The impact of North Atlantic storminess on western European coasts: A review

Instrumental and documentary records of storminess along the Atlantic coast of western Europe show that storm activity exhibits strong spatial and temporal variability at annual and decadal scales. There is evidence of periods of increased storminess during the Little Ice Age (LIA) (AD 1570–1990), and archival records show that these periods are also associated with sand movement in coastal areas. Independent evidence of sand movement during the LIA is derived from dating the coastal sand deposits, using luminescence or radiocarbon methods. The Holocene record of sand drift in western Europe includes episodes corresponding to periods of Northern Hemisphere cooling, particularly at 8.2 ka, and provides the additional evidence that these periods, like the LIA, were also stormy.