ABSTRACT
This chapter is included at this point to show the evidence we have of fundamental changes in the ocean during the time of colder climate in recent centuries and how the conditions of the seas so close to the coasts of Europe affected the climate. This study uncovers an underlying critical point for the development of human society in the countries close to the north-eastern Atlantic, which has not been recognized. Western and northern Europe today, as is well known, enjoy a climate which is many degrees warmer than the average for the latitudes concerned. And from the Atlantic seaboard to places even as far inland as central Europe the variability of temperature from year to year is also low for the latitude (see Lamb 1972, p. 280, fig. 7.13). This adds up to a sheltered regime, which is widely acknowledged (and taken for granted) and commonly put down to the stabilizing effect of the nearby ocean. What the examination reported in this chapter reveals is that when the ocean currents vary, and cause the boundary between the warm water of Gulf Stream origin and the polar water to shift, the ocean ceases to stabilize the situation and in fact becomes responsible for amplifying the climatic changes in the region. (The substance of this writing was published as a paper entitled, ‘Climatic variation and changes in the wind and ocean circulation: the Little Ice Age in the north-east Atlantic’, Quaternary Research, 11, 1979, pp. 1–20. The opening section has here been re-written to avoid repetition in other chapters.)
