The CAS group investigated what happened the last time Nordic societies encountered rapid climate change? How did people react when they faced challenges similar to current scenarios? To do this with high confidence, NORLIA looked at the most recent period of major climatic shifts, the Little Ice Age (1300-1900). It reconstructed the “climate history” of this volatile period, tracing how past societies adapted, and explored how these stories can help us understand current challenges.

In response to the broad impact of past climate change, the project pursued 'big interdisciplinarity'. It brought together climatologists, historians, and climate communicators at CAS. In research we reconnected the 'archives of nature' (tree-rings, ice-cores, etc.) and the 'archives of society' (historical records, material culture, etc.) that are often studied separately due to disciplinary constraints. We reconstructed clusters of extreme climate events that brought famine and poverty to Nordic communities but also triggered new welfare and public health initiatives. We then proceeded to narrate these results to a general audience via an exhibition “The Little Ice Age: How did we handle the last climate crisis” at Klimahuset, Oslo (and online), an online course for high-school students studying sustainability issues and a range of public events. Together, this has helped us to fulfill the goals we set ourselves:

• to establish ‘climate history’ in the Nordic countries and position Oslo at the centre of the field
• to fill current knowledge gaps by integrating climate change and lived human experience
• to broaden our societal repertoire for climate adaptation measures through public outreach.