What was the Little Ice Age?
The Little Ice Age (or LIA) refers to a period between 1350 and 1900 when temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were between 1.0 and 2.0°C cooler than at present. A NASA website that provides details on current research reports that “during the Little Ice Age, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s. At the same time, canals in Holland routinely froze solid, glaciers advanced in the Alps, and sea-ice increased so much that no open water was present in any direction around Iceland in 1695.” (See Shindell, 2001). It is clear that Europe and particularly Iceland and the Alps were hit hard, especially between 1645 and 1715 A.D. during the Maunder Minimum (Eddy, 1983 ), a period of depressed solar activity. There is also recent evidence from ice caps in the South American Andes that temperatures were also cooler in that region as well during much of the period. (Thompson, 1986). Prior to the Little Ice Age, there was a period now called the “Medieval Warm Per
