General description
The period known as the “Little Ice Age” spans roughly the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. During this time, temperatures over much of Europe were frequently unusually cold, Alpine glaciers advanced, and European rivers froze much more often than during medieval times or during the past century and a half. Cold climates also prevailed over several other areas, especially those adjacent to the North Atlantic. The combination of cold conditions over both Europe and eastern North America, the two areas with the greatest amount of western record-keeping, led many to consider the period as one of global cooling, resulting in the label “Little Ice Age.”
Modern science has shown, however, that there is considerable regional variation in the extent of the cooling, with some areas even warming during this period. It now appears that the Northern Hemisphere as a whole cooled only moderately (Briffa et al., 1998; Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1999; Crowley, 2000...
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Shindell, D.T. (2009). Little Ice Age. In: Gornitz, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4411-3_129
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