Monday, February 17, 2012

L11 - Feb 17

Today's Topics
Feb 17

1Little Ice Age Part 1 Recap¶

-- 1) little ice age: 1350-1850 (about 500 yrs)
-- maunder minimum 1645-1715
-- -- time of reduced sunspots
-- 2) avg. temp was 2-3 degree Celsius less than it is today (make sure to be explicit about temp units!)
-- 3) not just cooler temp, the weather was much more volatile/variant
-- 4) it impacted everything (wars, natural environment, agriculture, gave rise to urban centers, culture)
-- 5) exposed the vulnerability of society
-- -- recall that onset of little ice was the rain in 1315, people dying
-- 6) why is important to study the ice age?
-- -- sense of how society was affected by climate change
-- -- a sense of past climate variabilities
-- -- helps us to be able to plan, make reasonable projections, and to prepare for the changing climate
-- -- 'to be able to predict the future you need to understand the past'
-- -- 'we ignore changing climate to our own peril'
-- -- -- think vikings, french, …

1.1frozen rivers¶

-- canals in venice italy, manhattan, delaware, and thames (frost fair)

1.2wars¶

-- napoleon (left with 600k, came back with 1k), washington
-- spanish armada, lost 21k men
-- french revolution

1.3diversification of agricultural crops¶

-- cereal grains were weighed down by water, once the grain touches ground, it becomes ruined
-- plant diversification
-- -- grew clover, sold it to the animals
-- irish depended on single type of potato -> potato famine
-- -- potato pancakes

1.4stradivarius violin¶

-- geometry, varnish, … we don't know
-- climateologists say the wood grew during monger minimum

1.5beer drinking in america¶

-- 2 presidents: george washington was the leading distiller of rye whisky, and thomas jefferson grew beer
-- -- very strong part of our culture
-- -- developed because of the climate of the little ice age

2Little Ice Age Part 2¶

2.1famines¶

-- 1315-1320: 1.5 million died.
-- rain, rain, rain in 1315, destroyed cereal crops
-- -- crime rates went way up (living + dead people robbed)
-- 1371-1791: 111 famines in france
-- 1601: 500k died russia

2.2black death¶

-- fleas are the cause, the fleas are on the rats, the rats are on the ships
-- -- fleas found perfect environment in europe, i.e. closed quarters
-- growth in urban centers also contributed to the good environment for the fleas nesting environment

2.3witches¶

-- people blamed weather on neighbors, accusing them of witches
-- -- 1563 - burned 63 witches
-- -- 14-17th century, 15k burned at stake for being witches
-- church fed this hysteria
-- pope innocent the 8th put out a decree blaming all the devastating weather on witches
-- -- perhaps an opportunity to get rid of pagans

2.4volcanos¶

-- 1) tamboria (indonesia), vie rating of 7, one of the largest eruptions in 1815, led to the year without a summer, brown snow in italy, snow in june in new england,
-- 2) 1883 - krakatau erupted. credited with the loudest sound in modern history, it was heard 3,000 miles away
-- -- 3 months, vie of 6
-- -- blew away 3k radius of land
-- -- temp droped about 1.2 degree celsius
-- 3) laki in iceland, 1783
-- -- 130 craters in this volcano
-- -- vei of 6
-- -- erupted for 8 months
-- -- summer of sand in Britain - ash fallout
-- -- grimsvotn - most active volcano in iceland, was also erupting at same time
-- -- was the hottest eruption
-- -- thousands of deaths
-- -- made summer hot cuz of high pressure system over iceland at the time, but the winter was very cold
-- -- french revolution started in 1789 - perhaps influenced by the devastation of look
-- -- in North America - coldest winter on record
-- -- -- snow in new orleans, ice in the gulf of mexico (summer 1784)
-- -- in iceland, killed about quarter of population, 80% of sheep, 50% of cattle + horses (fluoride poisoning)
-- -- -- iceland was under danish rule
-- -- -- danish considered absorbing the iceland population … evacuating the island
-- -- had very little effect southern hemisphere
-- -- -- located in iceland, way up north, when gases circulate globe, they only circulate around that hemisphere
-- -- -- the other volcanos happened around the equator
-- sulfuric acid went up to the stratosphere, spread around the earth

2.5glaciers¶

-- txtbook, page 182
-- demonstrates how far they advanced in the little ice age
-- 1832, louis aggisiz presented theory of ice age, around when glaciers were receding
-- -- swedes knew, from history, that they were receding

2.6greenland¶

-- inuits cross over from northern canada to greeland: human migration
-- about the same time ppl migrate to new zealand
-- as little ice age sets in, the lower left part of greeland becomes clogged with ice
-- vikings die cuz:
-- -- brought animals w/them to the fragile environments, takes a real long time for grass to grow back in the alpine environments
-- -- didn't adapt
-- -- didn't make spears to hunt through ice
-- -- didn't get any cargo ships from norway
-- -- iceland + greeland were under norwegian control
-- -- church also abandoned them
-- -- word from rome: no one had been there since 1400
-- -- i.e. left to fend for themselves in an environment that they weren't adapted to, no real natural resources, harsh environment

2.7iceland¶

-- 1350-1380 abundance of rogue polar bears
-- no major predators
-- 11 volcanic eruptions/century during little ice age