In the thirties of the fifteenth century, the inhabitants of Europe faced a unique climatic phenomenon - a sharp cold snap that provoked hunger and the resulting bursts of mortality. An article on the European "ice age" of the 1430s was published in the Climate of the Past.
Swiss scientists who reconstructed the Old World climate noted the high uniqueness of the climatic conditions established in the 1430s. The winter months of those years were unusually cold, while the summer, on the contrary, showed normal temperatures.
“In the next four hundred years, nothing like this happened. It is not at all clear what caused this temporary cold snap. Maybe - a decline in the activity of the Sun, or maybe it's some kind of natural temperature fluctuations, - says one of the authors of the study, an employee of the University of Bern, Katherine Keller.
Scientists stumbled upon descriptions of a strange cold snap by chance - during the analysis of medieval manuscripts describing the weather that reigned in the 1439s.
Then, having turned to paleoclimatologists for help, the researchers received scientific confirmation of the cold described by medieval chroniclers.
Kolesnikov Andrey
