The Cold Standard: Climate Information and Memory in the Great Winter of 1709

Historians of the early modern world have recognized the "Little Ice Age" — a period of regional cooling that occurred primarily in Europe and North America from the early 14th century through the mid-19th century — as a driver of social and political change. Yet, the term encompasses a periodization that spans multiple centuries. How much do we precisely know about the causal dynamics between climate and human culture as they happened on the ground?

Based on research at 60 archives across Europe, Jin-Woo Choi examines one of the most infamous winters that has come to represent the "Little Ice Age" as a whole. Choi will discuss how emerging technologies of information-gathering and dissemination turned the "Great Frost" of 1708/09 — Europe's coldest winter during the past 500 years — into a benchmark of climate extremity for Europe vis-à-vis other regions of the world, as well as the beginnings of a historical climatology that exploited older sources to chart epicycles of severe winters.