The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling occurring after a warmer era known as the
Medieval climate optimum. Climatologists and historians find it difficult to agree on either the start or end dates of this period. Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the
16th to the mid-
19th centuries. It is generally agreed that there were three
minima, beginning about 1650, about
1770, and
1850, each separated by slight warming intervals.
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