The Little Ice Age in the Region of the Sepetiba Bay, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

The Sepetiba Bay is an extensive salt water body, with about 305 km 2 of water surface, semi-confined, situated in the southwestern extremity of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Palynological analysis made in a core collected in the Guaratiba mangrove showed a possible first register of the Little Ice Age in Brazil. In the interval between 2.10 and 1.35 m (corresponding to year 1175 to 1737 AC) there are evidences of a period of time with less humid climatic characteristics than the previous cooling period, and would be associated with an anomalous cooling period known around the world as the Little Ice Age, occurring between, approximately, 1550 and 1850. The small difference found in the time record between the period established by the literature for the Little Ice Age and the one found in this work is, possibly, due to a not linear climatic variation of the Earth related to the oscillations in the emission of solar energy. The literature shows an expressive increase in the average annual frequency of days with rain in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro between 1851 and 1900, as well as higher temperatures between 1851 and 1871, which can be related to the ending of the Little Ice Age.