ABSTRACT
In November 2008, the European Commission issued a communication about the Arctic stating that ‘the European Union is inextricably linked to the Arctic region’. 1 Portrayed in art and literature (see Figure 4a), this has been known as far back as the nineteenth century. A prominent example of European interdependence with the Arctic is illustrated by the Little Ice Age. As the name implies, this period had pronounced cooling from 1150 to 1460, with very cold winters between 1560 and 1850. This centuries-long cold-weather pattern influenced agriculture, health, social dynamics and economies across Europe (Figure 4b).
