Plymouth: A Colony Shaped by Climate

Summary

Off the Radar: Plymouth — A Colony Shaped by Climate
Hosted by Emily Gracey | Release Date: November 26, 2024

Introduction

In the Thanksgiving season, many reflect on the Pilgrims' historic journey aboard the Mayflower and their first harvest celebration in 1621. However, as Meteorologist Emily Gracey explores in the "Plymouth: A Colony Shaped by Climate" episode of Off the Radar, weather played a pivotal role in shaping the entire Pilgrims' experience—from their departure from England to their arduous first winter in the New World.

Section 1: Rebecca Fraser — Historical Perspective on the Pilgrims and Weather

Guest: Rebecca Fraser, Author and Historian

a. The Pilgrims' Background and Motivations
Rebecca Fraser delves into the diverse backgrounds of the Pilgrims, noting that while they were predominantly English, some hailed from more liberal regions like Leiden in the Netherlands. "They were mainly English, but they'd gone to live in Leiden because it was a more liberal country," Fraser explains (03:49). Their primary motivation for leaving England was tied to religious freedom, exacerbated by the harsh climatic conditions of the Little Ice Age, which fostered societal hardships and shifts in attitudes, including towards the church.

b. Impact of the Little Ice Age on the Pilgrims' Decision to Emigrate
Fraser highlights the influence of the Little Ice Age, a period marked by significant cooling, on the Pilgrims' decision to seek a new life. "The Little Ice Age is pretty important. It's the first time you really get all these lovely snow scenes in Dutch paintings," she states (04:20). The prolonged cold and poor harvests during this era created economic and social pressures, driving the Pilgrims to establish a colony where they could practice their beliefs freely.

c. The Mayflower Voyage and Weather-Related Challenges
The journey aboard the Mayflower was fraught with weather-induced difficulties. Fraser recounts how the ship encountered severe storms, leading to structural damages like a cracked mast, which nearly forced them to turn back to England. "They are on the Mayflower ... the waves are 100 foot high... they're going to have to turn back to England," she narrates (06:42). The decision to land in Provincetown was a direct response to these harsh maritime conditions.

d. The Harsh First Winter in New England
Upon landing, the Pilgrims faced an unexpectedly brutal winter. Fraser points out that while historical narratives depict the winter as exceptionally severe, tree ring data suggests it was relatively average for the Little Ice Age period. "They were just unprepared for what they were going to experience," Fraser explains (11:25). The lack of proper shelter, insufficient clothing, and inadequate supplies led to widespread illness and significant loss of life, with about 50% of the settlers perishing during the first winter (13:38).

e. The First Thanksgiving and Relations with Native Americans
Despite the initial hardships, the Pilgrims' resilience led to the first Thanksgiving in 1621, a momentous occasion marked by cooperation with the Wampanoag tribe. "Massasoit and 90 Braves come and feast with us... that's the first Thanksgiving," Fraser recounts (14:36). This event underscored the importance of alliances and mutual support between the settlers and the Native Americans, laying the foundation for a symbiotic relationship.

f. Historical Documentation and Reconstruction of Events
Fraser emphasizes the abundance of contemporary documents that provide a detailed account of the Pilgrims' experiences. Diaries, letters, and official records, such as William Bradford's Plymouth Plantation, offer invaluable insights into the climatic challenges and the settlers' responses. "Through contemporary documents you can piece together what's what we would consider to be authentic as opposed to the myth," she states (16:28).

g. Alternate Histories: What If Weather Had Been Different?
Exploring hypothetical scenarios, Fraser speculates on how American history might have diverged had the Pilgrims not been forced by adverse weather to settle in New England. "If they had continued their journey and landed in Virginia, how would American history have been different?" she muses (18:44). Fraser suggests that the unique cultural and religious landscape of New England, characterized by Puritan roots, might not have emerged, potentially altering the region's development and its role in American history.

Section 2: Kurt Steger — Paleoclimatological Insights on the Little Ice Age

Guest: Dr. Kurt Steger, Paleoclimatologist from Paul Smith College, New York

a. Understanding the Little Ice Age
Dr. Kurt Steger provides a scientific perspective on the Little Ice Age, clarifying that it was not an actual ice age but a period of significant cooling. "The Little Ice Age was a natural cold time, nowhere near as severe or long as a real ice age," he explains (22:30). This period, spanning roughly from the 1500s to the 1800s, saw notable climatic changes that had profound impacts on societies worldwide.

b. Methods of Reconstructing Historical Climate
Steger outlines the various methods used to reconstruct past climates, including analyzing tree rings, ice cores, and historical documents. "Trees grow differently depending on the conditions in the growing season... there's also written documents from that time period," he notes (24:34). These interdisciplinary approaches allow scientists to piece together accurate climate histories, even in the absence of direct meteorological records.

c. The Little Ice Age's Impact on New England and the Pilgrims
Focusing on New England, Steger explains that the climatic conditions during the Pilgrims' settlement were not unusually severe within the context of the Little Ice Age. "Compared to now, certainly it was colder," he states (23:34). The settlers, accustomed to the milder climates of England and the Netherlands, struggled to adapt to the harsher and unpredictably cold weather of New England, exacerbating their initial hardships.

d. Global Variability of the Little Ice Age
Steger emphasizes that the Little Ice Age was not a uniform global phenomenon. "It was patchy. So it affected different parts of the world differently," he remarks (27:34). While regions like the North Atlantic experienced colder temperatures, others faced varying conditions such as increased droughts in East Africa. This variability underscores the complexity of global climate systems and their localized impacts.

e. Causes of the Little Ice Age
Addressing the causes, Steger identifies reduced solar activity and volcanic eruptions as primary contributors. "Most climate scientists think variation in the sun's output had something to do with it," he explains (28:19). The interplay between these natural factors led to the extended period of cooling that characterized the Little Ice Age.

f. Modern Climate Change in Context
Steger contrasts the Little Ice Age with contemporary climate change, highlighting that today’s warming trend is driven predominantly by human activities. "We've got lots of evidence the Little Ice Age was well finished before the warming happened due to the fossil fuels," he asserts (30:24). He addresses common misconceptions, reassuring listeners that the current climate shift is not part of a natural cycle but a result of anthropogenic influences.

Section 3: Integrating Historical and Scientific Perspectives

Through the combined insights of historian Rebecca Fraser and paleoclimatologist Dr. Kurt Steger, the episode paints a comprehensive picture of how climatic factors were instrumental in shaping the Pilgrims' journey and the establishment of Plymouth Colony. The interplay between historical accounts and scientific data underscores the multifaceted impact of weather and climate on human events.

Conclusion

"Plymouth: A Colony Shaped by Climate" offers listeners an in-depth exploration of the often-overlooked role of weather in one of America's foundational stories. By intertwining historical narratives with scientific analysis, Emily Gracey provides a nuanced understanding of how climatic conditions influenced the Pilgrims' decisions, struggles, and ultimate success in the New World. This episode not only enriches our appreciation of historical events but also highlights the enduring significance of climate in shaping human history.

Notable Quotes

• "They thought it would be like that here too. And it's not." — Kurt Steger (22:34)
• "Massasoit and 90 Braves come and feast with us... that's the first Thanksgiving." — Rebecca Fraser (14:36)
• "We've got lots of evidence the Little Ice Age was well finished before the warming happened due to the fossil fuels." — Kurt Steger (30:24)

Further Resources

• Rebecca Fraser's Book: The Mayflower, the Families, the Voyage and the Founding of America—available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
• Follow Up: Listen to more episodes of Off the Radar on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform. Share the episode with friends interested in American or climate history and consider leaving a review to support the show.

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the transcript sections provided and are indicated in parentheses throughout the summary.

Transcript

[Emily Gracie]

This week, as we gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, we often recall the familiar story of the pilgrims who sailed to America on the Mayflower and celebrated their first successful harvest in 1621 with a feast that became known as the First Thanksgiving. But what many may not know is just how significantly the weather shaped the pilgrim's entire experience, from their decision to leave England to their transatlantic journey, to their very first brutal winter in the New World.

[Kurt Steger]

They got here thinking it was going to be European winners, and they got New England winners.

[Emily Gracie]

Today we are going off the radar and back in time to understand the role weather and climate played in this pivotal moment in American history.

[Rebecca Fraser]

With a meteorological theme, of course, some people have been arguing recently that this sort of great change in attitudes to the church is to do with the weather, to do with the Little Ice Age.

[Emily Gracie]

I'll talk to a historian to hear the accounts from the pilgrims on the Mayflower, as well as a paleoclimatologist to find out what tree ring data can tell us about that first winter in New England. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show, we'll dig deep into topics about weather, climate, oceans, space, and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much much as we do.

[Rebecca Fraser]

Hey prime members, have you heard?

[Narrator]

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[Emily Gracie]

You have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcast that's Amazon.com ad free podcast to.

[Advertiser]

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[Narrator]

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[Emily Gracie]

To explore this intriguing but overlooked aspect of the Pilgrim story, we're joined today by author and historian Rebecca Fraser. Rebecca wrote A book called the Mayflower, the Families, the Voyage and the Founding of America. As Rebecca Will explained, the weather was a key factor in so much of the story. It changed the course of their travels, landing them in Massachusetts. She'll tell us the entire story of the pilgrim's journey, including where they originally had their sights set on. And she'll share some new insights into that first winter in America. Then we'll find out how weather impacted the pilgrim's decision to leave England in the first place. For that, I'm talking to Kurt Steger from Paul Smith's College in New York. Dr. Steger is a climatologist who studies historical weather trends, and he's going to give us some insight into New England weather in the 1600s and how it differs from today's climate. But first up, let's hear from Rebecca Fraser.

[Advertiser]

You wrote a book called the Mayflower, so you are the expert, the person to talk to about this. So can you give me, first of all, a little basic history on the Pilgrims? Because I recently learned, I guess in my limited education, I thought they all just came from England, but there was. There's kind of a more diverse background there, correct?

[Rebecca Fraser]

Well, they were mainly English, but they. They'd gone to live in Leiden because it was a more liberal country in, in the Netherlands. And so some were Flemings, like Delano, who's the ancestor of Roosevelt. They're sort of. There's some sort of Flemings coming. But the church established there, which has the Mayflower, is basically a separatist church from England, which then becomes a bit more international, but by and large, it's kind of from England.

[Advertiser]

Okay, so why did they decide to leave England?

[Rebecca Fraser]

With a meteorological theme, of course. Some people have been arguing recently that this sort of great change in attitudes to the church is to do with the weather, to do with the Little Ice Age, to do with the 200 years of terrible harvest, which sort of gets started about 1300, but then the long 17th century, sort of really the end of the 16th century through the 17th, you get these really great, great hardship and anger. And then people become more independently minded. And this coincides actually with the Reformation. And there is a fabulous book by a historian called Philippe Blom, all about this, called Nature's Mutiny. And it's sort of about the role of weather in sort of changes, the beginning of sort of modern history, really. So he looks at, I mean, he's not the first, but it's the most recent book to look at changes which sort of made people think, well, Priests aren't answering our questions. God is not really on our side. I mean, of course, in the Pilgrim's case, they believed they were a chosen people because of their knowledge of the Bible. But I think it's probably true that they were not doing well. England, if you were involved in the world trade, which a lot of them were, the beginning of the Thirty Years War was kind of plunging everything into a depression. And so I think the Little Ice Age is pretty important. It's a sort of interesting background in that you. It's the first time you really get all these lovely snow scenes in Dutch paintings. They only painted snow scenes for a sort of period of about 10 or 20 years, because the winter went on so long and this is kind of mid 17th century. So little Ice Age had a huge effect on the way people looked at life. In the Little Ice Age, the temperature drops by 2 degrees, which we all know now how important that is, when we know that actually just 1.5 degrees is needed to sort of tip us the wrong. The wrong way.

[Advertiser]

What time of year do they leave the Netherlands and what kind of weather do they experience when they cross the ocean?

[Rebecca Fraser]

They leave the Netherlands in July. There's something called the Speedwell, which takes them from Holland to England, where they're going to pick up another boat, because originally there were just. There were two boats going, one being the Mayflower, the other one being the Speedwell. And then they have to hang around because their leader has published an attack on the English king and has to go into hiding. So everything which had been planned, they were planning to emigrate. They were excited by the idea of America. I mean, this is a time of travel literature. It's a sort of growth area for travel literature. People are reading books about the New World, I mean, and they're excited about it. And then William Brewster publishes this sort of broadside and he then has to go into hiding. And the war is about to restart between Spain and the Netherlands and they've just decided they have to get out to England, but it's a rush, so they're not prepared in the way they should have been. And they arrive in England to Southampton, the port of Southampton. And then they have to wait from July to August for their leader to reappear. They're poor, they need to raise money. The harbour masters of Southampton are exploiting them, so they are not in the best place in terms of planning. And these two ships are ready to go. And then they set out, in fact, sort of like six weeks after they arrive on August 5th for the first 1500 miles. Everything is just great. And they are on, although, well, they've turned back. They'd all had to be decanted into the Mayflower because the Speedwell has sprung a leak. So then the Mayflower sets out again from Plymouth. And then pretty soon afterwards it feels as if there's sort of weather coming up from the ocean and the seas start to what they call become overgrown. And the waves are 100 foot high. And then the mainsail cracks, the mast cracks. If they can't make that work, sort of stick it together, as it were, they're going to have to turn back to England. And then they kind of come through and they suddenly hear birds singing. And the sailors tell them that that is a sign of land, but it could be 200 miles away, which it is, but it's a sign. Birdsong is a sign of land. They get near, they sort of get to above Provincetown, what is now Provincetown, and they're going to go south and go on to Virginia because that's where there is a colony. And then they get alarmed because the seas are so rough. The Mayflower is not an ocean going ship. It's very small. It's really been used between England and France for transporting wine. And no one on there, except one person has crossed the ocean before. So they sort of think, I think it's safer to just go back to land. And then they land on what is now Provincetown and they are all incredibly relieved.

[Advertiser]

What was the date? When did they land in Provincetown?

[Rebecca Fraser]

Depending on your calendar, but it's about November 21st. I mean, it's round about the date of Thanksgiving.

[Advertiser]

But they didn't stay in Provincetown. And did that have to do with the conditions and the weather?

[Rebecca Fraser]

It does. And it's also to do with the fact that Provincetown is lovely, but there aren't any proper. There's no sort of real water supply, it's sandy. And there's also a problem. The weather is getting much worse. The water's very shallow and they're sort of walking back and forth to the ship. And meanwhile the weather is closing in and they're getting sort of. Their clothes are becoming ice and they need somewhere to plant before they can't plant anymore. And William Bradford, who sort of writes the history of Plymouth Plantation, says that they're having to use their swords to dig up the earth because it's becoming so frozen. So they've got to find somewhere they're going to settle and that's when they Sort of sail about on a sort of small dinghy and that's when they find Plymouth and they start unloading there. But it's sort of all touch and go, particularly from December 1, what had been lovely and they are all sort of excited and they're sort of washing their clothes. I'm sure the weather is just terrible snow and then there start to be terrible deaths and funnily enough everything was really health wise, fine on the way over. And then they're up against New England winter in the most extreme way.

[Advertiser]

Tell me about that winter and what they experienced because I think the narrative that like we grew up learning about was this very terrible winter. But now talking to like climatologists who look at tree rings, they say that that winter was actually pretty average.

[Rebecca Fraser]

Oh, how interesting. Well, I think they were just unprepared for what, what they were going to experience. I think that was one of the problems. Captain John Smith, you know, who'd sort of been at Jamestown, had been on a voyage to New England twice and he'd offered to come with them and he'd lent them some maps. But they, they really didn't know what they were up against there. They hadn't brought the right clothes, they hadn't bought fishing nets and they hadn't bought corn. They had to borrow corn from the Indians, the Native Americans. And I think they were totally unprepared for everything. They didn't realize they were going to have to build their own common house. And also that the sailors on the maple were going to become very disagreeable and say we want to go back to England. And actually they all get sick too. So they don't leave till April. But at first they're saying no, you can't live on the Maitla. You're going to have to live outdoors. Before they even really built somewhere proper to live. Scurvy, what we would now call scurvy, starts to sort of creepy and everyone gets pneumonia. They're really very unwell and illness spreads like wildfire. There isn't proper shelter, so it's. They are having to live. Some of them are having to live in the open air. It might not be a really harsh winter, but it is a winter with lots of snow. And they haven't met the Native Americans yet, so they don't know about snowshoes. They don't know about anything.

[Advertiser]

Yeah, I want to ask about that, the interaction with the whomp dogs and what they learned about surviving winter from them. And when that happened, well, you have.

[Rebecca Fraser]

This terrible period which, of course, is very famous from sort of December to March, when the weather there is incredibly harsh and 50% of the travelers of the Pilgrims die, which is an enormous amount.

[Advertiser]

How many were there total?

[Rebecca Fraser]

One hundred and two. It's really a terrible situation. The sick attending to the sick, and they have to sort of bury people under. They can't mark their burial. They have to do it at night because they don't want the Native Americans, who they haven't really met, to know how tiny their numbers are. But on about March, sort of early March, the weather suddenly clears up mysteriously and birds start singing, and they see a white fowl. And then out of the forest walks this man called Somerset, and he says, hello, English. And he's from Pemaquid in Maine. Somerset is a friend of the famous Squanto. And then he introduces them to the Wampanoag, and everything gets better from there. So March is the turning point. But before then it was a dire, dire situation.

[Advertiser]

Can you take me through the first Thanksgiving and the real story there of what happened?

[Rebecca Fraser]

The interesting thing about Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving, and we have a contemporary document which is written by Edward Winslow, describing it, and he's not writing it for propaganda purposes. He's writing to a friend. He just describes the fact that. That we decide to have a sort of feast to give thanks for our harvest, because it was really touch and go, if they were going to have a harvest at all. And he writes that Massasoit and 90 Braves come and feast with us, and they bring us five deer, and we have a marvelous time. And that's the first Thanksgiving. So it is very, very inclusive. It is both sets of people in that area feasting together. So that's sort of a very nice thing to read, because Thanksgiving is such a very inclusive feast today. And so that's a genuine starting point. I think that the first year of the Pilgrims being there, they are extremely reliant on the Wampanoag, and they have people living in their village. They get on very well. They journey to sea. Massasoit. Edward Winslow, in due course, would actually cure him of an illness. I mean, it is very. It's a very symbiotic relationship. It may have sounded intermittent before, but I think that is certainly true that there is a close relationship between the two peoples. So I think that the spirit of Thanksgiving is very early. I mean, it is as early as 1621. The truth is right there. Very, very early on.

[Advertiser]

Can you tell me the process of how this story was pieced together and how historians gather this information and know that there was a storm and they replaced the mast with this, or the first winter felt like this, or the conditions at Plymouth were like this. How do you gather that information?

[Rebecca Fraser]

In the case of the Pilgrim Fathers, we're very fortunate because they were writing everything down for their investors in London in order to get more money for their colony. They needed support from London merchants. And the London merchants needed to see that there was a point to their money being ploughed into the ship, that they were going to find fish and that they were going to. There were going to be returns, they were going to send wood back to them. So they write it all down and they also. Edward Winslow and William Bradford both, they write a famous account of the voyage. So that's where we get it on. It's like a diary, but it is also for the benefit of investors and it's also a celebration of what they're doing. They are excited that they are going to be this sort of patriotic outpost of England, that they're going to be a Protestant colony. And then we have letters, relations telling people what happened, like this letter from Edward Winslow. So through contemporary documents you can piece together what's what we would consider to be authentic as opposed to the myth. And there is an enormous amount of material which can be used. And also William Bradford himself writes this very long book of Plymouth Plantation, which I'm sure most school children in America have read some of it. It's about the spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers. So it's both a very factual account about their origins in England, about their time in Holland, but it's also about their wishes and what they were trying to be. So it's a moving document, but it's also shock, full of facts, I mean, in a fabulous way. So. So luckily there are lots and lots of contemporary documents for what has become a very mythical event.

[Advertiser]

I'm curious about kind of the what ifs when it comes to weather and where they landed. And I grew up in New England, there's like a lot of Puritan roots there. So how do you think history would have been altered if they had not encountered bad weather and had continued their journey and landed in Virginia? How would New England history have changed? How would American history have been different? Can you venture any guesses there?

[Rebecca Fraser]

Well, I'm not sure they would got on very well with the people in Jamestown. I mean, they might have thought they were quite kind of. They weren't as serious as they were. And in fact, one of the reasons they wouldn't allow the Virginian settler, Captain John Smith to come with them is they thought he wasn't serious enough. So I think. I think that gives you an indication of there might have been clashes. On the other hand, they might have actually had a less traumatic time. Having said that, two years after the Mayflower lands, there's this terrible massacre in Jamestown. A quarter of the of the population is wiped out by a Native American attack. So they kind of dodged ability at the same time. And in fact, one of the secretaries of Jamestown, someone called John Pory, visits Plymouth Plantation and is very impressed that the Native Americans and the English are getting on so well that there's someone called Hobbemuck living there. And he contrasts that favorably to what's going on in Jamestown. So I think it would be sad if New England had not happened. Of course, John Winthrop would have got there himself a little later, 10 years later.

[Advertiser]

Is there anything else you want to add about weather and the Pilgrims or their journey?

[Rebecca Fraser]

I think one thing which was terrible for them was when the snow set in. I think they were. They weren't explorers, they were sort of quite ordinary people and they were used to Holland and they were used to England, which is a much more temperate climate. And I think when the New England winter swept in and you just have white skies, I think it was quite frightening. And in fact, William Bradford's wife died. She was found floating by the side of the Mayflower in Provincetown. Now, people don't like to say she committed suicide, but she certainly died and she left her little son in Leiden. And maybe it was just too much for her. It was just. It was too stressful. This weather, this sort of extraordinary weather and no houses around. So I think that was quite alarming. And then what happens is after March, you have these wonderful descriptions of how lovely the countryside is and how happy they are and how fabulous it is. And in fact, none of the Pilgrims return to England. They are perfectly happy after a traumatic first year. They get used to it and they are excited by the New World.

[Emily Gracie]

If you want to read Rebecca Fraser's book about the Pilgrims, you can find it just about anywhere, including on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's called the Mayflower. The Families, the Voyage and the Founding of America. Next up, I'm talking to Dr. Kurt Steger, a paleoclimatologist from Paul Smith College in New York.

[Advertiser]

Kurt, I want to talk about going way back in time here, because you are a climatologist, correct? What do you specialize in?

[Kurt Steger]

I guess you could say climate History. Technical word is paleoclimatology.

[Advertiser]

So can you tell me what and when the Little Ice Age was?

[Kurt Steger]

Yeah, it's a natural cold time, nowhere near as severe or long as a real ice age. So it's. The name is just a figure of speech, but it was significant for the people that lived through it. It was much colder than now, even without the recent warming we've had in the last half century due to our fossil fuel emissions. It was unusually cold. Like, there were glaciers in the Alps which are retreating now, but back then, they were advancing. The canals in England and the Netherlands were freezing over regularly enough that people were having festivals on the ice. It made life really tough for people from Europe and Scandinavia to be colonizing these lands they were moving into, like in Iceland and Greenland and then, of course, New England and stuff like that. It was an extra tough time for people to be heading over there and having nothing to build on and trying to make a living from scratch.

[Advertiser]

What was the time period here? How long did it last?

[Kurt Steger]

Historians will disagree about what the timeframe was. It was sort of coming and going, and it was kind of gradually starting and gradually ending. So you can't go too wrong if you say it was from, like, oh, the 1500s to the 1800s, but pretty much most severe around the 1600s. As it turns out, the actual winter when the Pilgrims came over was not that unusually cold for that Little Ice Age period. It got actually really, really bad a few decades afterwards, but compared to now, it certainly was colder.

[Advertiser]

Okay, and how do we know this if we don't have, you know, National Weather Service records that go back this far?

[Kurt Steger]

Well, so there are written records, of course, on both sides of the Atlantic. There are diaries and things like that. Documents. Some interesting source, actually, is artwork. There have been artists have gotten together, art historians, and they compare paintings of life in Europe through the centuries, and they find pictures of ice festivals on canals during that time period, or more landscapes with wintry conditions during those cold times. Because it got people's attention, apparently, you would think, right. And it was on people's minds. So, you know, that's one line of evidence. Maps and paintings of the glaciers in the Alps, comparing them through time, and you could actually watch them advancing. And some of them actually destroyed villages because they came down so far. And then there's the raw science. So you can look at things like tree rings. Trees grow differently depending on the conditions in the growing season. So you can get some information by looking at the width of the tree rings or sometimes the chemistry the isotopes in there will tell you things.

[Advertiser]

How does a tree ring take you from 1620 to that specific winter? How can you narrow down to that one year in this long record and say this winter wasn't that extreme?

[Kurt Steger]

Well, I've got a little tree slice here. Oh, you do College too? So here's a cute little thing and it's got these concentric circles in it. Each one is an annual growth ring. Now this one happens to be extra, extra tiny because this tree grew really slowly. But you know, most trees, you can actually see the rings in there. And each one is laid down in a year. And the more the tree grows, the happier it is, the thicker the ring. The problem with reconstructing the winter of when the pilgrims arrived is the trees aren't growing anymore in the winter. So you're mainly getting spring, summer. But there are lots of written documents from that time period. And so if you look at the summer temperatures from the tree rings, it was not that unusual leading up to or after it. And written documents say it was pretty fierce, like November, December, and then it was mild and rainy most of the rest of the winter. So nothing that unusual for that time, but certainly colder than now. The main climate related problem was these are newcomers to North America, to the Northeast. They're used to England and Western Europe. And the climate there is actually unusually mild for the latitude. The line around the world that we're on, halfway between the pole and the equator, well, it's milder. So they thought it would be like that here too. And it's not. It's unusual there because of the ocean currents that make it warmer than normal. So if you look straight across, let's say you went straight east from England, you'd hit Hudson Bay in Canada. Right. So they got here thinking it was going to be European winners and they got New England winners. So they wouldn't have liked it even if it wasn't the Little Ice Age.

[Advertiser]

So the Little Ice Age was widespread, I'm guessing? It was, yeah. Did it cover the entire globe?

[Kurt Steger]

It was patchy. So it affected different parts of the world differently. Some places it got wetter, some places it got drier, some places like especially the North Atlantic, it got colder. That's what you'd mainly notice. But the world's a complicated place and things like that will have different effects in different places. So like say East Africa, there were a lot of droughts and that can be reconstructed again with the scientific techniques and also oral traditions of droughts and famines time.

[Advertiser]

So have Paleoclimatologists been able to pinpoint an event that kicked this off?

[Kurt Steger]

Yeah. So there. There are only three things in the world today that can affect an entire planet's climate. One of them is fossil fuel emissions, and we're certainly doing that now. And it's dominating all the other effects. That's been like the last half century. You really, really notice it. Well, that wasn't happening back in the 1600s. So the other two are volcanoes and the sun. So there were some oddball volcanic eruptions. There was a big, nasty one in the early 1800s. It helped make a thing called the Year Without a Summer in the early 1800s. But the volcanoes aren't enough to explain it. The main thing is there's pretty good evidence the sun was getting weaker, oscillating some years, not sending as much energy to us as it normally would. There are ways you can reconstruct that from the tree rings and lake sediments and ice cores and things like that. So most climate scientists think variation in the sun's output had something to do with it.

[Advertiser]

So just for comparison's sake, I know you don't have the numbers in front of you, but what might a Thanksgiving Day forecast, a typical Thanksgiving Day forecast in the 1620s look like, and what might a Plymouth forecast today look like?

[Kurt Steger]

Well, back then, the weather varied a lot in New England. New England weather's nuts. It comes and goes, and it's really hard to predict years in advance. Right. So from the diaries and things I've seen, excerpts of people were saying, well, it's really, really fierce. November, December. But every 10 years or so, it's really mild. But you could pretty much count on cold and freezing conditions on Thanksgiving. Yeah, more than today. But once in a while, you have an oddball winter. It's kind of the opposite now as we're in a warming trend. Instead of the cooling like they were, they were having, you know, lots and lots of cold Thanksgivings. And then once in a while, there's a really mild one. We're the opposite. We have these mild Thanksgivings, and then a couple years ago, we had snow on Halloween.

[Advertiser]

Kurt, is there anything else you want to add?

[Kurt Steger]

One aspect of that little Ice Age story relevant to today's climate change is a lot of folks who don't believe we're changing the climate may well actually know a little bit of climate history and that they often bring up the Little Ice Age and they say, well, why? Why do you think we're warming the planet? We're just coming out of a little ice age, I hear.

[Advertiser]

I hear that one a lot too. It must make the rounds on social media.

[Kurt Steger]

Yeah, I'll just Without getting into the nitty gritty too much, I can reassure folks as a climate scientist, if they want to go there, I'll go there with you. But we've got lots of evidence the Little Ice Age was well finished before the warming happened due to the fossil fuels. And there are multiple lines of evidence that show it's not the volcanoes, it's not the sun. If anything, the sun has been flatlined or even cooling a little bit as we've warmed in the last half century. But we've been measuring all of that and our fossil fuel emissions and it's a heat trapping gas and those numbers are going up along with the temperature. So we know it's not a natural cycle. It's us.

[Emily Gracie]

Off the Radar is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. If you know someone that's interested in American history or climate history, please share this episode with them. We'd also love you to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Let us know what you think of the show. You can give me ideas for future episodes while you're there. Special thanks to Rebecca Frazier for wonderful storytelling today and to Kurt Steger for his climatological expertise. Also, a huge thanks to my associate producer Brian Petrus. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

[Kurt Steger]

Sa.