Little Ice Age
The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle—and coldest part—of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters. A causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters has recently been made using data from the NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment which shows that solar UV output is more variable over the course of the solar cycle than scientists had previously thought, and a UK scientific team published in the Nature Geoscience journal a link that ties this variability to terrestrial climate impacts in the form of warmer winters in some places and colder winters in others. The winter of 1708–9 was extremely cold.
Read more about this topic: Maunder Minimum
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or age:
““A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth”—
Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“When winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And frost of age hath nipped thy beauties near;
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear,
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy;”
—Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)