Be It Remembered On The 14th Day Of February 2006, There Was Conducted A: Fill & Download for Free

A2AIndians Who made History From 2010–2019, I'm including Some Historical Events too.2010:India achieved the 100-mark in the medals tally of the event in the latest edition of CWG to occupy the second position in the overall standings. This will have a great impact on India.2. Indian Rupee Symbol Got Recognition.Designed By Mr Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam. Uday Kumar's design was chosen from a shortlist of five and he was awarded around 3,500 in prize money.3. Obama's Visit to India - American President met Prime Minister Manmohan SinghA few days ahead of the G20 summit. The main agenda of the much-hyped visit was to create jobs in the recession-hit USA.4. Saina Nehwal Won Hong Kong Open series beating her Chinese opponent Wang Shixian, Asian Games 2010 Gold Medalist.5. A.Raja - 2G Spectrum Scam - Be it in 1700s Robert Clive or A.Raja in 2010, Scam and Corruption have its place in History.One of India's biggest scam in 2010 was the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Then Telcom Minister A Raja was allegedly involved in the scam that made revenue loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crores, according to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).2011:Indian Anti-Corruption Movement led by Anna Hazare: Lokpal BillThe time when the Hashtag Trent Started on Twitter when Anna Hazare led the fight against Corruption and made the Whole nation to look at him. #Anna hashtag trended throughout India for many days awakening Indians to join hands and fight corruption together.But in Vain :(2. India won the Cricket World Cup. And this World Cup match Went Live on the Internet for free.one of the most unforgettable moments of 2011 isIndiawinning the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup after 28 long years. The whole nation stood united again and celebrated the victory against Sri Lanka in finals and against Pakistan in semi-finals.3. German Chancellor Angela Merkel conferred Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding for 2009 by President Pratibha Patil.The External Affairs Ministry release revealed that that the jury chaired by Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, has decided to confer the award for 2009 on Dr Merkel.4. Mamata Banerjee was sworn in as the first woman and 11th Chief Minister of West Bengal.In May 2011 she made History by ending the uninterrupted 34-year reign of the Left in West Bengal.2012:Agni-V, India's first intermediate-range ballistic missile (ICBM) test-firedIndia on April 19 test-fired for the first time its most-ambitious strategic missile, the over 5,000-km range Agni-V, in a bid to join the super exclusive ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) club that counts just US, Russia, China, France and UK as its members.2. Terrorist - Ajmal Kasab hanged.Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab caught alive after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, was hanged to death at the Yerawada central prison on Nov 21 morning, less than a week before the fourth anniversary of the carnage.Well, ThisTerroist’s hanging news is a History finally those Brave souls who caught this Killer Alive got justice and would have rest In Peace.3. Modi becomes Gujarat CM for the third timeGujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi led his party BJP to another landslide win, securing 115 seats in the assembly elections, two less than the 117 seats he had won last time.4. Pranam Mukerji became The 13Th President of India.One of India's most experienced and canny politicians, Mukherjee, the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate, won the sweepstakes with a massive margin, bagging 713,763 votes, about 70%, leaving Sangma way behind with 315,887 votes.2013:Mangalyaan - India Mars MissionThe Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally called Mangalyaan is a Mars orbiter launched into Earth orbit on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).The mission is a "technology demonstrator" project aiming to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.It was a proud moment of all Indians as this space-ship was conceptualized and developed by our very own ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization). It exhibited the expertise and command we Indians have over science and technology.2. Raghuram Rajan took over as the 23rd Governor of The Reserve Bank Of India (RBI)An economics professor who also served as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund succeeded D.Subbarao.3. President Pranab Mukherjee signed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013The Criminal Law [Amendment] Bill, 2013 was passed by the Lok Sabha on 19th March 2013, and by the Rajya Sabha on 21st March 2013. The President of India has accorded his assent to the Bill on 2nd April 2013 hence called as Criminal Law [Amendment] Act, 2013,”2014:India’s 29Th State Telengana was Born.Indian parliament passed a bill to create 29th state, dividing the southern state of Andhra Pradesh into two.The northern area was carved out to create Telangana, after decades of protests. K Chandrasekhar Rao, of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi party (TRS), which for 14 years spearheaded the movement for separation, was later sworn in as chief minister of the state.2. The Narendra Modi WaveThe BJP rose to power in May this year when they won the national elections with a sweeping majority.Led by Narendra Modi's election campaign, the party won 282 of the 543 seats in the Indian Parliament.3. India's Mars MissionPicture Speaks <3India Created History when ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) Aka Mangalyaan entered the Mars orbiter in its First Attempt.And Most importantly It was the Contribution of our Indian SheroesRitu Karidhal - Was a Deputy Operations Director to India’s Mars Orbital Mission. also Referred to as “Rocket Woman of India”Nandini Harinath - rocket scientist at ISRO’s Satellite Centre in Bengaluru. She was a part of the Mars Orbiter Mission, Maangalyaan.Minal Rohit - Minal Rohit is an Indian scientist and systems engineer with the Indian Space Research Organisation. She helped send the Mangalyaan space probe to Mars.Moumita Dutta - an Indian Physicist working at the Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation - Ahmedabad, She was part of the team Mangalyaan 20144. Kailash Satyarthi - First Indian Citizen who won the Nobel Peace Award 2014The only Indian to have won the award earlier is Mother Teresa, who became a naturalised Indian citizen in 1948.5. Sampoorna Singh Kalra popularly know as Gulzar Won Dadasaheb Phalke AwardVeteran lyricist received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in cinema2015:End Of An Era - India’s 11th President APJ Abdul Kalam died on 27th July at a hospital in Shillong, Meghalaya.He had gone to deliver a lecture at the age of 83. He was delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management in Shillong when he collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest.You will remain in our Hearts Sir, This Legends History will always be remembered.2. Rise Of AAP and Arvind Kejriwal.The Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal wins the Delhi Assembly Election, The party won 67 out of the 70 seats.3. Saina Nehwal became the first Indian woman shuttler to attain world number one rank.She created history as she became the First Indian Woman Shuttler to attain the World number One Ranking.4. PSLV Successfully Launches India's Multi Wavelength Space Observatory ASTROSATIndia's first space observatory Astrosat was launched on PSLV-XL.2016:Mariappan Thangavelu Won Gold Medal - India’s First Paralympian Gold MedalistAn Indian Paralympics high jumper. He represented India in 2016 summer Paralympic games held in Rio De Janeiro. In the men’s high jump T-42 category, he won the gold medal in the finals.2. India’s Surgical Strike Against PakistanLt Gen Ranbir Singh (DGMO) said that it had received “very credible and specific information” about “terrorist teams” who were preparing to “carry out infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states”.India Conducted “Surgical Strikes against suspected militants in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on 29 September 2016.3. PSLV-C34 - A historic satellite Launch by ISROIndian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched 20 satellites through a single rocket, breaking its 2008 record of launching 10 satellites in a single mission.Cartosat-2 Series satellite, the PSLV C-34 rocket blasted off from Sriharikota, carrying satellites mainly for international customers including the US, Germany and a Google-owned company.Most of the satellites entered orbit to observe and measure the Earth's atmosphere, while another aimed to provide service for amateur radio operators.4. PV Sindhu - First Indian Woman to Win an Olympic Silver Medal - Rio OlympicsPusarla Venkata Sindhu fought with tenacity, lost the finals, but created History with a stunning display of talent, power and grace.5. Sakshi Malik - Gold Medal - Rio OlympicsAnother Shero who got India it's Gold Medal, After a gritty performance at the 58kg women's wrestling category she won bronze, becoming the first Indian female wrestler and the fourth Indian woman to win an Olympic medal.2017:Manushi Chillar Crowned Miss WorldShe's the sixth Indian woman to win the crown. Born in Rohtak, she is pursuing a medical degree from a medical college in Sonipat.She was made brand ambassador for Anaemia Free Haryana, and her 'Beauty with a Purpose campaign Project Shakti' was given government support of Rs 18 crore, by Harayana CM.2. Ram Nath Kovind becomes PresidentGovernor of Bihar From 2015–2017Rajya Sabha MP from 1994–2006Ram Nath Kovind was sworn in as the 14th President of India on June 25, 2017.3. ISRO launched a record 104 satellites - February 2017India created history by successfully launching a record 104 satellites by Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) reliable vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).In its 39th flight, the PSLV-C37 took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and placed the satellites into the orbit.Out of the 104 satellites, 101 belonged to foreign countries. 96 were from the US and one each from Israel, UAE, Netherlands, Switzerland and Kazakhstan respectively.4. Pritika Yashini - India’s First transgender sub-inspector appointed in Tamil NaduPrithika, who was born as Pradeep, applied for recruitment to the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB), but her application was rejected as she didn't belong to the specified gender categories.She challenged this decision in different courts, and the High Court of Madras ordered for conducting a test for her. She cleared all her tests, and the judge asked the TNUSRB to appoint her as she was "entitled to the job". She took charge as the sub-inspector in Dharmapuri district on April 2.5. Anny Divya - World’s Youngest Female Commander to Fly Boeing 77730-year-old Air India pilot became the world's youngest female captain of a Boeing 777.She flew the world's largest twinjet during advanced training in London.2018:ISRO launched 31 satellites along with Cartosat-2The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 12 January 2018 launched 31 satellites along with Cartosat-2 satellite on its 44.4-metre tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) rocket.The 320-tonne rocket will place the satellites one-by-one and deploy them into the earth's lower orbit.2. `Gaganyaan - India's maiden human spaceflight programme'The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on August 28, 2018, unveiled the details of the Gaganyaan mission for manned space flight before 2022.The Gaganyaan mission was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 72nd Independence Day speech. PM Modi announced that this manned space mission will take Indian astronauts to space on board 'Gaganyaan' by 2022.ISRO Chairman, Dr K. Sivan said that the programme will make India the fourth nation in the world to launch a Human Spaceflight Mission. So far, only the USA, Russia and China have launched human spaceflight missions.3. India records best-ever performance at Asian Games 2018India with a haul of 69 medals including 15 gold recorded its best-ever performance in the history of Asian Games at the 2018 edition held in Jakarta and Palembang in Indonesia.India maintained its top-10 rank by finishing eighth yet again.2019:AF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman gets Vir ChakraVir Chakra - India's third-highest gallantry medalIAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman awarded with the Vir Chakra, on the occasion of Independence Day, while five other IAF pilots honoured with Vayu Seva Medal.IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman spent almost 60 hours in Pakistani custody after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down during aerial combat with Pakistani jets on February 27, just a day after the Balakot airstrike by India. The 36-year-old IAF pilot had suffered injuries while ejecting from his MiG-21 Bison.2. Chandrayaan 2 - ISRO makes us Proud Again and Again.Chandrayaan 2, India’s second lunar mission, was launched on July 22. It was scheduled to be launched on July 15, but it was aborted 56 minutes before lift-off due to a technical snag.The mission was successful, but it could not achieve one aspect -- to land its lander (Vikram) on the moon. Vikram carried the rover (Pragyan), which was expected to carry out various experiments on the moon's surface.On September 7, during the last minutes of descent, the communication link with Vikram snapped when it was about 2.1 km from the surface of the moon.After three days, the ISRO confirmed the sighting of Vikram through images beamed by the Orbiter. Even after 14 days ( 1 lunar day), communications could not be re-established. On December 3, NASA confirmed that its satellite had found the debris of Vikram lander.3. Jammu & Kashmir loses special statusIn August the Central Government announced the scrapping of Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir. In addition to scrapping the Article government also announced Split sate into two Union TerritoriesOne was Jammu and Kashmir With a Legislature and another Ladakh without Legislature.Thank You!!!Jai Hind!!Image Source: GoogleFootnotes:Saina Nehwal wins Hong Kong Open SeriesObama's trip to be biggest everIndia unveils new rupee symbolAngela Merkel chosen for Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding for 2009West Bengal's first woman CMAnna Hazare's anti-corruption protest sees Delhi signal compromiseIndia Wins 2011 Cricket World CupBJP's big Gujarat win; Narendra Modi to get third term as chief ministerPranab Mukherjee is the next President of IndiaAjmal Kasab hanged, buried at Pune's Yerwada JailIndia to test nuclear-capable Agni-I missile on WednesdayStringent anti-rape laws get President’s nodRaghuram Rajan takes over as 23rd Governor of Reserve Bank of IndiaMars Orbiter Mission Completes 1000 Days in Orbithttps://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/media/entertainment/veteran-poet-and-film-lyricist-gulzar-to-be-honoured-with-dadasaheb-phalke-award/articleshow/33656215.cmsChildren’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi awarded 2014 Nobel Peace Prize | Commonwealth Foundationhttps://www.narendramodi.in/namo-wave-during-rallies-as-lakhs-thronged-to-rally-venues-3147India's Mars mission: Picture that spoke 1,000 wordsTelangana is bornPresident APJ Abdul Kalam Dies at 83Reaching for the Stars: The Incredible Rise of Arvind KejriwalPSLV Successfully Launches India's Multi Wavelength Space Observatory ASTROSATSuperb Saina Nehwal is first Indian woman shuttler to be world number oneThe female wrestler who won India's first Rio medalISRO launches PSLV-C34 carrying 20 satellitesPV Sindhu is the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal after a heartbreakingly close badminton finalIndia Claims ‘Surgical Strikes’ Across Line of Control in KashmirRio Paralympics: Mariyappan Thangavelu wins gold medal in men's high jumpWorld's youngest female Boeing 777 pilot, Anny Divya, joins elite list of LinkedIn InfluencersPSLV-C37 Successfully Launches 104 Satellites in a Single FlightIndia's first transgender police officer appointed in Tamil NaduManushi Chhillar from India wins the title of Miss World 2017Ram Nath Kovind elected India's 14th President, to take oath on July 25India records best-ever performance at Asian Games 2018: In DetailISRO unveils Gaganyaan Mission to put Indians in space before 2022ISRO launches 31 satellites along with Cartosat-2IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan gets Vir Chakrahttps://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/chandrayaan-2-mission-has-achieved-98-per-cent-objectives-isro-chief-k-sivan/article29476059.ecehttps://www.thehindu.com/news/national/chandrayaan-2-mission-a-huge-success-isro-chief-k-sivan/article29476025.ece

This answer went out of hand well beyond the original intent of two short paragraphs that come first, and turned into rather comprehensive compendium of modern holidays in Russia, as well as some notes on popular traditions and even education. This turned out long, so brace for reading.Absolutely not. Most people, unless they specifically look it up on Wikipedia, presidential website, or watch evening TV news on October 7th (is mentioned briefly if at all) don’t even know the date. Putin’s age itself is better known (many people remember that he was born in 1952).October 7th was the Constitution Day of the USSR between 1977 and 1991, but then it wasn’t a day-off and wasn’t noticeably commemorated except themed postage stamps, front-page articles in newspapers and sometimes posters.Russia’s official federal (nationwide) holidays are:January 1 — New Year (starting 2020, December 31 is a day-off as well). This is the most loved holiday in Russia and around: it is not political, not religious and not ideological. Of course it derives from Christmas but technically is not related to it.January 6 — Orthodox ChristmasNew Year holidays is the longest sequence of days off, but for about 20 to 40% of people, mostly in the private sector, are working all days except January 1 (when only transport, emergency and essential services, and, after dinnertime, some 24/7 shops work). In 2020–2021 the New Year holidays, I call it “drunken week”, lasted for 11 days — December 31 to January 10 inclusive, the first fully working day of 2021 was January 11. Of course transport, infrastructure, emergency and medical services work 24/7 regardless; private businesses decide on their own, but it is only some shops, including most malls and groceries, that are open on the NYH. In 2021 anti-COVID-19 vaccination stations worked too — but not on January 1st. The first day of a year, particularly its first half, is the only time in a year when you can see Russia, including the liveliest parts of it like Moscow center, St. Petersburg bars and Sochi marine promenade in a complete standstill, silence and tranquility. But January 2 after 1 p.m. and onwards at the nearest megamall… well, don’t. Just don’t. Unless you love being in a crowd, of course.February 23 — Russian Army Day (Men’s Day). Usually 2 or 3 days off. 3 in 2021.March 8 — International Women’s Day. Usually 2 or 3 days off. 3 in 2021.May 1–2 — Labor Day (few people know that the date itself comes from the first organized strike held in… Chicago, IL, USA in 1886, and, moreover, on May 4th; originally a communist holiday).May 9 — Victory Day (in Europe it’s May 8 but in Russia it’s May 9 due to time difference that occured when Nazi Germany signed the capitulation in 1945). It is a day-off since 1965 and is the second most loved holiday after the New Year. Highly official at that, and it won’t change until the memory of the WW2 fades — which won’t happen in the foreseeable decades or at least until Vladimir Putin steps down.Practically May holidays for more and more people have a meaning close to Japanese “Golden Week”. While it is not a 9–11-day holiday sequence like in January, many people tie their official vacations, at least partially, to that time of the year; usually it is two weeks off, other two weeks are in July/August, like in the rest of Europe. Many take several days of unpaid leave. Those who don’t travel to domestic resorts or abroad, prefer to spend that time at their dáchas to prepare them for summer, and do seeding work in their gardens. Not everyone have dachas — I don’t, for example, and don’t want to — but anyway there is nothing serious usually scheduled for days between May 1 and May 9, like no conferences, corporate or official events and such, so generally life is slow on the first 10 days of May — except for agricultural and construction supplies trade and tourist industry — and it was like than even in 2020 because not all regions were on lockdown).June 12 — Russia Day (not many people recognize it and see no point in it. but most are happy to have an extra day off or a long weekend). Usually people spend that extended weekend at their dachas or go to short vacations to Turkey, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, or travel locally; also, many open-air concerts and events are held both officially and unofficially.November 4 — Day of National Unity. Technically it is a commemoration of 1612 victory of Russian people’s militia led by Minin and Pozharsky over Polish invaders, but it is obvious that it is a substitute for the November 7, which is a day of the 1917 Bolshevik October Revolution — which was a day-off for decades, people got used to have days off in November, and it also coincides with autumn break in schools that still stick to quarters schedule rather than trimesters, semesters, or floating school holidays.Most of the times federal holidays become extended weekends; often the adjacent weekdays are switched with the nearby Saturday, so that the preceding or/and the subsequent week has six working days in a row in exchange for a 3–4-day weekend.Other dates that are commemorated and/or recognised officially nationwide, but are working days, are:Orthodox Easter — floats close to Western Easter and Passover (Pesakh). It is not a day-off but many people do celebrate it, and most devout Christians go to church. There aren't that many of the latter — about 5 million, which is a small fraction of 146 million Russian population. In Moscow, metro, buses and trams work until 2 a.m. (usually until 1 a.m.).May 24 — Day of Slavic Writing and Culture. In the Orthodox Church it’s a day of St. Cyril and St. Methodius who are considered the inventors of Cyrillic (hence the name) writing. Little public resonance but quite a number of official events.June 1 — Children’s Day (UN World Children Protection Day). Official events and concerts dedicated to children in general and orphans are held; toy and children’s goods stores sometimes have discount sales.June 6 — birthday of Alexander Pushkin, Russian national poet (1799–1837). Pushkin is considered the author of modern Russian literary language. His literary heritage is an absolutely compulsory part of educational curriculum for all ages above 4, there is no person in Russia who doesn’t know who was Pushkin. On June 6th, a number of Pushkin-related and general literature-related events are held across Russia officially and unofficially.Pushkin’s role in formation of modern Russian language is similar to Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarca in Italy, William Shakespeare in England, Miguel de Cervantes in Spain, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) in France, Luís de Camões in Portugal, Johann Wolfgang von Göthe in Germany, Franz Prešeren in Slovenia, Adam Mickiewicz in Poland, Aleksis Kivi in Finland, Li Bo in China, Matsuo Basho and Ishikawa Takuboku in Japan, Kim So Wol in Korea, Rabindranath Tagore in India, etc. While Russian writers most known abroad are Lev Tolstoy, Fedor Dostoevsky and Anton Chekhov, they all acknowledged themselves literary heirs of Pushkin and indeed are such.July 8 — “artificial” holiday introduced in 2008: Orthodox commemoration day of St. Peter and St. Fevronia of Murom, who are, from the ROC’s point of view, were the example of a family. Officially it is called “Day of Family, Love, and Faithfulness”, or “Russian Love and Family Day”. It is pushed by the Russian Orthodox Church, mostly unsuccessfully, as a counterweight to Valentine’s Day. There are official televised concerts on that day, the main is held in Murom in presence of high officials and dignitaries.September 1 — Knowledge Day. If this is a weekday, it is a day when school starts across Russia. If not, the first school day is the next weekday, i.e. September 2nd or 3rd — but never August 31st. For most schoolkids this day is the day of sorrow of course ;).November 7 (1917 October revolution day) — communists still celebrate it and are allowed to conduct public rallies but last time it was celebrated officially was in 1991.Many people are curious why the October revolution day was celebrated in November and Christmas follows the New Year. The answer is simple: while West uses Gregorian calendar since 1582, in Russia before 1918 the official calendar was Julian because it was and is the calendar of Russian Orthodox Church, and Orthodoxy was the official religion of Russia until 1918. Russian Federation is officially secular but Orthodox Christianity is the most widespread religion that enjoys the status as close to official as it is possible in a secular state. Still, while the majority of Russian citizens and ethnic Russians consider themselves Orthodox Christians, they are much less devout believers than they think of themselves and accounted for officially.There also are “professional” or “industrial” holidays that are celebrated by those involved. Those are many: Aviation Day (actually there are two of them, by Imperial (August 12) and Soviet (August 18) count, so it is a festive week on most private airfields that aren’t many); Internal Affairs/Police Day (November 10); Railway Day (first friday of August), Teacher’s Day (first friday of October), etc., etc.One really notable day is August 2, the Blue Berets (military paratroopers, VDV) day. No sane gay, punk, nerd, hipster, or a high-heeled lady gets close to city parks and fountains because… well, you imagine a crowd of drunk ex-marines, right? Make them Russian and you’ll get the idea. In 2020 one of them didn’t hesitate to attack armed policemen and inflict quite a damage (he was put in jail but normally you don’t expect a military paratrooper to attack a cop, right?).Other holidays that have popular recognition and are partially supported officially but are not days-off:• Orthodox Epiphany (January 19). Many people practise ice-hole bathing, but they are either devout Orthodox Christians and healthy lifestyle nuts, usually both. Officially that is supported by the Ministry of Emergencies that defines official ice holes with rescue and ambulance supervision. News photographers, TV crews and many amateur photographers have a field day (or, rather, night). At least those who are willing to freeze their limbs to a degree.• Máslenitsa, also known as Butter Week or Crêpe Week — a week (the pivotal day is Thursday) before the Great Fast (which lasts for 48 days before Easter). Derives from pagan tradition of a either mid-winter day or spring equinox day but usually is on late winter or early spring as for centuries it is tied to Orthodox calendar. Traditional attributes include burning of a straw figure and lots of pancakes, flat or stuffed (Russian pancakes are closer to French crêpes; American-style pancakes have a place in Russia too, are called olád’yi but have no firm calendar connections). On the official part there are authority-backed public celebrations and bazaars, mostly pancake- related stuff as well as sled rides (climate and weather permitting), ice and snow sculpture festivals, and other winter amusements. Those are best to attend in the Golden Ring (Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Suzdal, Kostroma, Rostov Veliky, Pereslavl Zalessky, Myshkin) and historical (Tarusa, Kolomna, Pskov, Novgorod Veliky) towns, in Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, and Vologda. Top-grade flour, jam and caviar sales skyrocket because people bake and consume a lot of crêpes regardless of their attitude to Orthodox Christianity and religion in general. The main event of the year for Teremók fastfood chain that is based on Russian cr̂epes.• Yew Sunday — Russian and Eastern/Southern Slavic interpretation of Palm Sunday (in Orthodox tradition it’s a church holiday of Palm Sunday, or Jesus’s Entry to Jerusalem). Around this date yew starts to bloom and sprouts fluffy buds, and there are numerous folk traditions in Eastern Europe and Russia related to it. Not that it is officially backed but yew (contrary to valley-lilies and cowslips) is not an endangered species of plant, so authorities and police mostly overlook sales of freshly-cut thin budding yew twigs (those are brought to colder regions from warmer ones in numbers). Many people, including non-religious, but excluding allergic ones, bring these twigs home and/or to their offices and put into a water-filled vase. The twigs are alive for a week or two (some people manage to grow full trees from those twigs, but that is a rare occasion), so regardless of weather and climate that is a reminder of the imminent end of winter.• Rádonitsa (or Krásnaya Górka) — in Russian and Eastern Slavic tradition that is the ancestor day when people go to cemeteries to clean up graves of deceased relatives (some people consider it a “proper” variation of Halloween and Dia de muertos). During Soviet times that tradition amalgamated with Easter. In some Russian regions (mostly Moscow; Radonitsa is also officially recognised in Krasnodar Krai and Stavropol Krai) municipal authorities organize special express bus routes to cemeteries on Easter and Radonitsa weekends to make it more convenient for people to get to the ancestral graves. Extensive sales of artificial flowers and memorial wreaths.• Orthodox Holy Trinity Day — late May to early July (50th day after the Easter).• Transfiguration of Christ (August 19), in popular tradition called Apple Saviour (Яблочный Спас). It is mostly a church holiday but since it’s late August, a lot of stuff is ripe in gardens and fields, most notably apples. In some places, depending on yield, there is a particularly extensive offer of ripe sweet apples.• The Last Bell (May 25 or thereabouts) and Graduation Day (June 25) are unofficial and very much secular holidays that, quite obviously, commemorate the end of studies and with time gained the official backing (based on “if you can’t defeat it, lead it” principle).The Last Bell more or less coincides with the end of classes, and is a “interim graduation” for older kindergarteners that just had or will soon have their 7th birthday, 4-graders and 9-graders.Most schools in Russia are not split to dedicated elementary, middle/junior high and high, although in the recent years there is a tendency in major cities, particularly in Moscow, to separate elementary kids from the older ones. Compulsory universal education in Russia is 9 years but if you have only 9 years of general school under your belt, your career prospects are meagre to say the least.Anyway, 4-graders finish their elementary school where they have most subjects taught by one teacher and have permanent classroom, and come September they start regular school where they have to move between classrooms and teachers on each period, although in many schools 5th grade is considered “transitional”.9-graders can choose between continuing to 10–11 grades (essentially, high school), or college/trade school (2 years or 4 years). Trade schools are more like 2-year college courses in the US or Realschüle in Germany. Those who are not able (or think so) to pass the State Unified Exam (ЕГЭ, nationwide test similar to Turkish or Chinese graduation exams) go for colleges because 4 years in college allow entry to a higher education institution (institute, academy, university, higher school) without passing state exams and often directly for the second year.The Graduation Day is mostly a school graduation celebration but university students graduate about that date as well. In the recent years there are semi-official events with live concerts for the fresh school graduates held in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities. In Moscow a significant part of Gorky Park is closed off.Regional holidays that are not working days in specific regions:• Sabantui in Tatarstan, that marks the end of the plowing and sowing campaign. Usually it is May 30 or thereabouts. Official holiday and day-off in Tatarstan. In different connotations it is celebrated in many Russian regions along Volga river or with noticeable Tatar presence, but outside Tatarstan Sabantui is held on different dates, mostly some time on Summer.• Muslim holidays in regions where Islam is a dominant religion: Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Adygea. Those are “floating” according to the Muslim lunar calendar, and coincide with these days in other Muslim countries: Uraza-Bairam (Eid-al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan), and Qurban-Bairam (Eid-al-Atkha, the end of Hajj).Interestingly enough, in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia, where Muslims are much more observant than in other Russian regions, none of those are official days-off — although practically they usually are. Still, for secular people there it is a regular day.Some regions of Russia (all of which are ethnic republics) have their own national days that are regional holidays and days-off:• In Tatarstan, the Republic Day is August 30 and Tatar Constitution day is November 6. The latter usually coincides with federal holidays in November.• In Bashkiria, the Republic Day is October 11.• In Yakutia, a summer solstice day is a holiday, it is called Ысыах (Ysyákh), June 21. It is not official but practically everyone who considers themselves a Yakut, celebrate.• In Adygea, the Republic Day is October 5.• In Buryatia, Tyva, Republic of Altai, and Kalmykia where the prevalent traditional religion is Buddhism, first day of lunar year is celebrated officially and is a regional day-off, the date coincides with Chinese new year, but it is just one day-off contrary to 1–3 weeks in China.• In Tyva the Republic Day is October 15, the Tyvan Constitution day is May 6, and the Cattlebreeder Day (Naadym) floats between mid-July and early September.• In Kalmykia, the birthday of Buddha Shakyamuni is an official holiday and day-off (May/June, depends on lunar calendar). Other days-off in that region, apart from mentioned and federal holidays, are Zul day (25th day of the 10th lunar month, floats around December), and the day of the Steppe Code (Constitution of Kalmykia), which is April 5.• In St. Petersburg, the City Day (the day of the official city foundation in 1703) is on May 27. There are festive events and decorations but otherwise it is a regular day unless it is Saturday or Sunday.• In Moscow, the City Day is on the second (previously first) weekend of September. It isn’t a working day by definition.Finally, holidays that are discouraged officially and not recognized, but celebrated, mostly by secular and Western-minded youth:• Valentine’s Day• HalloweenThey started to gain popularity in the early 1990s in schools that had extended curriculum of English language (like the one I studied at), and with the uncontrolled influx of American and English culture they gained popularity. Since the late 2000s, officially recognized churches (mostly Russian Orthodox, Russian Old-Believers Orthodox, and authoritative Muslim imams; rabbis and lamas much less so) and conservative politicians and officials fiercely oppose these “alien” (and “satanic” in case of Halloween) holidays, the movement was started by then-governor of Belgorod region in 2006 (a particularly religious man who wouldn’t look out of place in the Bible Belt) by banning Halloween in schools of that region on the basis that “in holy Russian Orthodox lands there is no place for pagan and satanic Western celebrations” (that narrative goes particularly well with right-wing conservatives here, who are fervent Orthodox Christians, often monarchists and are very anti-American… but many of them sincerely approve Trump’s presidency — nuff said).Still, many people book tables for two in restaurants on February 14th, jewellery merchants start their sales and promotions about 10–12th of February (which still fits the bill of early purchase of gifts for the March 8 — and thus conservators get the whole nothing as they can’t ban legit trade on such grounds), and a lot of city kids exchange valentines (often anonymously and even more often online).On Halloween, clubs, restaurants, bars (particularly British, Irish and US-themed) and gift shops display a lot of attributes (mostly pumpkins, bat silhouettes and witch hats), and in Moscow and St. Petersburg there are plenty of teenagers and young adults in relevant costumes and makeup. Because of conservators, it is not possible anymore to celebrate Halloween at the majority of school being backed by teachers. Still, there are no legal grounds for banning Halloween from streets, commercial venues and public transport, except in Dagestan and Chechnya where the word of elders and, in the latter case, Ramzan Kadyrov, is a law itself, and in Krasnodar where conservative cossacks are a power to consider. Elsewhere, as long as you behave no one has any grounds for denying you from entering metro, bus, tram, or a mall if you look like Keith Simmons, Freddie Krueger, walking pumpkin, zombie, or a Hogwarts student. Although I would not advise to dress up for Halloween anywhere outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, central areas of Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, and maybe Kazañ and Innopolis. In Krasnodar, Stavropol, Makhachkala, Grozny, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Lipetsk, as well as in Crimea and many rural areas and working-class towns, such outfit may cost you at least fulmination and at worst serious injuries.

Yes.The official publication of “the hockey stick” temperature graph, shown below, convinced the world that there had to be a real Global Warming problem that should be addressed. And that could be achieved by reducing the use of fossil fuels by Western nations.This infamous fudged graph came from revising history by Michael Mann to HIDE THE DECLINE IN TEMPERATURE by removing the reality of the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age. It had an enormous effect on public fears of global warming.It certainly convinced me initially.So I graphed the original IPCC published data from 1990 against the “Hockey Stick”. The comparison shown above was stark. The intentional deception eliminated the previously well understood Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, . Added to the Mann graphic was “Mike’s Nature Trick to hide the decline”the original data showed a “decline” and that had to be “hidden”.The process involved was well explained by Prof Richard Muller in the is short extract from a presentation in October 2010 before his institution of the BEST temperature study.edmhdotmeMany scientists oppose the action of Michael Mann erasing climate history to create a new theory. Dr. Tim Ball is one of the most vigorous. For his efforts Mann started a SLAP libel suit to shut down the criticism. Mann recently lost the suit in the Supreme Court of BC for inordinate delay. He also refused to abide by a consent order to divulge his original data.Read the Supreme Court judgment finding against Michael Mann yourself here and you will see behavior unworthy of upright scientists by this man.SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 BY ANDREW LAWTON“Like the sword of Damocles”: Judge dismisses Michael Mann’s lawsuit against Tim Ball“A mere eight-and-a-half years after Penn State climatologist Michael Mann filed a lawsuit against Canadian professor Tim Ball, the case has been tossed out for its “inexcusable” delays.Justice Christopher Giaschi of the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued his decision in Vancouver on Aug. 22, in response to an application to dismiss by Ball.Based on his reasons, included in full below, the dismissal was ultimately justified by glacial pace at which the proceedings moved, and what the judge characterized as an absence of action by Mann’s team.The judge noted several periods of inaction between the commencement of the action in March, 2011 and the date of his decision.While Mann submitted four binders worth of documentation to combat the motion to dismiss, the judge found there was “no evidence from the plaintiff (Mann) explaining the delay.”Giaschi said the “inordinate delay” was not excusable, and that it prejudiced justice.An excerpt:The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant.The judge awarded Ball legal costs for the dismissal motion, and also the case itself.Mann v. Ball Page 4[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter.He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy onother matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me toHughes v. Simpson-Sears, [1988] 52D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice.”There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of http://them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), Is stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principleon which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the trial.”“IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIACitation: Mann v. Ball,2019 BCSC 1580Date: 20190822Before: The Honourable Mr. Justice GiaschiOral Reasons for JudgmentBall:M. ScherrD. Juteau Place and Date of Hearing: Vancouver, B.C.May 27 and August 22, 2019Place and Date of Judgment: Vancouver, B.C. August 22, 201[1] THE COURT: I will render my reasons on the application to dismiss. I reserve the right to amend these reasons for clarity and grammar, but the result will not change.[2] The defendant brings an application for an order dismissing the action for delay.[3] The plaintiff, Dr. Mann, and the defendant, Dr. Ball, have dramatically different opinions on climate change. I do not intend to address those differences. It is sufficient that one believes climate change is man-made and the other does not. As a result of the different opinions held, the two have been in near constant conflict for many years.[4] The underlying action concerns, first, a statement made by the defendant in an interview conducted on February 9, 2011. He said, “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.” This statement was published on a website and is alleged to be defamatory of the plaintiff. The notice of civil claim also alleges multiple other statements published by Mr. Ball are defamatory. It is not necessary that I address the many alleged defamatory statements.[5] 0690860 Manitoba Ltd. v. Country West Construction, 2009 BCCA 535, at paras. 27-28, sets out the four elements that need to be considered on a motion to dismiss. They are:a) Has there been inordinate delay in the prosecution of the matter?;b) If there has been inordinate delay, is it excusable in the circumstances?;c) Has the delay caused serious prejudice and, if so, does it create a substantial risk that a fair trial is not possible?; andd) Whether, on balance, justice requires that the action be dismissed.[6] I turn first to whether there has been inordinate delay. Some key dates in the litigation are:a) March 25, 2011, the action was commenced;b) July 7, 2011, the notice of civil claim was amended;c) June 5, 2012, the notice of civil claim was further amended;d) From approximately June of 2013 until November of 2014, there were no steps taken in the action;e) November 12, 2014, the plaintiff filed a notice of intention to proceed;f) February 20, 2017, the matter was initially supposed to go to trial, but that trial date was adjourned;g) July 20, 2017, the date of the last communication received from Mr. Mann or his counsel by the defendant. No steps were taken in the matter until March 21, 2019 when the application to dismiss was filed;h) April 10, 2019, a second notice of intention to proceed was filed; andi) August 9, 2019, after the first day of the hearing of this application, a new trial date was set for January 11, 2021.[7] There have been at least two extensive periods of delay. Commencing in approximately June 2013, there was a delay of approximately 15 months where nothing was done to move the matter ahead. There was a second extensive period of delay from July 20, 2017 until the filing of the application to dismiss on March 21, 2019, a delay of 20 months. Again, nothing was done during this period to move the matter ahead. The total time elapsed, from the filing of the notice of civil claim until the application to dismiss was filed, was eight years. It will be almost ten years by the time the matter goes to trial. There have been two periods, of approximately 35 months in total, where nothing was done. In my view, by any measure, this is an inordinate delay.[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter. He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy on other matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013 and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me to Hughes v. Simpson Sears, [1988] 52 D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice”. There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), I stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principle on which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the defendant's right not to be prejudiced by unreasonable delay that justice must be done.[Emphasis added][11] Additionally, based upon the evidence filed, the plaintiff and his counsel appear to have attended to other matters, both legal matters and professional matters in the case of the plaintiff, rather than give this matter any priority. The plaintiff appears to have been content to simply let this matter languish.[12] Accordingly, I find that the delay is inexcusable.[13] With respect to prejudice, such prejudice is presumed unless the prejudice is rebutted. Indeed, the presumption of prejudice is given even more weight in defamation cases: Samson v. Scaletta, 2016 BCSC 2598, at paras 40-43. The plaintiff has not filed any evidence rebutting the presumption of prejudice.[14] Moreover, the defendant has led actual evidence of actual prejudice. The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.[15] Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.[16] I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant. This is a relatively straightforward defamation action and should have been resolved long before now. That it has not been resolved is because the plaintiff has not given it the priority that he should have. In the circumstances, justice requires that the action be dismissed and, accordingly, I do hereby dismiss the action for delay.[17] Before concluding, I wish to note that the materials that have been filed on this application are grossly excessive in relation to the matters in issue. There are four large binders of materials filed by the plaintiff on the application to dismiss, plus one additional binder from the defendant. The binders contain multiple serial affidavits, many of which are replete with completely irrelevant evidence. In my view, this application could have been done and should have been done with one or two affidavits outlining the delay, the reasons for the delay, and the prejudice.[18] Those are my reasons, counsel. Costs?[19] MR. SCHERR: I would, of course, ask for costs for the defendant, given the dismissal of the action.[20] MR. MCCONCHIE: Costs follow the event. I have no quarrel with that.[21] THE COURT: All right. I agree. The costs will follow the event, so the defendant will have his costs of the application and also the costs of the action, since the action is dismissed.ERASING CLIMATE HISTORY TO CREATE A TEMPERATURE DECEPTIONThere is an abundance of evidence that the Medieval Warm period and the LIttle Ice age were real and global and there is no credible data to justify Michael Mann erasing these significant parts of the earth’s climate history.American history is replete with evidence of the Little Ice Age including George Washington’s famous march to Valley Forge suffering harsh winters.The story of that terrible winter has often been told. It was cold, but not quite cold enough, with abundant precipitation—sleet and freezing rain, calculated to drown roads in slush and wash out ferries and fords. Supplies disappeared. Men shivered in ragged summer uniforms, starved, and succumbed to disease. Worst, many officers gave up—not the likes of Henry Knox, Greene, Friedrich von Steuben, Anthony Wayne and many others, nor their wives—but the field officers essential to keeping the army functioning on a day to day basis. They resigned in droves.A Miracle of Leadership: George Washington at Valley Forge - Edward LengelAmerica’s Worst Winter EverBy Ray Raphael“For a Fortnight past the Troops both Officers and Men, have been almost perishing for want.” -George Washington, January 8, 1780BY CONNATIXIn January 1780, fighting in the Revolutionary War came to a standstill as Mother Nature transformed America into a frigid hell. For the only time in recorded history, all of the saltwater inlets, harbors and sounds of the Atlantic coastal plain, from North Carolina northeastward, froze over and remained closed to navigation for a period of a month or more. Sleighs, not boats, carried cords of firewood across New York Harbor from New Jersey to Manhattan. The upper Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and the York and James rivers in Virginia turned to ice. In Philadelphia, the daily high temperature topped the freezing mark only once during the month of January, prompting Timothy Matlack, the patriot who had inscribed the official copy of the Declaration of Independence, to complain that “the ink now freezes in my pen within five feet of the fire in my parlour, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”The weather took an especially harsh toll on the 7,460 patriot troops holed up with General George Washington in Morristown, N.J., a strategic site 30 miles west of the British command in New York City. On January 3, the encampment was engulfed by “one of the most tremendous snowstorms ever remembered,” army surgeon James Thacher wrote in his journal. “No man could endure its violence many minutes without danger of his life.” When tents blew off, soldiers were “buried like sheep under the snow…almost smothered in the storm.” The weather made it impossible to get supplies to the men, many of whom had no coats, shirts or shoes and were on the verge of starvation. “For a Fortnight past the Troops both Officers and Men, have been almost perishing for want,” George Washington wrote in a letter to civilian officials dated January 8.The winter at Valley Forge two years earlier is a celebrated part of America’s Revolutionary mythology, while its sequel at Morristown is now largely forgottenRef. America's Worst Winter EverPublished abstracts of research expose the tampering with history in Orwellian fashion as evidence of the Little Ice Age emerges around the world including China and the Southern hemisphere.GREAT WALL OF CHINA BUILT DURING MING DYNASTYClimatic ChangeNovember 2014, Volume 127, Issue 2, pp 169–182How climate change impacted the collapse of the Ming dynasty· Authors· Jingyun Zheng, Lingbo Xiao, Xiuqi Fang, Zhixin Hao Quansheng GeEmail author Beibei LiAbstractBased on the reconstructed temperatures, precipitation changes, and occurrences of extreme climate events, together with historical records on fiscal deterioration, food crises, and the frequencies of popular unrest, rebellions and wars, we identified three principal ways in which climate change contributed to the collapse in the Ming dynasty. Firstly, cooling, aridification, and desertification during a cold period destroyed the military farm system, which was the main supply system for the provisioning of government troops on the northern frontiers; these impacts increased the military expenditure from 64 % of total government expenditure in 1548–1569 to 76 % in 1570–1589 and thus aggravated the national fiscal crisis that occurred during the late Ming dynasty. Secondly, climate deterioration (e.g., cooling, aridification, and an increase in the frequencies of frost- and drought-related disasters, etc.) led to a 20–50 % reduction in the per capita production of raw grain in most areas of China, which resulted in widespread food crises and exacerbated the vulnerability of social structures during the last several decades of the Ming dynasty. Thirdly, the severe droughts occurring in 1627–1643 were a key trigger to the peasantry uprising. These droughts also played a significant role to promote the peasantry uprising, especially reviving the peasantry troops by recruitment of famine victims when they nearly perished in 1633 and 1638, and severely disrupting the food supply for the government troops, resulting in the final defeat of the government troops by the peasantry troops. This study contributes to an understanding of the climate-related mechanisms behind the collapse of the Ming dynasty, and provides a historical case study that enhances our understanding of the nature of interactions between climate change and social vulnerability.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1244-7Little Ice Age Climate near Beijing, China, Inferred from Historical and Stalagmite RecordsAuthors Weihong Qian YafenZhuhttps://doi.org/10.1006/qres.2001.2283Get rights and contentAbstractFour data sets yield information about Holocene climatic change in China at different scales of space and time: (a) 120-yr ground temperature and precipitation measurements covering eastern China; (b) two NOAA 10-yr 850 hPa wind records that highlight features of data set a; (c) an 1100-year record of annual calcite accumulation on a stalagmite near Beijing, and (d) Lamb-type average wetness and temperature data from Chinese historical records back to A.D. 1470 and 1450, respectively. Dry–wet fluctuations and cold–warm oscillations are inferred using the long-term stalagmite thickness series. Quasi-70, 140, 450, and 750-yr oscillations have been detected using a wavelet transform technique. A phase relationship between temperature and precipitation oscillations has been identified based on modern observations and historical records. In northern China, relatively lower temperatures correlate with periods when precipitation shifted from above to below normal. Three colder periods during the Little Ice Age (LIA) in China are inferred, centered in the late 14th century (750-yr oscillation), the early 17th century (450-yr), and the 19th century (140-yr). The latest cool period (1950s–1970s) is found at the 70-yr oscillation. Interdecadal drought–flood and cold–warm differences are explained using modern circulation patterns. LIA climate in China was likely controlled by East Asian monsoon circulation anomalies that were affected by variations in continent–ocean thermal contrast.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589401922835Those who claim Mann was right sometime focus on his numbers at the tip of the blade. This is a mistake as making the the stick flat with no temperature increase for a thousand years was the crazy and unjustified revision. His hockey stick with a flat stick had the effect of erased the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age that mattered for the radical claim that suddenly under industrialization humans are making the climate too hot with Co2.You see in these two graphs the Orwellian revision of conventional history by Michael Mann, yet he continues to refuse to show his data. The most insightful explanation comes from Dr. Richard Muller who is objective on this issue and has had direct experience with evaluating what happened.Hockey Stick graph is not ok today!"We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period!"ScootleRoyalePublished on 29 Oct 2010“Video of Dr David Deming's statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works on December 6, 2006. Dr Deming reveals that in 1995 a leading scientist emailed him saying "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". A few years later, Michael Mann and the IPCC did just that by publishing the now throughly discredited hockey stick graph. “There is a lot of data showing that as of today the blade of the hockey is false also because of the pause in warming and now temperatures are falling.“Reflections on Mark Steyn’s ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’ about Dr. Michael MannGuest Blogger / March 29, 2017Given what happened today in live testimony before the House Science Commiittee where Dr. Mann was testifying, this review seems germane and timely.“Guest essay by Rick Wallace“Mark Steyn’s A Disgrace to the Profession is a compilation of scientific commentary on Michael Mann and his work and is a valuable antidote to the idea that questioning or criticizing this particular researcher is an overt admission of ignorance, let alone an “attack on science”. What I will argue in this essay is that Steyn has done serious students of the AGW hysteria an even greater service. In fact, this work reveals some features of the hysteria that are, I think, critical for understanding it in depth. The present essay, which will elaborate on this point, is intended as a contribution to the study of what one of those quoted in Steyn’s book called “pathological science”.“For those who aren’t familiar with the work, Steyn’s book is a collection of highly critical comments by scientists of varying degrees of eminence concerning Michael Mann and his (in)famous “hockey stick” temperature graph. The book emanated from a still-ongoing lawsuit that Mann filed against Steyn for writing in a National Review Online article that the hockey stick was fraudulent. Steyn was struck by the fact that, when it came time to file third-party amicus briefs, no one filed a brief in Mann’s defense. So he began combing the Web and other resources, and found a plethora of critical comments that he collected into one volume.2,3“In fact, by now almost everyone, skeptic or warmest, has backed away from this very flawed piece of evidence.“The Medieval Warm Period – when Greenland got its name and was extensively farmed, and vineyards flourished in much of England – was a matter of uncontroversial historical record. But once you’ve decided to “repeal“it, it’s amazing how easy it is.” (Steyn, 33)“[The earlier account of past temperatures] was simply expunged from the 2001 IPCC report, much as Trotsky and Yezhov were removed from Stalin’s photographs by dark-room specialists in the later years of the dictator’s reign. There was no explanation of why both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, very clearly shown in the 1990 report, had simply disappeared eleven years later.” (Steyn, 10)“”The hockey stick is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence,” wrote Oxford physicist Jonathan Jones. Nature never asked for any and, when it fell to others to demonstrate the flaws of the stick, the journal declined to share their findings with its readers. Mann and a few close allies controlled the fora that mattered, and banished any dissidents. “It’s a completely rigged peer-review system,” concluded Cal Tech’s Dr David Rutledge.” (Steyn, 6)[Emphasis added]Reflections on Mark Steyn’s ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’ about Dr. Michael MannMann has argued that erasing Medieval history is justified because the warming and cooling only happened in Europe and was not global. This claim is contradicted with many peer reviewed studies showing Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age cooling around the world at the relevant times.Medieval Temperature Trends in Africa and ArabiaA synthesis of paleotemperature reconstructions from published case studies suggests warm onshore temperatures persisted across most of Afro-Arabia between 1000 and 1200 CE.By Terri Cook 9 February 2018Reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures have repeatedly indicated the Afro-Arabian region experienced climate perturbations, including an extended period of anomalously warm conditions, during medieval times. Because this Medieval Climate Anomaly represents the closest analogue to modern warming, it defines a crucial baseline by which modern postindustrial climate trends can be compared.Although the Medieval Climate Anomaly has also been documented in other parts of the world, its occurrence on the Arabian Peninsula and the African continent, which together comprise about one quarter of Earth’s landmass, is less certain.This is due to the lack of high-quality proxy records, such as ice cores and tree rings, in the region. To help fill this gap, Lüning et al. correlated and synthesized the findings of 44 published paleotemperature case studies from across the region and mapped the resulting trends of the anomaly’s central period, which lasted from about 1000 to 1200 CE.A comprehensive review of paleotemperature reconstructions paints a picture of warm onshore temperatures across Afro-Arabia between 1000 and 1200 AD.To better characterize temperature fluctuations in Africa and Arabia during medieval times, researchers synthesized paleotemperature records from across the region, including the Tanzanian portion of Lake Tanganyika (pictured here). A core from this lake represents one of the few medieval paleotemperature reconstructions that are available from the East Africa Rift. Credit: Andreas31, CC BY-SA 3.0The results indicate that the majority of onshore Afro-Arabian sites experienced warming during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. The one exception was the southern Levant, which endured a cold phase during the same interval. From offshore records, the team also documented cooling in locations that currently experience cold-water upwellings but generally warmer conditions away from these upwelling zones during the same period.In some records, the researchers noted the presence of obvious cold spikes during intervals corresponding to decreased solar activity or declining ocean cycles. This, they argue, suggests that solar forcing and changing ocean circulation are the most likely causes of medieval era climate change.This study represents a step toward globally characterizing the Medieval Climate Anomaly, an improved understanding of which will help scientists refine global climate models and improve hindcasting. To date, however, very few paleotemperature data exist from Afro-Arabia; the authors note that all of West Africa is currently represented by a single data point. Systematic research will be necessary to adequately reconstruct medieval paleotemperature patterns and their causes across this vast region.More evidence that the Medieval Warming Period was global, not regionalPaleoceanography Reseaerch Article“Warming and Cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and ArabiaSebastian Lüning Mariusz Gałka Fritz VahrenholtFirst published: 26 October 2017 Warming and Cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and Arabia Cited by: 6“AbstractThe Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) is a well‐recognized climate perturbation in many parts of the world, with a core period of 1000–1200 Common Era. Here we present a palaeotemperature synthesis for the MCA in Africa and Arabia, based on 44 published localities. The data sets have been thoroughly correlated and the MCA trends palaeoclimatologically mapped. The vast majority of available Afro‐Arabian onshore sites suggest a warm MCA, with the exception of the southern Levant where the MCA appears to have been cold. MCA cooling has also been documented in many segments of the circum‐Africa‐Arabian upwelling systems, as a result of changes in the wind systems which were leading to an intensification of cold water upwelling. Offshore cores from outside upwelling systems mostly show warm MCA conditions. The most likely key drivers of the observed medieval climate change are solar forcing and ocean cycles. Conspicuous cold spikes during the earliest and latest MCA may help to discriminate between solar (Oort Minimum) and ocean cycle (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, AMO) influence. Compared to its large share of nearly one quarter of the world's landmass, data from Africa and Arabia are significantly underrepresented in global temperature reconstructions of the past 2,000 years. Onshore data are still absent for most regions in Africa and Arabia, except for regional data clusters in Morocco, South Africa, the East African Rift, and the Levant coast. In order to reconstruct land palaeotemperatures more robustly over Africa and Arabia, a systematic research program is needed.”Citing LiteratureNumber of times cited according to CrossRef: 6Sebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka and Fritz Vahrenholt, The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Antarctica, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2019.109251, (109251), (2019).CrossrefChengcheng Liu, Hong Yan, Haobai Fei, Xiaolin Ma, Wenchao Zhang, Ge Shi, Willie Soon, John Dodson and Zhisheng An, Temperature seasonality and ENSO variability in the northern South China Sea during the Medieval Climate Anomaly interval derived from the Sr/Ca ratios of Tridacna shell, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 10.1016/j.jseaes.2019.103880, (103880), (2019).CrossrefSebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, Iliya Bauchi Danladi, Theophilus Aanuoluwa Adagunodo and Fritz Vahrenholt, Hydroclimate in Africa during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2018.01.025, 495, (309-322), (2018).CrossrefSarah Coffinet, Arnaud Huguet, Laurent Bergonzini, Nikolai Pedentchouk, David Williamson, Christelle Anquetil, Mariusz Gałka, Piotr Kołaczek, Monika Karpińska-Kołaczek, Amos Majule, Fatima Laggoun-Défarge, Thomas Wagner and Sylvie Derenne, Impact of climate change on the ecology of the Kyambangunguru crater marsh in southwestern Tanzania during the Late Holocene, Quaternary Science Reviews, 10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.07.038, 196, (100-117), (2018).CrossrefSebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, Florencia Paula Bamonte, Felipe García Rodríguez and Fritz Vahrenholt, The Medieval Climate Anomaly in South America, Quaternary International, 10.1016/j.quaint.2018.10.041, (2018).CrossrefSebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, Felipe García-Rodríguez and Fritz Vahrenholt, The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Oceania, Environmental Reviews, 10.1139/er-2019-0012, (1-10), (2019).CrossrefSupporting InformationFilename Descriptionpalo20457-sup-0001-2017PA003237-SI.pdfPDF document, 3.8 MB Supporting Information S1palo20457-sup-0002-2017PA003237-ds01.zipapplication/x-zip-compressed, 304 KB Data Set S1″Warming and Cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and Arabia“Big data finds the Medieval Warm Period – no denial hereJennifer Marohasy22 August 20177:49 AM“According to author Leo Tolstoy, born at the very end of the Little Ice Age, in quite a cold country:The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.So, our new technical paper in GeoResJ (vol. 14, pages 36-46) will likely be ignored. Because after applying the latest big data technique to six 2,000 year-long proxy-temperature series we cannot confirm that recent warming is anything but natural – what might have occurred anyway, even if there was no industrial revolution.Over the last few years, I’ve worked with Dr John Abbot using artificial neural networks (ANN) to forecast monthly rainfall. We now have a bunch of papers in international climate science journals showing these forecasts to be more skilful than output from general circulation models.During the past year, we’ve extended this work to estimating what global temperatures would have been during the twentieth century in the absence of human-emission of carbon dioxide.We began by deconstructing the six-proxy series from different geographic regions – series already published in the mainstream climate science literature. One of these, the Northern Hemisphere composite series begins in 50 AD, ends in the year 2000, and is derived from studies of pollen, lake sediments, stalagmites and boreholes.Typical of most such temperature series, it zigzags up and down while showing two rising trends: the first peaks about 1200 AD and corresponds with a period known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), while the second peaks in 1980 and then shows decline. In between, is the Little Ice Age (LIA), which according to the Northern Hemisphere composite bottomed-out in 1650 AD. (Of course, the MWP corresponded with a period of generally good harvests in England – when men dressed in tunics and built grand cathedrals with tall spires. It preceded the LIA when there was famine and the Great Plague of London.)Ignoring for the moment the MWP and LIA, you might want to simply dismiss this temperature series on the basis it peaks in 1980: it doesn’t continue to rise to the very end of the record: to the year 2000?In fact, this decline is typical of most such proxy reconstructions – derived from pollen, stalagmites, boreholes, coral cores and especially tree rings. Within mainstream climate science the decline after 1980 is referred to as “the divergence problem”, and then hidden.In denial of this problem, leading climate scientists have been known to even graft temperature measurements from thermometers onto the proxy record after 1980 to literally ‘hide the decline’. Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, aptly described the technique as a ‘trick’.Grafting thermometer data onto the end of the proxy record generally ‘fixes’ the problem after 1980, while remodelling effectively flattens the Medieval Warm Period.There are, however, multiple lines of evidence indicating it was about a degree warmer across Europe during the MWP – corresponding with the 1200 AD rise in our Northern Hemisphere composite. In fact, there are oodles of published technical papers based on proxy records that provide a relatively warm temperature profile for this period. This was before the Little Ice Age when it was too cold to inhabit Greenland.The modern inhabitation of Upernavik, in north west Greenland, only began in 1826, which corresponds with the beginning of the industrial age. So, the end of the Little Ice Age corresponds with the beginning of industrialisation. But did industrialisation cause the global warming? Tolstoy’s ‘intelligent man’ would immediately reply: But yes!In our new paper in GeoResJ, we make the assumption that an artificial neural network – remember our big data/machine learning technique – trained on proxy temperatures up until 1830, would be able to forecast the combined effect of natural climate cycles through the twentieth century.Using the proxy record from the Northern Hemisphere composite, decomposing this through signal analysis and then using the resulting component sine waves as input into an ANN, John Abbot and I generated forecasts for the period from 1830 to 2000.Our results show up to 1°C of warming. The average divergence between the proxy temperature record and our ANN projection is just 0.09 degree Celsius. This suggests that even if there had been no industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels, there would have still been warming through the twentieth century – to at least 1980, and of almost 1°C.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, relying on General Circulation Models, and giving us the Paris Accord, also estimates warming of approximately 1°C, but claims this is all our fault (human caused).For more information, including charts and a link to the full paper read Jennifer Marohasy’s latest blog post.Illustration: Detail from Peasants before an Inn, Jan Steen, The Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague.”New relevance of the history of the Little Ice Age as fear of too much warming shifts to the reverse concern of catastrophic freezing.Australia has record winter snowfall in July.Are You Ready For A Catastrophically Cold Winter?Published on November 11, 2019Written by Michael Snydercredit: i.ytimg.comExperts are warning us that this will be a “freezing, frigid, and frosty” winter, and even though the official beginning of winter is still over a month away, it already feels like that in much of the country right now.Over the next several days, it will literally feel like it is mid-January in much of the central and eastern portions of the United States. Many areas will be hit by temperatures that are 30 degrees below normal, and heavy snow is expected in some areas of the Midwest.Unfortunately, this bitterly cold weather is coming at a very bad time for corn farmers. According to the latest USDA crop progress report, only 52 percent of the corn in the middle of the country has been harvested. So about half of the corn is still sitting out there, and these extraordinarily low temperatures could potentially be absolutely devastating.In essence, this cold front threatens to put an exclamation point on an absolutely horrific year for U.S. farmers. According to the National Weather Service, we could possibly see “170 potential daily record cold high temperatures” over the next three days…“The National Weather Service is forecasting 170 potential daily record cold high temperatures Monday to Wednesday,” tweeted Weather Channel meteorologist Jonathan Erdman. “A little taste of January in November.”The temperature nosedive will be a three-day process as a cold front charges across the central and eastern U.S. from Sunday into Tuesday.We are being told that low temperatures in certain portions of Texas could plunge into the teens, and all across the Upper Midwest we could see low temperatures that are well below zero.Of course this is not the first wave of record cold weather to come rolling through this season. During the month of October, a couple of major blizzards roared through the Midwest and countless new cold temperature records were established.And unfortunately we should expect a lot more bitter weather in the months ahead. Both the Farmers’ Almanac and the Old Farmer’s Almanac are projecting that this upcoming winter will be unusually cold and snowy…Not long after the Farmers’ Almanac suggested it would be a “freezing, frigid, and frosty” season, the *other* Farmer’s Almanac has released its annual weather forecast—and it’s equally upsetting.While the first publication focused on the cold temperatures anticipated this winter, the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts that excessive snowfall will be the most noteworthy part of the season.The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which was founded in 1792, says that the upcoming winter “will be remembered for strong storms” featuring heavy rain, sleet, and a lot of snow. The periodical actually used the word “snow-verload” to describe the conditions we can expect in the coming months.So why is this happening?It is actually quite simple.During a solar minimum, solar activity drops to very low levels, and that tends to mean lower temperatures on Earth.Earlier this year, a panel of experts gathered to discuss the current solar minimum, and they came to the conclusion that it “could last for years”…If you like solar minimum, good news: It could last for years. That was one of the predictions issued last week by an international panel of experts who gathered at NOAA’s annual Space Weather Workshop to forecast the next solar cycle. If the panel is correct, already-low sunspot counts will reach a nadir sometime between July 2019 and Sept 2020, followed by a slow recovery toward a new Solar Maximum in 2023-2026.“We expect Solar Cycle 25 will be very similar to Cycle 24: another fairly weak maximum, preceded by a long, deep minimum,” says panel co-chair Lisa Upton, a solar physicist with Space Systems Research Corp.But that would actually be a best case scenario.There are others that believe that we have now entered a “grand solar minimum” such as the one that our planet experienced several hundred years ago. That one was known as “the Maunder Minimum”, and it resulted in a “little ice age”…The extreme example happened between 1645 and 1715 when the normal 11-year sunspot cycle vanished. This period, called the Maunder Minimum, was accompanied by bitterly cold winters in the American colonies. Fishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland were abandoned. Icebergs were seen near the English channel. The canals of Venice froze. It was a time of great hardship.Ultimately, the longer winters and shorter summers during the “Maunder Minimum” resulted in famine all over the globe, and multitudes ended up perishing…The Maunder Minimum is the most famous cold period of the Little Ice Age. Temperatures plummeted in Europe (Figs. 14.3–14.7), the growing season became shorter by more than a month, the number of snowy days increased from a few to 20–30, the ground froze to several feet, alpine glaciers advanced all over the world, glaciers in the Swiss Alps encroached on farms and buried villages, tree-lines in the Alps dropped, sea ports were blocked by sea ice that surrounded Iceland and Holland for about 20 miles, wine grape harvests diminished, and cereal grain harvests failed, leading to mass famines (Fagan, 2007). The Thames River and canals and rivers of the Netherlands froze over during the winter (Fig. 14.3). The population of Iceland decreased by about half. In parts of China, warm-weather crops that had been grown for centuries were abandoned. In North America, early European settlers experienced exceptionally severe winters.So far in 2019, there have been more than 200 days without a single sunspot on the sun.We do not know when solar activity will return to normal, but for now we should all prepare for a bitterly cold winter.Beyond that, we had better hope that we have not entered another “Maunder Minimum”, because right now we are struggling to feed everyone on the planet even in the best of years.Despite all of our advanced technology, we remain deeply dependent on the weather. Even a year or two of bad harvests could potentially be absolutely catastrophic, and the mainstream media will not tell us the truth until it is way too late to do anything about it.CommentsJAMES MATKINNovember 11, 2019 at 8:12 pm | #Snow predictions demolish false global warming crisis –“2000 Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, predicts that within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” See here.“2001 IPCC TAR (AR3) predicts that milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms. See here.“2004 Adam Watson, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Banchory, Aberdeenshire, said the Scottish skiing industry had no more than 20 years left. See here.Some Failed Climate PredictionsThink about why alarmists thought warming would end freezing winters in the future and you will see that if the earth is to ever exit the current Quaternary Ice Age [look it up in google] polar ice must become ice free in the summer. But heavy snowfall in the winter with the SNOW albedo keeps temperatures too cold to melt the glaciers in the spring and summer. Therefore the only way for ice free summers is for no or little snow in the winter. Because this is so far from happening around the world this issue becomes a silver bullet demolishing the fear of global warming and the need for the Paris Climate Accord.Are You Ready For A Catastrophically Cold Winter? | PSI IntlThe Little Ice Age is a history of resilience and surprises – Dagomar Degroot | Aeon EssaysSurviving Little Ice Age possible with “bold economic and social change” new ‘lessons history’Little Ice Age lessonsThe world’s last climate crisis demonstrates that surviving is possible if bold economic and social change is embracedWinter Landscape with Ice Skaters (c1608), by Hendrick Avercamp. Avercamp was deaf and mute and specialised in painting scenes of the Netherlands in winter. Courtesy the Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamMidway through the 17th century, Dutch whalers bound for the Arctic noticed that the climate was changing. For decades, they had waited for the retreat of sea ice in late spring, then pursued bowhead whales in bays off the Arctic Ocean islands of Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen. They had set up whaling stations and even towns in those bays, with ovens to boil blubber into oil. Europe’s growing population demanded oil for lighting and cooking, and for industrial purposes that included the manufacture of soap. Now, thick sea ice kept whalers from reaching their ovens even in mid-summer. Climate change, it seemed, had doomed their trade.Whaling Grounds in the Arctic Ocean by Abraham Storck, 1654-1708. Courtesy the Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamYet in the frigid decades of the late-17th century, the Dutch whaling industry boomed. Whalers discovered how to boil blubber aboard their ships or on sea ice, then learned how to transport it from the Arctic to furnaces in Amsterdam. There, labourers boiled the oil until it reached a purity never achieved in the Arctic, giving Dutch whalers a competitive edge in the European market. Shipwrights greased and reinforced the hulls of whaling vessels so that they could slide off thick ice and survive the occasional collision. The governing council of the Dutch Republic – the country that would become the Netherlands of today – allowed a corporate monopoly on whaling to expire, and thereby encouraged competition between hundreds of new whalers. Ironically, by provoking crisis, climate change spurred a golden age for the Dutch whaling industry.Many of us think of today’s extraordinarily rapid, human-caused climate change as an existential threat to humanity, one that will inevitably wipe away cities, industries, countries, perhaps even our species – or at least our way of life. Many historians, archaeologists and natural scientists have thought about the modest, natural climate changes that preceded the 20th century in much the same way: as existential threats to past civilisations. In their accounts, communities and societies wedded to old ways of life had little recourse when previously predictable weather patterns abruptly changed. Time and again, they argue, past climate changes provoked civilisational ‘collapse’: a sudden unravelling of social and economic complexity, culminating in a catastrophic decline in population. In popular books and articles, journalists and scientists draw on these ideas to argue that because natural climate changes destroyed past civilisations, anthropogenic warming could well doom ours.Yet new research is telling us something very different. It is revealing that many – perhaps most – communities successfully endured past climate changes. Some bounced back quickly after severe and previously unusual weather; others avoided disaster entirely. Many adapted to become more resilient to damage, or to exploit new opportunities. Climate change in fact repeatedly altered environments so they better suited how some societies grew food, made money, or waged war.Even in resilient societies, thousands died amid the most extreme weather unleashed by past climate changes. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that our ancestors often acted decisively and creatively to make the best out of trying times. Far from an outlier, the story of Dutch whalers in the Arctic is merely one example in a history of ingenuity in the face of past climate change.Sign up to our newsletterUpdates on everything new at Aeon.DailyWeeklySee our newsletter privacy policy hereIf you follow the weather, you will no doubt have heard that a day, month or year is the hottest on record. It might be tempting to assume that this record involves all of natural or at least human history, but it really refers only to the almost century-and-a-half in which weather stations equipped with accurate thermometers gradually spread across the world. For much of that period, human greenhouse gas emissions have been the driving force behind changes in Earth’s average annual temperature.To determine just how unusual these global changes are, how they might transform local environments, and how they are linked to the changing chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere, researchers have searched far and wide for evidence of earlier climatic variability. By measuring the thickness of rings embedded in the trunks of trees, for example, they have traced how the growth rates of trees scattered around the Earth accelerated or slowed in past centuries. They have compared these fluctuating growth rates to recent, reliable records of temperature and precipitation, and thereby developed an understanding of how different trees respond to climatic trends. With that knowledge, they have used growth rings in living trees, fossilised wood and even timber embedded in ancient buildings to reconstruct changes in Earth’s climate from antiquity to the present.Tree rings in bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) wood. Photo by James St John/Flickr; licensed under CC BY 2.0Other scientists have drilled deep into the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, and exhumed long cylinders – ‘cores’ – of densely packed ice. The deepest ice in Antarctic cores might be millions of years old. Just as tree trunks are wound with growth rings, the cores are stacked with layers that register the annual accumulation of snow. By comparing the shifting ratios of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in these layers, scientists learn how precipitation patterns have fluctuated around the poles, which in turn reveals much about the history of Earth’s average annual temperature. Bubbles trapped in cores even contain tiny samples of the ancient atmosphere that, when carefully measured, reveal historic changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other gases.Climate ‘proxy’ sources such as tree rings or ice cores register the influence of past climate change. They do not directly record it as a thermometer might. Their ‘resolution’ – a word that could be roughly defined as their precision in time and space – might be quite low, and each source tends to work best for a particular period or place. Historians have learned to help scientists fill some of the gaps by using archaeological, textual or oral records of past weather. Perhaps the most abundant and most useful are logbooks written by European sailors in the age of sail. Because sailors had to keep track of the wind in order to navigate when out of sight of the coast, logbooks contain rich records of daily or even hourly weather.Under the scrutiny of historians and scientists, Earth’s past climate has gradually and grudgingly divulged its secrets, one imperfect source at a time. It turns out that our planet is a volatile place, with a climate that never stops changing.Global cooling in even the chilliest decades probably did not exceed 0.5 degrees CelsiusMidway through the 13th century, for example, parts of the Northern Hemisphere started cooling. The causes were complex, but involved some combination of cyclical changes in the orientation of Earth’s rotational axis, repeated declines in solar radiation, random fluctuations in oceanic and atmospheric currents, and volcanic eruptions that temporarily shrouded the Earth in veils of sunlight-scattering sulphur dioxide.Temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere fluctuated for a while before cooling sharply in the 15th century. They rebounded briefly in the 16th, then dropped across much of the world – including the Southern Hemisphere – later in that century. Temperatures in some places warmed briefly halfway through the 17th century, then cooled again until early in the 18th. After several decades of modest warming, renewed cooling beset much of the world until midway through the 19th century, when persistent warming finally set in.Global temperatures over the past 2,000 years, according to different statistical methods. The black line represents modern warming, as measured by meteorological instruments (such as thermometers in weather stations)These cooling waves are together called the ‘Little Ice Age’, which is more than a bit of a misnomer. Global cooling in even the chilliest decades of the 17th and 19th centuries – the coldest of the period – probably did not exceed 0.5 degrees Celsius. Unlike today’s warming, cooling reached different places at different times, with more or less severity, and hot years could interrupt even the coldest decades. Glaciers did expand out of many mountain ranges, but this was not an ‘Ice Age’.Nor was it ‘little’. Temperature anomalies were probably longer-lasting and more severe than any had been for millennia, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. They brought short-term changes in ocean currents and wind patterns that repeatedly drenched some regions in torrential rain, or afflicted others with landmark droughts. For those who lived through it, the Little Ice Age was no trivial matter.Archaeologists and historians have long argued that many societies were woefully unprepared for the cooling of the Little Ice Age, and therefore suffered tremendous losses. When the Little Ice Age first chilled Greenland, for example, the sedentary agricultural practices that Vikings brought with them from Europe were no longer viable. Yet the Vikings, they supposed, stubbornly adhered to those practices, victims of cultural assumptions that they could not abandon. As temperatures continued to drop in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Viking settlements disappeared.The remains of Hvalsey Church, the location of the last written record of the Greenlandic Vikings. Photo courtesy WikipediaAt around the same time, waves of bubonic plague swept across Eurasia, killing tens of millions. Some scholars have argued that torrential rains associated with the onset of a newly unstable European climate in the early 14th century ruined harvests and spurred the rise of disease among cattle, leading to a Great Famine that killed perhaps 10 per cent of the continent’s population. Malnutrition in children can permanently weaken immune systems, and those who were children during the Great Famine were especially vulnerable to the later arrival of the plague. Others claim that precipitation extremes provoked by the onset of a cool but unstable climate drove booms and busts in the population of rodent vectors for the plague. When rodents in central Asia multiplied, fleas that carried plague did too; when they declined, fleas overcrowded on surviving rodents fled in desperation to new hosts: humans living nearby. After such migrations, waves of plague slowly travelled west towards Europe.Researchers once knew little about the effects of the Little Ice outside of Europe, but no longer. It now seems, for example, that the frigid decades of the 15th century brought unseasonal frost across Mesoamerica, repeatedly ruining maize harvests in the Aztec empire. Food shortages provoked famine and, if surviving accounts can be believed, even cannibalism, weakening the empire just before the arrival of European ships and soldiers.Across Europe and North America, the 17th century was the coldest of the Little Ice Age. Researchers have argued that, by then, the world’s great empires had grown vulnerable to even the slightest shift in environmental conditions. Populations that expanded in the warmer decades of the 16th century increasingly depended on crops grown on marginally productive farmland. Imperial governments financed ever-more expensive wars using surpluses siphoned from far-flung hinterlands. With rural areas already stretched to breaking point, temperature and precipitation extremes provoked calamitous food shortages. Famines led to widespread starvation, migration and epidemics, which in turn kindled rebellions, civil wars and conflict between states. According to the historian Geoffrey Parker, this ‘fatal synergy’ between climatic cooling, starvation, disease and conflict culminated in a ‘global crisis’ that killed perhaps a third of the world’s population.Mutually reinforcing environmental trends exacerbated already-dangerous military and economic pressuresOver much of the world, the Little Ice Age reached its coldest point in the early 19th century, with the chilliest decade of all following in the wake of a massive volcanic eruption in 1809 and the cataclysmic detonation of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. Researchers have traced how summer frost ruined crops across China, especially in the province of Yunnan, where millions starved to death. Cooling also weakened the temperature differential between land and water, which delayed the vital rains of the Indian monsoon and thereby unleashed famine and epidemics across India.The caldera left behind by the Tambora eruption in 1815, which blew away much of the mountain. Photo courtesy WikipediaYet a new wave of research is revealing previously overlooked examples of creativity and adaptability even in communities that suffered most as Earth’s climate changed. Let us revisit, for example, the plight of the Vikings in medieval Greenland. Archaeologists now know that Viking settlers did not simply bring the same, inflexible set of subsistence strategies to every environment they colonised. In Greenland, for instance, Viking hunters learned to travel for hundreds of miles to kill walrus and harvest their ivory and hides. Sailors in longboats would bring these commodities to Europe in exchange for iron and other supplies that were difficult to obtain in the Arctic.As the north cooled in the 13th century, Viking colonists developed an innovative irrigation system that increased hay harvests, while reducing their dependence on agriculture by hunting more seals and caribou. At first, Vikings in Greenland therefore adapted well to a cooler climate. Then, in the 14th century, the Thule – ancestors of today’s Inuit and Inupiat peoples – migrated into Greenland and clashed with Vikings over access to vital hunting grounds. European tastes also shifted away from walrus ivory, robbing the Greenlandic Vikings of their main export. It was only in this context – with several crises unfolding at once – that climatic cooling started to unravel the lives and livelihoods of Vikings in Greenland.The climatic story, too, is more complex than it once seemed. Cooling by itself might not have done in the Vikings. Rather, local and regional increases in the frequency and severity of storms; the extent and persistence of sea ice; and the variability and unpredictability of weather together disrupted Viking trade, hunting activities and agriculture. It was only when faced with all these challenges that the Vikings eventually disappeared from Greenland.It now seems that our ancestors were more than hapless victims in the face of climate change. In Greenland, cooling did not simply cause the destruction of stubborn agriculturalists, as scholars once believed. Rather, it was part of shifting and mutually reinforcing environmental trends that exacerbated already-dangerous military and economic pressures. Caught in that complex vice, the Vikings endured until they no longer could.Let us return to the Dutch Republic, a little country that has left behind a voluminous record of its travails in the frigid 17th century. At first glance it, too, was swept up in the global crisis. Scarcely a year went by that the Republic was not at war, if not in Europe then in the far-flung reaches of an embattled empire. Simmering tensions between different religious and political factions repeatedly erupted in mob violence and even, briefly, the beginnings of civil war. Between invasion and revolts, the existence of the Republic repeatedly looked uncertain. Taxation, public debt and the cost of labour soared over the course of the 17th century, while previously competitive industries, from textile manufacturing to brewing, declined. Powerful storms, a feature of the Little Ice Age in northwestern Europe, repeatedly broke through Dutch dikes and sluices, drowning thousands. Small wonder that researchers have grouped the Republic with other examples of climate-caused crisis in the 17th century.Yet take a step back, and the Dutch experience of climate change seems completely different. The Dutch economy boomed for much of the late-16th and 17th centuries, so that per-capita wealth was higher in the Republic than it was anywhere else in the world. Even in the face of economic headwinds later in the 17th century, the economy was flexible enough to transform itself, rather than decline. The Republic’s population soared, too, and urbanisation in the coastal provinces had little parallel until the 20th century. Infrastructure rapidly improved, and commerce expanded globally until the Dutch became the world’s leading trading nation. The Dutch army and especially its navy won battles and wars against far more populous nations, and the Republic became, for a while, Europe’s leading maritime power. Culture and science underwent such a remarkable efflorescence that the 17th century is still remembered by some as the Dutch ‘Golden Age’.To some extent, the Republic’s successes were partly a product of Dutch resilience to the Little Ice Age. People in coastal cities, for example, had diverse diets and could therefore cope with shortages in a particular food. Urban charities provided for the poor, who were particularly vulnerable to harvest failures in other countries. Climate change also seems to have benefitted the Dutch. Much of the Republic’s economic dynamism stemmed from activities at sea, where complex changes in patterns of prevailing wind mattered more than cooling. These changes shortened Dutch commercial voyages and often helped Dutch war fleets more effectively harness the wind when sailing into battle.A Dutch icebreaker, designed to break harbour ice into pieces for use in cellars. Courtesy the Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamClimate change did pose severe challenges for the Dutch and, when it did, the Dutch often adapted creatively. When storms sparked a series of urban fires across Europe, for example, Dutch inventors developed and then exported new firefighting technologies and practices. When winter ice choked harbours and halted traffic on essential canals, the Dutch invented skates and refined icebreakers. Merchants set up fairs on the ice that attracted thousands from afar, and pioneered insurance policies that protected them from the risks of storms at sea.Both Europe and the Americas now seem like hotbeds of resilience and adaptation to climate changeOther examples of societies that thrived during the Little Ice Age are now coming into focus. In the Americas, Indigenous communities appear to have been especially inventive and resilient in the face of the Little Ice Age. In the 16th and 17th centuries, for example, Neutral Iroquoians in Northeastern America adapted to a cooling climate by shifting away from sedentary agriculture, prioritising hunting and building smaller settlements. Neighbouring Iroquioan communities, by contrast, migrated and depended on decentralised social networks to share increasingly scarce resources. Some Algonquian societies adopted the opposite approach, abandoning egalitarian social orders in order to more effectively defend cornfields from rival communities. Wabanaki raiders used an Indigenous technology, the snowshoe, to outmanoeuvre English soldiers. And in the American Southwest, Mojave peoples learned how to store and transport food as effectively as any Dutch merchant.Comanche Indians Chasing Buffalo with Lances and Bows (1846-1848), by George Catlin. Courtesy WikipediaLike the Dutch Republic, the vast Comanche polity that surged to prominence across the 18th-century Great Plains seems both to have benefitted from and adapted to the cooling of the Little Ice Age. Beginning in the 16th century, chilly, rainy weather encouraged bison to migrate and then expand rapidly across the plains. While many Indigenous societies moved to take advantage, the Comanche soon dominated them by combining guns and horses for both hunting and raiding. By exploiting the vast and growing bison herds, the Comanche of the 18th century gained the wealth to raid or trade with societies across the entire Great Plains region. When frost or drought provoked food shortages in one community, another far away usually experienced different weather and therefore had enough supplies to make up the shortfall.Europe and the Americas: both continents once looked like epicentres of a global climate crisis. Yet increasingly, both now seem like hotbeds not only of vulnerability to climate change, but also of resilience and adaptation. Different communities and even individuals within societies experienced climate change very differently, and there does not seem to have been a common, dismal fate shared by all who faced the coldest centuries of the Little Ice Age.Our tendency in both popular media and academia to tell simplistic climate-change disaster stories has not served us well, either in understanding the past or in preparing for the future. Popular misconceptions that humanity is doomed – that we are, as the US presidential candidate Andrew Yang put it recently, ‘10 years too late’ – threaten to discourage the very action that could still limit anthropogenic climate change to manageable levels. Far less defensible assumptions that climate change has happened before and is therefore nothing to worry about – ahistorical nonsense often fronted by those who once denied the very existence of human-caused warming – pose even greater obstacles to urgent action. It is crucial that we expand the space between these harmful extremes. Writing more nuanced histories of past climate change is one way to do it.Those histories cannot reveal how exactly we will cope with extreme warming. The environmental challenges we face are far greater than those overcome by the Dutch or Comanche, but our means of understanding and confronting them are greater, too. Yet the past can reveal deep truths – parables – that might otherwise have remained hidden. It suggests, for example, that relatively small environmental shocks can provoke outsized human responses, especially in times when economic or political systems are strained to the breaking point. Yet it also reveals that climate change does not simply determine human outcomes, as some have assumed.The past tells us that when climatic trends make it impossible to live in the same city, grow food in the same way or continue existing economic relationships, the result for a society is not invariably crisis and collapse. Individuals, communities and societies can respond in surprising ways, and crisis – if it does come – could provoke some of the most productive innovations of all. Those responses, in turn, yield still more transformations within evolving societies. If that was true in the past, it is even more true today, as seismic political and cultural changes coincide with the breakneck development and democratisation of artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and other revolutionary technologies.Most attempts to estimate the economic or geopolitical impacts of future warming therefore involve little more than educated guesswork. The future is hard to predict – perhaps harder than it ever was – and both collapse and prosperity seem possible in the century to come. So let us approach the future with open minds. Rather than resign ourselves to disaster, let us work hard to implement radical policies – such as the Green New Deal – that go beyond simply preserving what we have now, and instead promise a genuinely better world for our children.Environmental history History of technology The environmentThe Little Ice Age is a history of resilience and surprises – Dagomar Degroot | Aeon EssaysUsing Patterns of Recurring Climate Cycles to Predict Future Climate ChangesD.J. Easterbrook, in Evidence-Based Climate Science (Second Edition), 2016“2.3.3 Medieval Warm Period (900–1300 AD)The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) is the most contentious of the late Holocene climatic oscillations because of claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and CO2 alarmists that it didn't really happen, ie, the basis for the infamous “hockey stick” assertion of no climate changes until CO2 increase after 1950.Oxygen isotope data from the GISP2 Greenland ice core clearly show a prominent MWP (Fig. 21.8) between 900 and 1300 AD. It was followed by global cooling and the beginning of the Little Ice AgeFigure 21.8. Oxygen isotope curve from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. (Red = warm, blue = cool.)Plotted from data by Grootes, P.M., Stuiver, M., 1997. Oxygen 18/16 variability in Greenland snow and ice with 103 to 105–year time resolution. Journal of Geophysical Research 102, 26455–26470 data.The MWP is also conspicuous on reconstruction of sea surface temperature near Iceland (Fig. 21.9; Sicre et al., 2008).Sign in to download full-size imageFigure 21.9. Summer sea surface temperatures near Iceland (Sicre et al., 2008).As shown by numerous studies using a wide variety of methods, the MWP was a period of global warming. One example among many is the study of tree rings in China (Fig. 21.10; Liu et al., 2011).Figure 21.10. Temperature reconstruction from tree rings in China. (Red = warm, blue = cool.)Modified from Liu, Y., Cai, Q.F., Song, H.M., et al., 2011. Amplitudes, rates, periodicities and causes of temperature variations in the past 2485 years and future trends over the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau. Chinese Science Bulletin 56, 2986–2994.Historical accounts confirm the worldwide occurrence of the MWP. It was a time of warm climate from about 900 AD to 1300 AD. Its effects were evident in Europe, where grain crops flourished, alpine tree lines rose, many new cities arose, and the population more than doubled. The Vikings took advantage of the climatic amelioration to colonize Greenland, and wine grapes were grown as far north as England, where growing grapes is now not feasible, and about 500 km north of present vineyards in France and Germany. Grapes are presently grown in Germany up to elevations of about 560 m, but from about 1100 AD to 1300 AD., vineyards extended up to 780 m, implying temperatures warmer by about 1.0–1.4°C. Wheat and oats were grown around Trondheim, Norway, suggesting climates about 1°C warmer than present (Fagan, 2000).Elsewhere in the world, prolonged droughts affected the southwestern United States and Alaska warmed. Sediments in central Japan record warmer temperatures. Sea surface temperatures in the Sargasso Sea were approximately 1°C warmer than today (Keigwin, 1996), and the climate in equatorial east Africa was drier from 1000 AD to 1270 AD. An ice core from the eastern Antarctic Peninsula shows warmer temperatures during this period.Oxygen isotope studies in Greenland, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Tibet, China, New Zealand, and elsewhere, plus tree-ring data from many sites around the world, all confirm the existence of a global MWP. Soon and Baliunas (2003) found that 92% of 112 studies showed physical evidence of the MWP, only 2 showed no evidence, and 21 of 22 studies in the Southern Hemisphere showed evidence of Medieval warming. Evidence of the MWP at specific sites is summarized in Fagan (2007) and Singer and Avery (2007).Evidence that the MWP was a global event is so widespread that one wonders why Mann et al. (1998) ignored it. Over a period of many decades, several thousand papers were published establishing the MWP from about 900 ADto 1300 AD. Thus, it came as quite a surprise when Mann et al. (1998), on the basis of a single tree-ring study, concluded that neither the MWP nor the Little Ice Age actually happened and that assertion became the official position of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC 3rd report (Climate Change, 2001) totally ignored the several 1000 publications detailing the global climate changes during the MWP and the LIA and used the Mann et al. single tree-ring study as the basis for the now-famous assertion that “Our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this. Today's climate pattern has existed throughout the entire history of human civilization” (Gore, 2007). This claim was used as the main evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 was causing global warming, and so, as revealed in the “Climategate” scandal, advocates of the CO2 warming theory were very concerned about the strength of data showing that the MWP was warmer than the 20th century and had occurred naturally, long before atmospheric CO2 began to increase. The Mann et al. “hockey stick” temperature curve was at so at odds with thousands of published papers, one can only wonder how a single tree-ring study could purport to prevail over such a huge amount of data.McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) and McKitrick and McIntyre (2005) evaluated the data in the Mann paper and concluded that the Mann curve was invalid “due to collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects”. Thus, the “hockey stick” concept of global climate change is now widely considered totally invalid and an embarrassment to the IPCC.”Medieval Warm PeriodHolocene Climate Variability*M. Maslin, ... V. Ettwein, in Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences (Second Edition), 2001Little Ice Age (LIA)The most recent Holocene cold event is the Little Ice Age (see Figures 2 and 3). This event really consists of two cold periods, the first of which followed the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) that ended ∼1000 years ago. This first cold period is often referred to as the Medieval Cold Period (MCP) or LIAb. The MCP played a role in extinguishing Norse colonies on Greenland and caused famine and mass migration in Europe. It started gradually before ad 1200 and ended at about ad 1650. This second cold period, may have been the most rapid and the largest change in the North Atlantic during the Holocene, as suggested from ice-core and deep-sea sediment records. The Little Ice Age events are characterized by a drop in temperature of 0.5–1°C in Greenland and a sea surface temperature falls of 4°C off the coast of west Africa and 2°C off the Bermuda Rise (see Figure 3).Download full-size imageFigure 3. Comparison of Greenland temperatures, the Bermuda Rise sea surface temperatures (SST) (Keigwin, 1996), and west African and a sea surface temperature (deMenocal et al., 2000) for the last 2500 years. LIALittle Ice Age; MWPMedieval Warm Period. Solid triangles indicate radiocarbon dates.D.J. Easterbrook, in Evidence-Based Climate Science (Second Edition), 20161 Solar Variation—Grand Minima“At the end of the Medieval Warm Period, ∼1300 AD, temperatures dropped dramatically and the cold period that followed is known as the Little Ice Age. The periods of colder climate that ensued for five centuries were devastating. The population of Europe had become dependent on cereal grains as a food supply during the Medieval Warm Period, and with the colder climate, early snows, violent storms, and recurrent flooding that swept Europe, massive crop failures occurred, resulting in widespread famine and disease (Fagan, 2000; Grove, 2004). Glaciers in Greenland and elsewhere began advancing and pack ice extended southward in the North Atlantic, blocking ports and affecting fishing. Three years of torrential rains that began in 1315 led to the Great Famine of 1315–1317.The Little Ice Age was not a time of continuous cold climate, but rather repeated periods of cooling and warming, each of which occurred during times of solar minima, characterized by low sunspot numbers, low total solar irradiance (TSI), decreased solar magnetism, increased cosmic ray intensity, and increased production of radiocarbon and beryllium in the upper atmosphere.Centuries of observations of the sun have shown that sunspots, solar irradiance, and solar magnetism vary over time, and these phenomena correlate very well with global climate changes on Earth. A number of solar Grand Minima, periods of reduced solar output, have been recognized (Fig. 14.1).Download full-size imageFigure 14.1. Solar minima.1.1 Wolf Minimum (1290–1320 AD)The Wolf Minimum was a period of low sunspot numbers (SSNs) and TSI between about 1300 and 1320 AD. It occurred during the cold period that marked the end of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the beginning of the Little Ice Age (LIA) about 1300 AD.The change from the warmth of the MWP to the cold of the LIA was abrupt and devastating, leading to the Great Famine from 1310 to 1322. The winter of 1309–1310 AD was exceptionally cold. The Thames River froze over and poor people were especially affected. The year 1315 AD was especially bad. Jean Desnouelles wrote at the time, “Exceedingly great rains descended from the heavens and they made huge and deep mud-pools on the land. Throughout nearly all of May, June, and August, the rains did not stop.” Corn, oats, and hay crops were beaten to the ground, August and September were cold, and floods swept away entire villages. Crop harvests in 1315 AD were a disaster, affecting an enormous area in northern Europe. In places, up to half of farmlands were eroded away, cold, wet weather prevented grain harvests, and fall plantings failed, triggering famines.In 1316 AD, spring rain continued, again impeding the sowing of grain crops, and harvests failed once again. Diseases increased, newborn and old people died of starvation, and multitudes scavenged anything edible. Whole communities disappeared and many farms were abandoned. The year 1316 was the worst for cereal crops in the entire Middle Ages. Cattle couldn’t be fed, hay wouldn’t dry and couldn’t be moved so it just rotted. Thousands of cattle froze during the bitterly cold winter of 1317–1318 and many others starved. The cold immobilized shipping. Rain in 1317–1318 continued through the summer and people suffered for another seven years. The coincidence of sudden cooling of the climate from the warm Medieval Warm Period to the harsh cold climate of the Little Ice Age during the Wolf Minimum was not just a coincidence, as shown by at least five later, similar instances.1.2 Sporer Minimum (1410–1540)The Sporer Minimum occurred from about 1410 to 1540 (Fig. 14.1). Like the Wolf Minimum, the Sporer coincided with a cold period (Fig. 14.2).Download full-size imageFigure 14.2. Relationship of solar minima, solar irradiance, and glacier advances. Blue areas were cool periods. Cool climates prevailed in all six solar minima since 1300 AD.1.3 Maunder MinimumThe Maunder Minimum is the most famous cold period of the Little Ice Age. Temperatures plummeted in Europe (Figs. 14.3–14.7), the growing season became shorter by more than a month, the number of snowy days increasedfrom a few to 20–30, the ground froze to several feet, alpine glaciers advanced all over the world, glaciers in the Swiss Alps encroached on farms and buried villages, tree-lines in the Alps dropped, sea ports were blocked by sea ice that surrounded Iceland and Holland for about 20 miles, wine grape harvests diminished, and cereal grain harvests failed, leading to mass famines (Fagan, 2007). The Thames River and canals and rivers of the Netherlands froze over during the winter (Fig. 14.3). The population of Iceland decreased by about half. In parts of China, warm-weather crops that had been grown for centuries were abandoned. In North America, early European settlers experienced exceptionally severe winters.Download full-size imageFigure 14.3. 1663 painting by Jan Grifier of the frozen Thames River in London during the Maunder Minimum.Download full-size imageFigure 14.4. Glaciers in the Alps advanced during the Little Ice Age.Download full-size imageFigure 14.5. Central England temperatures (CET) recorded continuously since 1658. Blue areas are reoccurring cool periods; red areas are warm periods. All times of solar minima were coincident with cool periods in central England.Download full-size imageFigure 14.6. CET during the Maunder Minimum.Download full-size imageFigure 14.7. Oxygen isotope record, GISP2 Greenland ice core showing the Maunder Minimum. Blue area is cool, red is warm. The isotope record shows the same cooling as the CET.”Medieval Warm Period