2. [Washington Post]
Wednesday, August 13, 1997
The Little Ice Age: When Global Researchers also drill into glacial ice at the
Cooling Gripped the World poles and on high mountains to obtain records
of snowfall, dust and atmospheric chemicals
By Alan Cutler contained in the ice. These can give
information on temperature, precipitation and
The year was 1645, and the glaciers in the even global wind patterns, if the source of the
Alps were on the move. In Chamonix at the dust can be determined. Layers within lake
foot of Mont Blanc, people watched in fear as sediments, coral reefs and cave formations can
the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) glacier be analyzed by sophisticated chemical
advanced. In earlier years, they had seen the techniques to determine the temperatures at
slowly flowing ice engulf farms and crush which they formed.
entire villages.
LIFE IN THE FRIGID TIME
They turned to the Bishop of Geneva for help,
and he made the journey to Chamonix. At the From all these data sources, climate
ice front he performed a rite of exorcism. researchers have assembled a broad picture of
a world that was, on average, one to two
Little by little, the glacier receded. But before degrees cooler than it is today. For
long the threatening ice returned, and once comparison, during the Pleistocene, when the
again the bishop was summoned. The struggle ice cap in eastern North America reached as
against the glacier continued for decades. far south as Pennsylvania, the world was
about nine degrees cooler.
Similar dramas unfolded throughout the Alps
and Scandinavia during the late 1600s and Averages, however do not tell the story. The
early 1700s, as many glaciers grew farther effects of the Little Ice Age were anything but
down mountain slopes and valleys than they uniform. Cooling was much more pronounced
had in thousands of years. Sea ice choked (or at least better documented) in the Northern
much of the North Atlantic, causing havoc Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere.
with fisheries in Iceland and Scandinavia. In some places and some years, winter
Eskimos paddled their kayaks as far south as temperatures were colder, but not summer
Scotland. At the same time in China, severe temperatures. In France, for example, the
winters in Jiang-Xi province killed the last of harsh winter of 1788-89 added to the misery
the orange groves that had thrived there for and discontent of the peasants, but Paris
centuries. warmed up pleasantly in time for the storming
of the Bastille that summer.
These and many similar events, bewildering
and disruptive to the societies of the time, are Cold and erratic weather patterns produced
pieces of a global climatic puzzle that numerous crop failures in northerly areas such
scientists and historians today call the "Little as Scotland and Norway. Native American
Ice Age." tribes such as the Iroquois relocated their
villages to escape the cold. These migrations
Throughout the world, from Norway to New stirred up political conflict among tribes,
Zealand, glaciers in mountainous areas leading to the creation of nonaggresssion pacts
advanced. Elsewhere, particularly in parts of like the famous League of the Iroquois,
Europe and North America, temperatures adopted in the 1500s.
plummeted and harsh weather set in. It was a
time of repeated famine and cultural Perhaps hardest hit were the Norse settlements
![[Washington Post]
Wednesday, August 13, 1997
The Little Ice Age: When Global Researchers also drill into glacial ice at the
Cooling Gripped the World poles and on high mountains to obtain records
of snowfall, dust and atmospheric chemicals
By Alan Cutler contained in the ice. These can give
information on temperature, precipitation and
The year was 1645, and the glaciers in the even global wind patterns, if the source of the
Alps were on the move. In Chamonix at the dust can be determined. Layers within lake
foot of Mont Blanc, people watched in fear as sediments, coral reefs and cave formations can
the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) glacier be analyzed by sophisticated chemical
advanced. In earlier years, they had seen the techniques to determine the temperatures at
slowly flowing ice engulf farms and crush which they formed.
entire villages.
LIFE IN THE FRIGID TIME
They turned to the Bishop of Geneva for help,
and he made the journey to Chamonix. At the From all these data sources, climate
ice front he performed a rite of exorcism. researchers have assembled a broad picture of
a world that was, on average, one to two
Little by little, the glacier receded. But before degrees cooler than it is today. For
long the threatening ice returned, and once comparison, during the Pleistocene, when the
again the bishop was summoned. The struggle ice cap in eastern North America reached as
against the glacier continued for decades. far south as Pennsylvania, the world was
about nine degrees cooler.
Similar dramas unfolded throughout the Alps
and Scandinavia during the late 1600s and Averages, however do not tell the story. The
early 1700s, as many glaciers grew farther effects of the Little Ice Age were anything but
down mountain slopes and valleys than they uniform. Cooling was much more pronounced
had in thousands of years. Sea ice choked (or at least better documented) in the Northern
much of the North Atlantic, causing havoc Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere.
with fisheries in Iceland and Scandinavia. In some places and some years, winter
Eskimos paddled their kayaks as far south as temperatures were colder, but not summer
Scotland. At the same time in China, severe temperatures. In France, for example, the
winters in Jiang-Xi province killed the last of harsh winter of 1788-89 added to the misery
the orange groves that had thrived there for and discontent of the peasants, but Paris
centuries. warmed up pleasantly in time for the storming
of the Bastille that summer.
These and many similar events, bewildering
and disruptive to the societies of the time, are Cold and erratic weather patterns produced
pieces of a global climatic puzzle that numerous crop failures in northerly areas such
scientists and historians today call the "Little as Scotland and Norway. Native American
Ice Age." tribes such as the Iroquois relocated their
villages to escape the cold. These migrations
Throughout the world, from Norway to New stirred up political conflict among tribes,
Zealand, glaciers in mountainous areas leading to the creation of nonaggresssion pacts
advanced. Elsewhere, particularly in parts of like the famous League of the Iroquois,
Europe and North America, temperatures adopted in the 1500s.
plummeted and harsh weather set in. It was a
time of repeated famine and cultural Perhaps hardest hit were the Norse settlements](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)