Three to four hundred years ago we had a cold snap, a lasting one

Some call it a mini ice age and the world cooled for several centuries. The people called it the "Wurm". It caused major havoc throughout the world and some even blame it for the Black Plague. Well now we have the opposite occuring. A major warming trend. Has anyone decided to name it? What could you come up with for a name? Something short and sweet. The cold snap was the "Wurm" maybe the heat wave could be the "Dragon" or ??????????

The Black Plague occurred well over three to four hundred years ago.

Think Middle Ages... not Renaissance or Enlightenment.

It was in the 1400's, I gues a few more years than four hundred but the cause was still accredited to the cooling

...and it wiped out almost half of the population of Europe. At the same time things began to get much cooler as witnessed by the cronicalling of more snow and ice renderings in the paintings and murals of the artists from the middle ages.

<snip>
The Black Death, 1348

Coming out of the East, the Black Death reached the shores of Italy in the spring of 1348 unleashing a rampage of death across Europe unprecedented in recorded history. By the time the epidemic played itself out three years later, anywhere between 25% and 50% of Europe's population had fallen victim to the pestilence.

The plague presented itself in three interrelated forms. The bubonic variant (the most common) derives its name from the swellings or buboes that appeared on a victim's neck, armpits or groin. These tumors could range in size from that of an egg to that of an apple. Although some survived the painful ordeal, the manifestation of these lesions usually signaled the victim had a life expectancy of up to a week. Infected fleas that attached themselves to rats and then to humans spread this bubonic type of the plague. A second variation - pneumatic plague - attacked the respiratory system and was spread by merely breathing the exhaled air of a victim. It was much more virulent than its bubonic cousin - life expectancy was measured in one or two days. Finally, the septicemic version of the disease attacked the blood system.

Having no defense and no understanding of the cause of the pestilence, the men, women and children caught in its onslaught were bewildered, panicked, and finally devastated.

The Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio lived through the plague as it ravaged the city of Florence in 1348. The experience inspired him to write The Decameron, a story of seven men and three women who escape the disease by fleeing to a villa outside the city. In his introduction to the fictional portion of his book, Boccaccio gives a graphic description of the effects of the epidemic on his city.

The Signs of Impending Death

"The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumours. In a short space of time these tumours spread from the two parts named all over the body. Soon after this the symptoms changed and black or purple spots appeared on the arms or thighs or any other part of the body, sometimes a few large ones, sometimes many little ones. These spots were a certain sign of death, just as the original tumour had been and still remained.
<MORE>

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfplague.htm

<also see> http://www.themiddleages.net/plague.html

As for that mini ice age:

<snip>
From around 800 A.D. to 1200 or 1300, the globe warmed again considerably and civilization prospered. This warm era displays, although less distinctly, many of the same characteristics as the earlier period of clement weather. Virtually all of northern Europe, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Greenland, and Iceland were considerably warmer than at present. The Mediterranean, the Near East, and North Africa, including the Sahara, received more rainfall than they do today. During this period of the High Middle Ages, most of North America also enjoyed better weather. In the early centuries of the epoch, China experienced higher temperatures and a more clement climate. From Western Europe to China, East Asia, India, and the Americas, mankind flourished as never before.

This prosperous period collapsed at the end of the thirteenth century with the advent of the "Mini Ice Age" which, at its most frigid, produced temperatures in central England for January about 4.5deg.F colder than today. Although the climate fluctuated, periods of cold damp weather lasted until the early part of the nineteenth century. During the chilliest decades, 5 to 15 percent less rain fell in Europe than does normally today; but, due to less evaporation because of the low temperatures, swampy conditions were more prevalent. As a result, in the fourteenth century the population explosion came to an abrupt halt; economic activity slowed; lives shortened as disease spread and diets deteriorated. <MORE>

http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/history_health.html

The Dark Ages May Have Really Been Dimmer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/01/010102061812.htm

ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2001) — LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 17, 2000 -- The beginning of the Dark Ages may have been literal, as well as figurative, as the result of a massive volcanic eruption in the 6th century, according to a volcanologist at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Ken Wohletz said an eruption in the Indonesian archipelago could have produced a 150-meter-thick cloud layer over the entire Earth, triggering a chain of climatic, agricultural, political and social changes that ushered in the Dark Ages.

Evidence supporting the catastrophe includes tree-ring and ice-core measurements, indications of a huge underwater caldera, and ash and pumice in the same area, said Wohletz, who discusses his work modeling such an eruption today (Dec. 17) at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

The 6th century was a turbulent, unsettling period in human history. The Roman Empire began to fall; nomads of central Asia migrated to Europe and the Near East; civilizations in Persia, Indonesia and South America collapsed; major religions experienced considerable change as natural events were viewed as omens.

And another link (a little bit more recent)...

Dark Ages May Have Been, Err, Dark

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040104154407data_trunc_sys.shtml

Scientists at Cardiff University in the UK believe they have discovered the cause of crop failures and summer frosts some 1,500 years ago - a comet colliding with Earth.

The team has been studying evidence from tree rings, which suggests that the Earth underwent a series of very cold summers around 536-540 AD, indicating an effect rather like a nuclear winter.

The scientists in the School of Physics and Astronomy believe this was caused by a comet hitting the earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere. The debris from this giant explosion was such that it enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the very cold weather.

Historical references from this period - known as the Dark Ages - are sparse, but what records there are, tell of crop failures and summer frosts.



interesting stufff

Black Plague

It probably began in Central Asia<2> and spread to Europe by the late 1340s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

MKJ

I was wrong in evening mentioning it because it really has nothing at all to do with my question. It is amazing how the mindset at DU works at times..Ignore the question and attack a small slight..

:shrug: MKJ

Black Death, outbreak of bubonic plague that struck Europe and the Mediterranean area from 1347 through 1351. It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the early 18th century. The last major outbreak of plague in Europe was in Marseilles in 1722. These plagues had been preceded by a cycle of ancient plagues between the 6th and 8th centuries AD; they were followed by another cycle of modern, but less deadly, plagues that began in the late 19th century and continued in the 20th century. The term “Black Death” was not used to refer to the plagues of 1347 through 1351 until much later; contemporaries usually referred to it as the Pestilence, or the Great

I thought it was caused by the plague bacillus, endemic in rodents in the middle east, brought to Europe by returning Crusaders and as a result of increased trade between the West and East, where it ran amuck in a new population. Silly me.

depending on the weather. I think during dry warm times it spreads via blood exposure (flea bites). When the weather is cold and rainy, it shifts to the very fast spreading pneumonia plague (inhaled droplets).

Climate change may have helped trigger the pandemic of plague. The weather in Mongolia encouraged a population surge in marmots which are hunted for their meat and fur. Plague was and is endemic in the marmot population. People in Mongolia were exposed to plague as a result of increased marmot hunting. Buyers of the marmot fur introduced plague into the urban areas throughout China. The plague traveled down the Silk Road from Mongolia into Europe and India.

Other outbreaks of disease associated with climate change include the Hanta Virus outbreak in the FOur Corners region following the 1997-98 El Nino. Increased rainfall increased the food supply, so the population of deer mice surged. Some of these mice moved into human habitations where people were exposed to their droppings and urine. The Hanta virus is endemic in this rodent population. Recent research suggests that similar outbreaks at the time of the Spanish Conquest may have killed more American Indians than introduced small pox.

the Little Ice Age. Agriculture contributes carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Following the Black Death, millions of acres of plowed fields reverted to forest. This could have generated a dip in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

by some accounts, toward the close of the 13th century and grew worse and lasted into the 18th. Just before it, was the Medieval Warm Period which started around the 10th century. Just as a few side points, at one point, the cold became so severe and the burning of wood and peat so extensive that England had to put restrictions of fires in some cities because of pollution. I think, although I could be wrong, that that occurred sometime in the late 14th century. Pretty bad when an early 15th century king has a better grasp of science than Bush.

A second anecdote. When you first use the Bodleian Library in Oxford, you have to swear that

"I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library."

When I took the oath, I was a tad confused about the fire part. Turns out in the mid 1600s, the winters were so brutal, students were burning pages of books and bringing in kindling and starting mini-fires in the library to keep warm.

edit: the times and exact frame are dicey, so I went with the general, but all ballpark.

were in the mid-to-late 1600s and on to the 1700s. I started looking at it a little ( very little) after a to the Bodleian. I didn't realize that it lasted into the 19th ( I really don't like the 19th cent. and I really don't like the cold). As far as when it started, there was a slow deepening over time. So I don't think that the earliest years (1300s) when there would have been an early impact are considered part by everybody. It is, I imagine, sort of like dating the Renaissance or the Medieval period. ( I am in Modernism and I can't even date that thing).

and that there were also a few huge volcanic eruptions during that time which prolonged and intensified the effects of this
"Mini Ice Age". It was also during this time that Europeans went from living largely in huts to actual constructed "homes".

n/t

The forces of nature care nothing for human speculation. Reality is reality.

There's no wondering. The human race is about to suffer an extreme loss of carrying capacity and therefore a huge die-off, and if the amazingly strong and rising forces of unreason, pseudoscience, and ignorance of propaganda continue into the New Dark Ages, the combination of the three crises, Energy Impoversihment due to Peak Oil, the coming Dark Ages ,plus Carrying Capacity collapse, may or may not push humanity into extinction.

Either way, it is likely to be a near thing, unless technology somehow finds a way to fix the problems our short-sightedness has created, which I think unlikely given the magnitude and multifaceted nature of our problems.

The die is already cast. Even if we shut off all of our excess CO2 production tomorrow, we would still suffer almost everything the same, and the environment may or may not be irreperably damaged.

But you know as well as I do that global human CO2 production will continue rising. China and India will see to that, even if we don't (which we will, being a BushPutinist State governed not by consent, but by Imperial Fiat).

Extinction will either happen or it won't. Peak Oil WILL happen, do the math. Global warming is already approaching a tipping point which may signal runaway warming (we will all know if that is the case a decade from now). And the New Dark Ages? Well, let's just say the Free World (shrunken as it is currently), not Amerika nor China nor Russia nor any other BushPutinist Totalitarian State, will determine if humanity is to plunge once again into Bushie-medeval ignorance.

But that could go either way, too.

Word!

Should there be anyone to tell the story after the dust settles. For what it's worth, I think there will be because I think that human resilience will lead at least some of our species to survive the coming clusterfuck.

"The Dead Years", we are surrounded by poisons and various radiations, eating pikes of pesticide and hormonally infected fats and sugars..

Yep, we just may leave as a legacy a tribe of piss drinking cave dwellers who scrape the mushrooms off that dank walls and eat them to survive, as everything ELSE, has DIED...

I pity my three year old son, wish I could live a thousand more years to protect him...

The burning BUSH

while cutting carbon may keep us in "normal", I guess, the latest is that there is a likelyhood of runaway if we stray outside of "normal" - and that that seems likely with the slow pace of cutting carbon/gas/oil and moving to solar/electric power plants and cars.

as a natural warming trend? :shrug:

Whose factories and SUVs melted the glaciers that formed the Great Lakes?

all those scientists in on the scam just to get research fund? Pure Genius!





:sarcasm:

I'm only saying that the earth was warming up without our help, too.

Do you deny that?

is man-made.

I also think that the stability of the climate for the last 10,000 years is an anomaly, one that we destroy at our peril.

there are natural warming and cooling periods of the Earth, but there is no denying that human beings are escalating the current warming trend, kind of like pouring kerosene on a fire.

people think. More and more researchers are finding evidence of swings in temperature and precipitation.

Just checking.

... that we're still warming up from the last ice age. Did you skip that day?

If you read my post, you saw that I acknowledged that we contribute to global warming. That does not change the fact that the earth was warming up long before we contributed, and will continue to warm up even if we stop contributing.

The only thing we can do is change the degree to which it warms. (Pun intended.) :)

It's really more of a college course.

When you get to college, you're going to learn a couple of things.

1. That because the earth is warmer now that it was during the last ice age, it does not mean the earth is not warming now anthropogenically. Leading logic scientists call that a non sequitor.

2. The earth finished warming up from the last ice age thousands and thousands of years ago. If you're going to use ice age cycles as a model the earth should be cooling as it enters a new ice age, not warming up.

I finished my college some time ago, although I'd like to take a class from time to time to keep my hand in.

I haven't read that we were "done warming" from the last ice age since the 70's, when the next one was supposedly coming.

Nowhere have I said that we do not contribute to global warming, or that we can't do something about it. I simply believe that even if we completely cease all man-made contributions, the earth will continue to warm, until it is ready to cool for the next cycle. None of us will be around for that....

"I haven't read that we were "done warming" from the last ice age since the 70's, when the next one was supposedly coming."

Exactly my point, Einstein. This was when we knew about Ice Ages, before we had confirmed anthropogenic global warming.

... that the earth is completely finished with its warming cycle from the last ice age, and is supposedly completely stable? ALL fluctuation in temperature these days is 100% due to human input, and if we could stop this human input, the earth's temperature would remain exactly as it is, with no change? Sorry, I haven't seen anything that would support position that anywhere except here.

For the 4th or 5th time, I agree that we contribute to the warming of the earth, and that we can take steps to slow that warming. However, I also believe that the earth will continue on with whatever cycle it is on with or without any input from us. The only thing we can affect is the speed and severity of the cycle; we can't stop or reverse it.

We should be prepared for change.

At the rate we're warming up the earth, the Great Lakes will evaporate. Is this ok with you?

I agree that we have an effect on the rate of warming, but my point with the Great Lakes example was that the earth can (and has) done the global warming thing without us for a very long time. I suspect that it will continue to do the global warming thing with or without us well into the future, too.

Doesn't mean we don't contribute, and doesn't mean we can't slow it down, but to pretend we can stop or reverse what the earth does is a pipe dream.

Whether you believe that Genesis is literally true or that the earth was created over millions of years, the record is clear - most of that time the earth wasn't hospitable to life. Humans and most of the other life on the planet exist in a narrow band of temperature variations. If the variations get beyond that band, we're done for.

It's very clear that human burning of fuels is contributing to rapid global warming. There are things that we can do about this. We can either wait until it's too late to do anything, or start reducing our carbon emissions now.

It's very much a red herring to point at little ice ages and little warming trends over the past millenia - we are past that point.

... I agree that we are contributing, and should stop doing so.

I believe that the earth will continue to warm at its own pace without our input, but that should not stop us from minimizing our contributions.

warming trend.

This is the last major ice stage. Do you know why the cold spell got the same name?

In North America, the three periods of glaciation are termed the Illinoian (-160,000 years), the Iowan-Wisconsin (-65,000 years) and the Wisconsin (-25,000 years), for their boundaries of extent.

:eyes:

A volcanic eruption the year before loaded the atmosphere with so much ash that it cooled off enough so that the next summer was never really warm in most places. Crops didn't grow; people starved. But it only lasted the one year as far as I know.

I do remember hearing about what you are talking about, although I was not aware it had a name, other than "Little Ice Age". Although I guess it was not as extreme nor as widespread, according to Wikipedia. I think this is a fairly accurate account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

It's not a "phase" - it's the ultimate result of mishandling the world.