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"Global Crisis" (http://www.amazon.com/Global-Crisis-Climate-Catastrophe-Seventeenth/dp/0300208634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433228609&sr=8-1&keywords=global+cris

"Global Crisis" (http://www.amazon.com/Global-Crisis-Climate-Catastrophe-Seventeenth/dp/0300208634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433228609&sr=8-1&keywords=global+crisis http://www.amazon.com/Global-Crisis-Climate-Catastrophe-Seve...) is a good history of the world-wide climate-driven castastrophe that occurred in the 1600's, which may have killed as much as 1/3 of the human race. The Little Ice Age was not a good time to be alive, because human economies are tuned up to be optimal in the current climate, whatever it happens to be, and when things change suddenly it takes a generation or two for people to adjust, and since food and other resources are in short supply the natural "solution" the problem is to take up arms and kill people and destroy things, because there is really no better way to ensure a return to surplus conditions than by obliterating the means of production. There were fairly widespread reports of cannibalism, and although some--like this one--may have been baseless (because it is based on nothing but a gut feeling, and the epistemic utility of our organs of digestion is limited at best) it's pretty clear that it did happen on multiple occasions in both China and Europe.

Hermel 11y ago
According this a recent paper (http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-little-ice-age http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-little-ice-age), Europe's little ice age is a myth.
- trhway 11y ago
  >The top panel of Figure 1 shows Low Countries’ summer temperatures from 1301, smoothed using a twenty-five year moving average. The Little Ice Age is immediately evident as a declining trend from the mid 15th to the early 19th centuries, with markedly cold episodes in the late 16th, late 17th, and early 19th centuries. But looking at the unsmoothed graph of summer temperatures in the panel below, the impression is one of randomness, without any major trends, cycles, or breaks: something that our statistical tests confirm. actually the paper exactly confirms the Little Ice Age - given that climate effects are cumulative (drought previous year, rain this year - nice, whereis rain previous 10 years makes your environment a swamp no matter what current year is), the smoothing with 25 years moving average is a very reasonable thing and produces result meaningful for climate and its effects upon, in particular, human civilization.
- ars 11y ago
  The existence of the little ice age has become a pawn in the arguments about global warming. I don't know enough about the topic to say what the truth is, but I can tell you that arguments for and against it have little to do with the little ice age itself, and everything to do with belief for or against global warming. Here is one conservative report on the subject: http://www.wnd.com/2009/12/119745/ http://www.wnd.com/2009/12/119745/
  - lawlessone 11y ago
    "I don't know enough about the topic to say what the truth is" Thanks for confirming for those of us that were not sure.

Hermel 11y ago

According this a recent paper (http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-little-ice-age http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-little-ice-age), Europe's little ice age is a myth.

trhway 11y ago
>The top panel of Figure 1 shows Low Countries’ summer temperatures from 1301, smoothed using a twenty-five year moving average. The Little Ice Age is immediately evident as a declining trend from the mid 15th to the early 19th centuries, with markedly cold episodes in the late 16th, late 17th, and early 19th centuries. But looking at the unsmoothed graph of summer temperatures in the panel below, the impression is one of randomness, without any major trends, cycles, or breaks: something that our statistical tests confirm. actually the paper exactly confirms the Little Ice Age - given that climate effects are cumulative (drought previous year, rain this year - nice, whereis rain previous 10 years makes your environment a swamp no matter what current year is), the smoothing with 25 years moving average is a very reasonable thing and produces result meaningful for climate and its effects upon, in particular, human civilization.
ars 11y ago
The existence of the little ice age has become a pawn in the arguments about global warming. I don't know enough about the topic to say what the truth is, but I can tell you that arguments for and against it have little to do with the little ice age itself, and everything to do with belief for or against global warming. Here is one conservative report on the subject: http://www.wnd.com/2009/12/119745/ http://www.wnd.com/2009/12/119745/
- lawlessone 11y ago
  "I don't know enough about the topic to say what the truth is" Thanks for confirming for those of us that were not sure.