loving beech replaced by oak and pine; more resistant to the cold.

•Fishing - fish in more northern waters migrated southwards to avoid the cooling. Traditional, established fisheries failed altogether for as much as half a century, while new fertile fishing grounds appeared in areas such as Newfoundland.

•Health - huge impact beyond deaths from famine/poor nutrition. Cool, wet summers led to outbreaks of St. Anthony’s Fire, causing convulsions, hallucinations, gangrene and even death. Immunity was weakened, and influenza and Bubonic Plague were assisted to spread all over Europe. Additionally Malaria managed to reach England.

Evidence for Malaria in England

•Marshland conditions, combined with the colder temperatures, made a favoured habitat for An. Atroparvus, a highly effective malaria vector. The disease was a major cause of illness and death in the area until the end of the 18th century, coinciding with temperatures increasing.

Key Information

•Social Unrest - the poor winters of 1708 and 1709 killed many people in France, with conditions so bad that in the spring of 1710 the poor of several cities rioted to keep the merchants from selling what little wheat they had left. Highlanders in Scotland carried out cattle raids on the Lowlanders, leading to clan warfare. People thought to be witches were scapegoats, and subject to witch hunts, since it was believed that weather-making was among their powers.

•Art and Literature - both writers and artists were influenced by the great change in climate. Percy Shelly wrote:

“…and wall impregnable of beaming ice. The race of

man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish…”

Many paintings represent the conditions of the time...

Art Depicting The Little Ice Age ‘Sports on a Frozen

River’

Aert van der Neer (Dutch)

ca. 1660

Art Depicting The Little Ice Age‘Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap’

Pieter Bruegel (Flemish)

ca. 1565

Art Depicting The Little Ice Age ‘The Hunters in the Snow’

Pieter Bruegel (Flemish)

ca. 1565

Reliability / Limitation•The shear volume of evidence and the wide range of sources provides an undeniably compelling argument, yet some limiting factors still need be considered:

•The human tendency to exaggerate - must be assumed in a proportion of the anecdotal evidence

•Evidence not recorded at the time of occurrences may have distorted / become embellished through generations

•There is no way of knowing level of accuracy of documentation and statistical data.

•Art and Literature were created at least partly to entertain, and so evidential documentation is not their central purpose, hence they may not be 100% accurate representations.

•Other factors will have contributed to many of the problems mentioned, beyond simply the weather effects of The Little Ice Age

Consult the handout for more detailed information