The 90-Year Solar Quiet Period That Probably Helped Killed the Norse Greenland Colony
The Spörer Minimum was a sustained reduction in solar activity from approximately 1460 to 1550. The Sun went almost entirely spotless for nine decades. The associated climate effect contributed to the deeper cold of the [Little Ice Age](/articles/little-ice-age), the [collapse of the Norse colony in Greenland](/articles/erik-the-red-greenland), and the harvest failures of late-medieval northern Europe. It is the older and longer cousin of the better-known [Maunder Minimum](/articles/maunder-minimum) of the late 17th century.
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