Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThe myth of Europe’s Little Ice Age
http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-little-ice-ageIf true, this would be mind-blowing.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)people who owned the frozen vineyards and the people who set up the ice fairs on the Thames considered it a statistical artefact? Or the Arctic people who had to start hunting seals because the whales couldn't reach the frozen Arctic ocean? Or the farmers in Norway who had to watch glacial ice cover their homes and land?
The simpler explanation is that it was bloody cold - statistical evidence or not.
caraher
(6,278 posts)They do address some of these kinds of points:
The freezing of the Thames which for most people is the most salient fact about the Little Ice Age was caused by Old London Bridge, whose twenty arches effectively acted as a dam, creating a large pool of still water that froze twelve times between 1660 and 1815.
Tidal stretches of the river have not frozen since the bridge was replaced with five-arched one in 1831 even during 1963, which was the third coldest winter since records begin in 1660 (after 1684 and 1740).
Grape growing in England was uncommon in the eleventh century a lot of confusion stems from mistaking the word vivarium (fish pond) for vinarium (vineyard) and disappeared entirely after Bordeaux passed to the English crown in 1152, suggesting that comparative advantage may have played a larger role than climate.
Similarly, the decline of wheat and rye cultivation in Norway from the 13th century may owe more to lower German cereal prices than temperature change.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)There is a whole lot of "may" in the author's text - something "may" have been caused by . . .
The only certainty they present is the Thames, (and that isn't new - hell, the idea of the bridge being relevant to the freezing was mooted two years ago in the Daily Mail, of all places). The river froze over twenty times between the 14th and 19th centuries - and every single time it did, it was cold. Very cold.
Are you arguing with the fact that it was colder than was usual? First hand accounts suit me better:
The Domesday book establishes the presence of 46 vineyards in England. Most of them were new plantings. They did not "disappear entirely" for quite a long time after 1152 - William of Malmesbury mentions wine from Glastonbury in the 12th century and Rabelais mentions English wine in the 15th century. What is more interesting than the evidence for its continued production is the evidence of when it stopped - with writers of he 17th-19th century commenting on the change in climate (it got colder).
Look, the article is interesting, but it relies too heavily on statistical analysis to be taken seriously. Unless you're a statistician and give all your faith to charts and graphs. I prefer a more rounded set of evidences from a variety of sources.
I asked because it wasn't clear whether you'd seen their remarks on the Thames and wine making.
I think to some degree you and the authors are talking at cross-purposes. Their main point is statistical in nature (i.e. is there evidence that there is anything beyond random fluctuation behind the cold years) and doesn't deny that there were indeed some extremely cold years. Explaining in detail events commonly associated with the Little Ice Age isn't their aim, and establishing that the cold years within that span need no explanation beyond chance doesn't imply that the cold did not have important effects (which is more your focus, defending that causal link). Nevertheless, the question will arise, "If this was "normal" why did these events happen?" and they are pointing out that cold weather is not the only factor involved in many of these - and in some cases those other factors may be more significant than most people tend to think.
I'll add that I don't really know whether even their statistical point is correct. I just thought there was potentially more to it than your previous response gave credit for.
If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that the authors are disputing the idea of a "little ice age" as an event, which seems like an odd focus on terminology alone.
I'm not sure how important it is to say, "there was a span of particularly cold weather that created conditions for xxx events" versus "there was a span of particularly cold weather that we refer to as a "little ice age" . . ."
As far as their pointing out that the weather wasn't the only factor involved; in that I'm afraid they did a poor job, which is really what set me off. It is poor scholarship to opine that there were other influences and then preface those influences with "may have" - because if they "may have" had an influence, they might also "may not have" had any influence at all.
Hoofbeats suggesting horses, not zebras - if a glacier eats a farm in Norway during a period of colder than normal weather, it is reasonable to assume that the reason the farmer stopped selling corn is because of the larger than usual glacier - not falling corn prices.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I wouldn't hang a dog on the evidence