Effects Of Climate Change
On Tornow Farmers

The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling after a warmer era that is known as the Medieval Warm Period. Climatologists and historians find it difficult to agree on either the start or end dates of this period. Some say the Little Ice Age started about the 16th century and continued to the mid 19th century. It is generally agreed that there were three periods, one beginning about 1650, one about 1770, the last one about 1850. Each time was separated by slight warming intervals. 02

One hundred fifty years ago the North Central European Plain came to the end of a 500 year period of much colder weather that impacted farming. It was severe enough to cause difficult conditions for peasant farmers. Glaciers expanded to the point where they overcame mountain farm areas. This was preceded by the Medieval Warm Period. This was a five century period when agriculture flourished because of warmer temperatures and plenty of rainfall.

By the 1500s the North Central European Plain summers were about 12 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than during the Medieval Warm Period. The growing season was as much as three weeks shorter, and then by the 17th century it was as much as five weeks shorter. There was more eratic rainfall that caused both drought and floods.

North Central European Plain farmers during the Medieval Warm Period raised crops like wheat, rye, barley, and oats. Cerals crops like wheat and rye grow on stalks that were easliy damaged by the strong winds, heavy rainfall and hail. All of these crops did well in the regions around the Mediterranean, but in Germany the extreme weather resulted in crop failures that caused food shortages. 04

Glacier Circa 1900 hand coloured postcard 05

The Little Ice Age brought colder winters to parts of Europe and North America. Farms and villages in the Swiss Alps were destroyed by encroaching glaciers during the mid-17th century. Canals and rivers in Great Britain and the Netherlands were frequently frozen deeply enough to support ice skating and winter festivals.
Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction, closing harbors to shipping. The population of Iceland fell by half. Iceland also suffered failures of cereal crops and people moved away from a grain-based diet. The Norse colonies in Greenland starved and vanished by the early 15th century, as crops failed and livestock could not be maintained through increasingly harsh winters. Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s.
In his 1995 book the early climatologist Hubert Lamb said that in many years, "snowfall was much heavier than recorded before or since, and the snow lay on the ground for many months longer than it does today." Crop practices throughout Europe had to be altered to adapt to the shortened, less reliable growing season, and there were many years of dearth and famine (such as the Great Famine of 1315-1317). According to Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, "Famines in France 1693-94, Norway 1695-96 and Sweden 1696-97 claimed roughly 10 percent of the population of each country. 06

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