Climatic Change in Northern Europe Over the Last Two Thousand Years and its Possible Influence on Human Activity

Abstract

A brief overview of European climate during the last two millennia, and of modem improvements in climatic and glaciological methodology, is followed by discussion of some of the many instances when adverse weather conditions have affected human behaviour and prosperity. Such conditions were particulary frequent during the principal episodes of glacial advance in the course of the Little Ice Age, but have also occurred during intervening warmer periods.