After the warming of the Roman era, a long winter comes to Europe, which scientists call the climatic pessimum of the era of the Great Nations Migration.
A sharp cold snap
Starting around the 3rd-4th century AD, the pessimum continued until the middle of the 8th century. Winters have become colder, humidity has increased, and glacier growth has accelerated so much that even some of the previously impeccable Roman roads are partially blocked. The overall average annual temperature dropped by 1.5 degrees from the present. A gradual cooling pessimum led in 535-536 to a worldwide cold anomaly.
Cooling in 535-536 was the most significant in the last two thousand years. Due to the eruption of tropical volcanoes, the transparency of the atmosphere dropped sharply, which led to a sharp cooling.
Here is what the medieval historian wrote: “And this year the greatest miracle happened: the whole year the sun emitted light like the moon, without rays, as if it was losing its strength, ceasing, as before, to shine purely and brightly. Since that time, as it began, neither war, nor a pestilence, nor any other disaster bringing death has ceased among people."
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Plague, famine, floods
At the same time, a plague epidemic began, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and the cold snap entailed a chain reaction - the harvest decreased, famine began, the population of hungry regions began to migrate, which led to military clashes.
After the events of 536, the weather in Europe did not improve instantly. In Italy, there were frequent floods, on the coast of the North Sea and in England, the sea flooded part of the land, in France severe downpours and floods began. Hunger, humid climate and unusually cold winters led to the spread of leprosy in Central Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries. Due to the sharp change in climate and wars, the population of Europe is halving - from 20 to 10 million people. Hunger and disease forced the inhabitants of cities and villages in the northern Alps to leave their homes, and new settlements, according to archaeological data, have lost touch with the previous culture.
Historians believe that it is the pessimum that we owe to such a historical phenomenon as the Great Nations Migration. The rapid population growth in the era of the Roman warming was replaced by a sharp cooling and forced the peoples to look for new lands for resettlement.
Little Ice Age
After the era of migration of peoples in Europe in the 10th century, a warming began again, lasting about three hundred years. However, at the beginning of the XIV century, the flow of the warm Gulf Stream slows down, which leads to a real ecological disaster - unusually heavy rains begin, winters become severe, which leads to the freezing of gardens and the death of agricultural crops.
Fruit trees are completely frozen in England, Scotland, northern France and Germany. In Germany and Scotland, all vineyards were frozen, which led to the end of the winemaking tradition. Snow began to fall in Italy, and severe frosts led to widespread famine. Medieval legends tell that in England of the XIV century, due to rains and storms, two mythical islands are completely hidden under water. In Russia, the cooling process was reflected in atypically rainy years.
Scientists are inclined to call this period, which lasted from the 14th to the 19th century, the Little Ice Age, since the average annual temperature at that time was the lowest in two thousand years. Despite the fact that temperatures begin to rise at the end of the 14th century, the ice age did not end there. Snowfalls and frosts continued, although the hunger associated with a small harvest had already stopped.
Snow-covered Central Europe became common, and glaciers began to advance in Greenland, and permafrost was established in the region. Some researchers attribute the slight warming characteristic of the 15th-16th centuries to the fact that the maximum solar activity of that time compensated for the slowdown of the Gulf Stream by raising the average annual temperature.
However, the coldest time of the Little Ice Age was the third stage of cooling - solar activity sharply decreased, which led to the disappearance of the Vikings from Greenland, even covering the southern seas with ice. The sudden change in temperature allowed people to ride freely on the Thames, Danube and Moskva River. In Paris, Berlin and London, blizzards and snowfalls, blizzards and drifts have become common. This period became the coldest in the modern history of Europe, but in the 19th century, temperatures gradually began to rise, and today the world is in a phase of natural warming, in a state of emerging from the Little Ice Age, as some researchers think.
Therefore, it is not surprising that in many large cities in Europe, for example, in Prague, unexpected floods occur, and the average annual temperature in the world is steadily increasing. According to the theory of climatologists, a climatic optimum should soon follow, which will return the world to the climatic state of the 10th century.