The Mail Online has an interesting report about the transcription of a Bristol based account of the weather at the height - or depth - of the ‘Little Ice Age’ of 1560-1630. The writer noted extreme weather conditions and associated disasters including the Severn tsunami of 1607. The risk of hunger or famine as a result of adverse weather was never that far away.
The article can be read at This week is nothing compared to age when snow pulled down trees
Map of Bristol by Braun and Hogenberg c.1582
Image: The Swan Gallery
Our current awareness of climate change has proved a valuable stimulus to research into past climate events. They are no longer seen as incidental observations unrelated to physical or socio - economic trends. We can now use recorded evidence both to reconstruct life in the past in even more of its variety and to draw information for ourselves about changing weather patterns.
No comments:
Post a Comment