Climate crisis: what lessons can we learn from the last great cooling-off period?

The ‘little ice age’ of the 14th to the 19th centuries brought cold winters to Europe and unusual weather globally. Studying how humans adapted could be valuableIn early February 1814, an elephant walked across the surface of the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge in London.The stunt was performed during thefrost fair, when temperatures were so cold that for four days the top layers of the river froze solid. Londoners promptly held a festival, complete with what we might now call pop-up shops and a lot of unlicensed alcohol.Nobody could have known it at the time, but this was the last of the Thames frost fairs. They had taken place every few decades, at wildly irregular intervals, for several centuries. One of the most celebrated fairs took place during the Great Frost of 1683-84 and saw the birth ofChipperfield ’s Circus. But the river in central London has not frozen over since 1814.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Climate crisis Science Environment Anthropology Evolution Geology Biology Volcanoes Arctic Society Source Type: news