The Initiation of the "Little Ice Age" in Regions Round the North Atlantic

The "Little Ice Age" was the most recent period during which glaciers extended globally, their fronts oscillating about advanced positions. It is frequently taken as having started in the sixteenth or seventeenth century and ending somewhere between 1850 and 1890, but Porter (1981) pointed out that the "Little Ice Age" may 'have begun at least three centuries earlier in the North Atlantic region than is generally inferred'. The glacial fluctuations of the last millennium have been traced in the greatest detail in the Swiss Alps, where the "Little Ice Age" is now seen as starting with advances in the thirteenth century, and reaching an initial culmination in the fourteenth century. In the discussion here, evidence from Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Spitsbergen and Scandinavia is compared with that from Switzerland. Such comparisons have been facilitated by improved methods of calibrating radiocarbon dates to calendar dates and by increasing availability of evidence revealed during the current retreat phase. It is concluded that the "Little Ice Age" was initiated before the early fourteenth century in regions surrounding the North Atlantic.     

The "Little Ice Age" and its Geomorphological Consequences in Mediterranean Europe

Alpine glacier advances in the "Little Ice Age" took place in the decades around 1320, 1600, 1700 and 1810. They were the outcome of snowier winters and cooler summers than those of the twentieth century. Documentary records from Crete in particular, and also from Italy, southern France and southeast Spain point to a greater frequency in Mediterranean Europe's mountainous regions of severe floods, droughts and frosts at times of "Little Ice Age" Alpine glacier advances. Deluges, when more than 200 mm of rain fall within 24 hours, are most frequent on mountainous areas near the coast. An instance is given of the geomorphological consequences of a great deluge which struck the Tech valley in the eastern Pyrenees on 17 October 1940. An increased frequency of deluges, probably at times when Alpine glaciers were advancing in the "Little Ice Age" and earlier in the Holocene, in areas known to be tectonically unstable and underlain by soft sediments, could better explain the occurrence of fluvial terraces in Mediterranean Europe sometimes known as the "younger fill", than soil erosion resulting from deforestation.     

Interannual Climate Variability Change during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age in PMIP3 Last Millennium Simulations

In this study, we analyzed numerical experiments undertaken by 10 climate models participating in PMIP3(Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project Phase 3) to examine the changes in interannual temperature variability and coefficient of variation(CV) of interannual precipitation in the warm period of the Medieval Climate Anomaly(MCA) and the cold period of the Little Ice Age(LIA). With respect to the past millennium period, the MCA temperature variability decreases by 2.0% on average over the globe, and most of the decreases occur in low latitudes. In the LIA, temperature variability increases by a global average of 0.6%, which occurs primarily in the high latitudes of Eurasia and the western Pacific. For the CV of interannual precipitation, regional-scale changes are more significant than changes at the global scale, with a pattern of increased(decreased) CV in the midlatitudes of Eurasia and the northwestern Pacific in the MCA(LIA). The CV change ranges from-7.0% to 4.3%(from -6.3% to 5.4%), with a global average of -0.5%(-0.07%) in the MCA(LIA).Also, the variability changes are considerably larger in December–January–February with respect to both temperature and precipitation.     

中国小冰期气候研究综述

通过对小冰期研究文献进行综述,并对已发表的小冰期温度和降水数据进行综合对比分析,探讨小冰期时期中国气候特征的区域性.结果表明,小冰期在中国地区不同区域代用指标记录中均存在,但是小冰期的起讫及持续时间具有区域差异性,温湿配置也不尽相同.小冰期的起始时间主要呈现出由西向东推移的趋势,即青藏高原最早,华北地区次之而东部地区最晚.温湿配置的差异主要体现在东部季风区小冰期时期总体上是冷干的气候环境,而西部地区气候变化则呈现冷湿的气候特征.     

Oceanographic Change and Terrestrial Human Impacts in a Post A.D. 1400 Sediment Record from the Southwest Iceland Shelf

Environmental proxies of soil erosion on Iceland, and oceanographic conditions on the adjacent shelf, were measured on a 50 cm box core taken from the southwest Iceland shelf in 1993 during cruise 93030 of the Canadian ship, CSS Hudson. These data, covering the last several centuries, are compared with the documentary record of sea-ice changes around Iceland since A.D. 1600. The site is under the influence of the Irminger Current, which carries warm, saline, Atlantic water northward along the shelf. Because of the relative warmth of this current, sea ice rarely occurs off southwest Iceland, even during the most severe sea-ice intervals of the historical record. In severe sea-ice years, however, the ice drifts clockwise around Iceland from the northeast and east and, in rare cases, reaches the southern coasts (Ogilvie, 1992). The chronology of the core was established by converting the basal radiocarbon date to calendar years and assuming a linear sedimentation rate from the base of the core to the year of collection, 1993. Organic carbon, stable C and O isotope ratios, planktonic foraminiferal assemblages, and sediment magnetic parameters were measured on samples from the core, plotted against calendar years and compared to the Icelandic sea-ice index. The environmental proxies suggest that increased soil erosion, reduced salinity, and, possibly, decreased marine productivity prevailed during the severe sea-ice interval lasting from the last quarter of the eighteenth century to around 1920. Such a situation could develop with climatic cooling, increased storminess, and loss of vegetation cover to stabilise the soil. Although the core site generally lies outside the sea-ice limits, the evidence clearly shows the influence of sea ice and fresh water, and is sensitive to the overall climatic deterioration manifested by the sea-ice record.     

Sensitivity of sea ice to wind-stress and radiative forcing since 1500: a model study of the Little Ice Age and beyond

Three different reconstructed wind-stress fields which take into account variations of the North Atlantic Oscillation, one general circulation model wind-stress field, and three radiative forcings (volcanic activity, insolation changes and greenhouse gas changes) are used with the UVic Earth System Climate Model to simulate the surface air temperature, the sea-ice cover, and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) since 1500, a period which includes the Little Ice Age (LIA). The simulated Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature, used for model validation, agrees well with several temperature reconstructions. The simulated sea-ice cover in each hemisphere responds quite differently to the forcings. In the Northern Hemisphere, the simulated sea-ice area and volume during the LIA are larger than the present-day area and volume. The wind-driven changes in sea-ice area are about twice as large as those due to thermodynamic (i.e., radiative) forcing. For the sea-ice volume, changes due to wind forcing and thermodynamics are of similar magnitude. Before 1850, the simulations suggest that volcanic activity was mainly responsible for the thermodynamically produced area and volume changes, while after 1900 the slow greenhouse gas increase was the main driver of the sea-ice changes. Changes in insolation have a small effect on the sea ice throughout the integration period. The export of the thicker sea ice during the LIA has no significant effect on the maximum strength of the AMOC. A more important process in altering the maximum strength of the AMOC and the sea-ice thickness is the wind-driven northward ocean heat transport. In the Southern Hemisphere, there are no visible long-term trends in the simulated sea-ice area or volume since 1500. The wind-driven changes are roughly four times larger than those due to radiative forcing. Prior to 1800, all the radiative forcings could have contributed to the thermodynamically driven changes in area and volume. In the 1800s the volcanic forcing was dominant, and during the first part of the 1900s both the insolation changes and the greenhouse gas forcing are responsible for thermodynamically produced changes. Finally, in the latter part of the 1900s the greenhouse gas forcing is the dominant factor in determining the sea-ice changes in the Southern Hemisphere.

The possible role of Brazilian promontory in Little Ice Age

The Gulf Stream, one of the strongest currents in the world, transports approximately 31 Sv of water (Kelly and Gille, 1990, Baringer and Larsen, 2001, Leaman et al., 1995) and 1.3 × 10¹⁵ W (Larsen, 1992) of heat into the Atlantic Ocean, and warms the vast European continent. Thus any change of the Gulf Stream could lead to the climate change in the European continent, and even worldwide (Bryden et al., 2005). Past studies have revealed a diminished Gulf Stream and oceanic heat transport that was possibly associated with a southward migration of intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and may have contributed to Little Ice Age (AD ∼1200 to 1850) in the North Atlantic (Lund et al., 2006). However, the causations of the Gulf Stream weakening due to the southward migration of the ITCZ remain uncertain. Here we use satellite observation data and employ a model (oceanic general circulation model – OGCM) to demonstrate that the Brazilian promontory in the east coast of South America may have played a crucial role in allocating the equatorial currents, while the mean position of the equatorial currents migrates between northern and southern hemisphere in the Atlantic Ocean. Northward migrations of the equatorial currents in the Atlantic Ocean have little influence on the Gulf Stream. Nevertheless, southward migrations, especially abrupt large southward migrations of the equatorial currents, can lead to the increase of the Brazil Current and the significant decrease of the North Brazil Current, in turn the weakening of the Gulf Stream. The results from the model simulations suggest the mean position of the equatorial currents in the Atlantic Ocean shifted at least 180–260 km southwards of its present-day position during the Little Ice Age based on the calculations of simple linear equations and the OGCM simulations.     

A model study of the Little Ice Age and beyond: changes in ocean heat content,hydrography and circulation since 1500

The Earth System Climate Model from the University of Victoria is used to investigate changes in ocean properties such as heat content, temperature, salinity, density and circulation during 1500 to 2000, the time period which includes the Little Ice Age (LIA) (1500–1850) and the industrial era (1850–2000). We force the model with two different wind-stress fields which take into account the North Atlantic Oscillation. Furthermore, temporally varying radiative forcings due to volcanic activity, insolation changes and greenhouse gas changes are also implemented. We find that changes in the upper ocean (0–300 m) heat content are mainly driven by changes in radiative forcing, except in the polar regions where the varying wind-stress induces changes in ocean heat content. In the full ocean (0–3,000 m) the wind-driven effects tend to reduce, prior to 1700, the downward trend in the ocean heat content caused by the radiative forcing. Afterwards no dynamical effect is visible. The colder ocean temperatures in the top 600 m during the LIA are caused by changes in radiative forcing, while the cooling at the bottom is wind-driven. The changes in salinity are small except in the Arctic Ocean. The reduced salinity content in the subsurface Arctic Ocean during the LIA is a result from reduced wind-driven inflow of saline water from the North Atlantic. At the surface of the Arctic Ocean the changes in salinity are caused by changes in sea–ice thickness. The changes in density are a composite picture of the temperature and salinity changes. Furthermore, changes in the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) are caused mainly by a varying wind-stress forcing; the additional buoyancy driven changes due to the radiative forcings are small. The simulated MOC is reduced during the LIA as compared to the industrial era. On the other hand, the ventilation rate in the Southern Ocean is increased during the LIA.     

Stained Glass and Climate Change: How are they Connected?

As expressions of regional architecture, sacred (Christian) Gothic structures often possess several adaptations to their prevailing climate regime. The late medieval (Gothic) period in northern Europe is also, according to the evidence presented here, marked by a transition from warm and sunny to cooler and cloudier conditions. It is within the context of this climate change that we consider one of the most important features in Gothic churches—interior daylighting—during the transitional period (the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth centuries) between the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). This paper seeks to determine whether increasingly cloudy conditions over northern continental Europe, in part due to a shift in North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) phase, may have influenced the use of more white glass in the fourteenth century. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an extensive daylighting dataset has been collected in medieval sacred interiors. From an analysis of these illuminance and luminance data collected in European churches and cathedrals, we find that high-translucency glazing is associated with limited lighting gains compared to full-colour programs under sunny conditions but substantial lighting improvements (up to an order of magnitude) for cloudy conditions. Additionally, we find that backlighting from direct sunlight produces significant obscuration of some of the iconographical glass when interiors are dominated by high-translucency glazing, further suggesting that these interiors are not ideal for sunny conditions.

[Traduit par la rédaction] Étant donné que les cathédrales gothiques (chrétiennes) sont des expressions de l'architecture régionale, plusieurs adaptations au climat de l’époque y ont souvent été apportées. À la fin du Moyen Âge (période du gothique), le climat chaud et ensoleillé en Europe du nord continentale a fait place à un climat plus froid et plus nuageux, d'après les preuves que nous présentons ici. C'est donc dans la perspective de ce changement climatique que nous nous penchons sur l'un des éléments les plus importants de l'architecture des églises gothique, l’éclairage naturel intérieur, durant la transition (du XIII^e siècle à la fin du XV^e siècle) entre la période chaude médiévale (MWP) et le petit âge glaciaire (LIA). Dans le présent article, nous voulons notamment évaluer si l'utilisation de plus en plus fréquente du vitrail blanc au XIV^e siècle s'expliquerait par les conditions plus nuageuses en Europe du nord continentale, attribuables en partie à un changement dans l'indice d‘oscillation nord-atlantique (NAO). À notre connaissance, c'est la première fois qu'une série élaborée de données a été recueillie sur l’éclairage à l'intérieur des cathédrales gothiques. L'analyse des données sur l’éclairement lumineux et la luminance lumineuse dans les églises et les cathédrales d'Europe nous permet de constater que le verre très translucide présente peu d'avantages comparativement au verre plein coloré dans des conditions ensoleillées, mais qu'il améliore considérablement l’éclairage dans des conditions nuageuses (jusqu’à 10 fois). De plus, nous constatons que l’éclairage en contre-jour produit par l'ensoleillement direct obscurcit une partie des pièces de verre ornées d'icônes lorsque le verre très translucide domine à l'intérieur, ce qui confirme une fois de plus qu'il ne s'agit pas d'un aménagement idéal pour les conditions ensoleillées.