An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A roughly 400-year period from the mid-16th through the mid-19th centuries when temperatures over much of Europe were unusually cold. Glaciers in the Alps advanced and European rivers froze much more often than during the past century. Harvests failed, livestock perished, and poor people suffered from famine and disease. The Little Ice Age coincided with two successive low → solar activity periods, the
→ Sporer minimum and the → Maunder minimum.

See also: → little; → ice; → age.