Iceberg in the Mist: Northern Research in Pursuit of a "Little Ice Age"

About this book

The term 'Little Ice Age' was originally used by glaciologists to describe the most recent major glacial advance of the Holocene. Subsequently, the 'Little Ice Age' has come to be associated with a period of advances of European glaciers between about 1450 to 1850, as well as with relatively cooler temperatures. The issue of whether or not this concept remains accurate is a major theme of many of the papers included in this volume. The main geographical focus is on the North Atlantic and European sectors, and includes research from a number of different palaeoclimatic fields. Examples are the use of documentary sources, early instrumental records, grain-harvest data, fossil-insect data, ice-core records, glacial evidence, lichenometry, synoptic climatology, and also the human dimensions of climate change.The papers presented reflect state-of-the-art knowledge, as well as thought-provoking new insights into these subject areas. The book will be of value to all those interested in the above topics and in the overall themes of climate variability and global change.

Contents

Guest Editorial; A.E.J. Ogilvie, T. Jonsson. Preface: The 'Little Ice Age': Local and Global Perspectives; K.R. Briffa, P.D. Jones. 1: Introduction. 'Little Ice Age' research: a perspective from Iceland; A.E.J. Ogilvie, T. Jonsson. 2: Palaeoclimatic Data Analyses. The initiation of the 'Little Ice Age' in regions around the North Atlantic; J.M. Grove. Oceanographic change and terrestrial human impacts in a post A.D. 1400 sediment record from the southwest Iceland shelf; A.E. Jennings, et al. The time period A.D. 1400-1980 in central Greenland ice cores in relation to the North Atlantic sector; L.K. Barlow. The 'Little Ice Age' and its geomorphological consequences in Mediterranean Europe; A.T. Grove. Is there an insect signal for the 'Little Ice Age'?; P.C. Buckland, P.E. Wagner. Can lichenometry be used to date the 'Little Ice Age' glacial maximum in Iceland?; M.P. Kirkbride, A.J. Dugmore. 3: Early Instrumental Observations. Early instrumental meteorological observations in Iceland; T. Jonsson, H. Garoarsson. The Tallin temperature series reconstructed back half a millennium by use of proxy data; A. Tarand, P.A . Nordli. Reconstruction of nineteenth century summer temperatures in Norway by proxy data from farmers' diaries; P.A . Nordli. 4: Synoptic Climatology. Zonal indices for Europe 1780-1995 and running correlations with temperature; J. Jacobeit, et al. 5: Human Dimensions. A quantitative assessment of buffers among temperature variations, livestock and the human population of Iceland, 1784-1900; D.E. Vasey.

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