Influence of Dramatic Climate Shifts on European Civilizations:

Determining the Climate Record - the Little Ice Age:
"The barometer and thermometer were invented by Torricelli and Galileo, respectively, in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Early rain gauges being used to record precipitation were sometimes exposed on roofs, which led to inaccurate readings due to splashing out and to loss of water via evaporation. (These problems led Englishman Richard Townley in 1676 to lead a pipe down through his house so he could accurately measure the rain from his own bedroom!)

Therefore, in order to determine earlier climate, investigators infer the climate record from physical and biological fossil data including, among others, oxygen isotope ratios detected in ice cores, tree-ring dating, ice flow and glacier data, and archeological discoveries, and also from records intended for other purposes such as weather diaries, shipping logs, tax records, crop production and pricing records, allusions to climate in art and literature, etc.
A careful examination of the climate record reveals that Europe experienced a prolonged warm period known as the Medieval Warm Period (hereafter referred to as MWP) between the years 600 and 1150,
cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460,
a brief warming between the years 1460 and 1560,
followed by dramatic cooling known as the Little Ice Age (hereafter referred to as LIA) between the years 1560 and 1850. "

which means your ancestors starved, and had an incentive to move when wheat and rye prices peaked.
This also part of the background of social unrest leading to the franch Revolution
The romantic pictures of a frozen river Thames in London hide real suffering and starvation

Do read the whole of this fine site - relevant to global warming today too.


Possible Causes for Climate Change
Vikings During the Medieval Warm Period
The End of the Vikings in Greenland
Decline of the Vikings in Iceland
The Little Ice Age in Europe
Conclusion
Works Cited
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