The Iceberg in the Mist: Northern Research in Pursuit of a “Little Ice Age”

THE "LITTLE ICE AGE": LOCAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES P. D. JONES and K. R. BRIFFA Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. This volume of Climatic Change is devoted to the study of the climate of the last 1000 years, with a major emphasis on the last few centuries. The timespan encompasses what has been referred to as the "Little Ice Age" (Bradley, 1992). This term was originally coined by glaciologists, with reference to the most recent major glacial advance of the Holocene (Bradley and Jones, 1993). Although other such advances in different parts of the world may not have been synchronous, the term "Little Ice Age" has come to be associated with the period of a widespread foreward movement of European glaciers between about 14 50 to 1850, as well as with relatively cooler temperatures. The issue of whether or not this concept is appropriate, is a major theme of many of the papers included in this volume.

1. Introduction.- “Little Ice Age” Research: A Perspective from Iceland.- 2. Palaeoclimatic Data Analyses.- The Initiation of the “Little Ice Age” in Regions round the North Atlantic.- Oceanographic Change and Terrestrial Human Impacts in a Post A.D. 1400 Sediment Record from the Southwest Iceland Shelf.- The Time Period A.D. 1400–1980 in Central Greenland Ice Cores in Relation to the North Atlantic Sector.- The “Little Ice Age” and its Geomorphological Consequences in Mediterranean Europe.- Is There an Insect Signal for the “Little Ice Age”?.- Can Lichenometry Be Used to Date the “Little Ice Age” Glacial Maximum in Iceland?.- 3. Early Instrumental Observations.- Early Instrumental Meteorological Observations in Iceland.- The Tallinn Temperature Series Reconstructed Back Half a Millennium by Use of Proxy Data.- Reconstruction of Nineteenth Century Summer Temperatures in Norway by Proxy Data from Farmers’ Diaries.- 4. Synoptic Climatology.- Zonal Indices for Europe 1780–1995 and Running Correlations with Temperature.- 5. Human Dimensions.- A Quantitative Assessment of Buffers among Temperature Variations, Livestock, and the Human Population of Iceland, 1784 to 1900.