The Future of Past Climate. Learning from the Nordic Little Ice Age
What happened the last time we encountered rapid climate change? How did natural and social environments interact during this Little Ice Age (ca. 1300-1850)? Nordic societies are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Yet over time they have cultivated a broad repertoire of responses to climatic stress. How do we study, narrate, and learn from these experiences?
The conference connects climatologists, historians as well as climate communicators and is open to the public. It is hosted by the “Nordic Little Ice Age" research group at CAS. The meeting provides a forum for cross-disciplinary exchange across the sciences and humanities and connects to communities beyond academia, including museum curators, science disseminators, and educators.
Provisional Programme (subject to change)
Day 1, Monday 2 June
Location: The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
08:45-09:15
Arrival and coffee
09:15-09:30
Welcome and introduction
09:30-10:30
Keynote 1 - Philip Jones (University of East Anglia, UK): The Little Ice Age. Seasonality and Inferences from the Instrumental Temperature Record
10:30-11:00
Coffee and stretch legs
11:00-12:30
Panel 1 - Little Ice Age drivers and impacts
Øyvind Nordli (University of Oslo, NO): A comparative study – from the Little Ice Age to the Anthropocene
Jostein Bakke (University of Bergen, NO): Secrets of the Little Ice Age Revealed in Lake Sediments
Martin Miles (NORCE, NO): To Kill a Tilefish: Observations of Ice, Seawater and Fish in the North Atlantic in the Little Ice Age
12:30-13:30
Lunch
13:30-15:30
Panel 2- Little Ice Age societal responses
Heli Huhtamaa (University of Bern, CH): "Only husks and straws." Climate and 1601-03 famine in the Nordics
Fredrik C. Ljungqvist (University of Stockholm, SE): Climatic effects on grain harvest variations in Sweden c. 1665–1810
Astrid Ogilvie (Boulder University, US/University of Akureyri, IS): Writing on Ice and Fire: Documentary Descriptions from Local Observers in Iceland
Kirstin Krüger (University of Oslo, NO): Modelling climatic, environmental, and societal impacts during the Icelandic Active Period 700-1000 CE
15:30-15:45
Coffee and stretch legs
15:45-18:30
Panel 3 - Learning from past climate
Andrew Dugmore & Rowan Jackson (University of Edinburgh, UK): Little Ice Age climate impacts, societal adaptations and their limits- perspectives from the edge of the Nordic world
Eirik Ballo & Ingar Stene (University of Oslo, NO): Norway in the 1690s: Exploring the interplay of climate and epidemics
Ingar M. Gundersen (University of Oslo, NO): Curating Climate Histories. The Little Ice Age exhibition at the Climate House in Oslo
Sam White (University of Helsinki, FI): Designing a Course on Nordic Climate History: In Search of Lessons for Students and Stakeholders
18:30-
Dinner for speakers and fellows
Day 2, Tuesday 3 June
Location: Klimahuset, Botanisk Hage, Tøyen, Sars gate 1, Oslo
13:00-14:00
The Little Ice Age - museum visit
14:00-15:00
Keynote 2 - Raymond Bradley (University of Massachusetts Amherst, US): Climate change, the Norse and Inuit in Greenland. From Medieval time to the Little Ice Age