The Little Ice Age begins
Centuries of cooler, more volatile climate across the northern hemisphere.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 200 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
From around 1300 the North Atlantic region cools by a fraction of a degree on average but with far greater variability — advancing Alpine glaciers, frozen Thames, failed harvests and shortened growing seasons. Causes proposed include reduced solar activity, clusters of volcanic eruptions, and ocean circulation changes. The Norse Greenland settlements die out during it, and its agricultural effects run through European social history for five hundred years.