Human response to climate change - The Global Climate System: Patterns, Processes, and Teleconnections - page 265

Table 8.3 Major climate and societal events in Western Europe in the seventeenth century

1600 Eruption of Huanyaputina volcano in Peru, global impact

1600 to early
1630s

High variability in winter temperatures, excess of cool wet summers,
cool dry springs

1600-16 Expanding glaciers, French Alps and Scandinavia

1607 Very cold winter, split tree trunks in England due to heavy frost

1608 Very cold winter, poor summer, very poor harvest

1618-48 Thirty Years War, France and England

1621 Late wine harvest

1625 Plague year for England, large number of deaths

1625-9 Cod harvest failure, Faroe Islands, ocean water too cold

1627-8 Late wine harvests

1630 Warm, dry summer, good wine harvest

1636-8 Very hot summers

1641-3 Global volcanic eruptions; glacial advances French Alps and Scandinavia

1643-1715 Louis XIV, The ''Sun King'' rules France; severe peasant hardship

1645-1715 Maunder Minimum; sunspots, aurora borealis rare

1645-50 Poor harvests

Early 1650s Abundant wine harvests

Late 1650s Poor harvests

1659-62 No snow in winter in England (Samuel Pepys diary)

1661 Sharp rise in wine prices

1665 Bubonic Plague kills 57 000 in London

1666 Extremely hot dry summer; Great Fire of London starts September 2

1666-9 Global volcanic eruptions

1670-1700 Warfare between France and other European nations

1673 Poor harvest

1675-1704 Very cold period but some warm years; cod harvest failure, Faroe Islands

1676 Severe winter, but good summer growing season

1678 Poor harvest

1680s Generally good harvests

1683-4 Severe winter, but good summer growing season; River Thames in

England freezes over; famine in France

1686 Very mild winter

1687-1703 Cold, wet summers; wine harvests late

1690s Coldest period of the Little Ice Age, cold wet summers, bitterly cold winters

1692-3 Very poor harvests, severe storms, famine in France (10% loss of population)

1693-4 Global volcanic eruptions

1693-1700 Harvests fail in Scotland for 7 years out of 8

1697 Famine in Finland kills one-third of the population

1698-9 Global volcanic eruptions

Based on information from Lamb ( 1977 ), Grove ( 1988 ), Pfister et al.( 1996 ), Burroughs
( 1997 ), Fagan ( 2000 ).