The Little Ice Age: What Happened Around the World

by Marcia Wendorf, May 15, 2019 in InterestingEngineering


Between 1300 and 1850, the Earth experienced a Little Ice Age whose cause to this day is not known.

During the period 950 CE to 1250 CE, the earth experienced an unusually warm period, which became known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. At their height, temperatures during that period were similar to those experienced during earth’s mid-20th-century warming period.

Following the Medieval Warm Period came a period of intense cold, which has become known as the Little Ice Age (LIA). The term “Little Ice Age” was coined by Dutch-born American geologist F.E. Matthes in 1939. The LIA began around 1300 CE and lasted until about 1850 CE.

Within that stretch, NASA’s Earth Observatory has described three particularly cold periods: one around 1650, a second around 1770, and the third around 1850.