Alexandra Bruce – The Little Ice Age occurred roughly between the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period (Medieval Climate Optimum), which had occurred between 400-900 AD, whose more abundant crops had led to a period of prosperity and cultural achievement in Europe.
https://youtu.be/LObn2Sk7tVg
The Medieval Warm Period had, itself followed the “Dark Ages”, a far cooler period, which followed the fall of the Roman Empire. So, just between 536 AD to the mid-1800s, we can see an oscillation that has created 4 distinct climactic periods (including our own), which had huge impacts on the populations – and which belie our general perception today that the weather is a constant.
Several causes have been proposed for The Little Ice Age: cyclical lows in solar radiation, heightened volcanic activity, changes in the ocean circulation, an inherent variability in global climate, or decreases in the human population.