Mountain Lake in Giles County, Virginia is a small, oligotrophic freshwater lake in the southern Appalachians. The origins and natural cyclicity (fluctuating high and low lake levels) of the lake have been studied via sediment core extending back 6100 years. The cores suggest at least six extended periods of dry lake conditions coincident with the known dates of solar minima events including the Maunder Minimum (Cawley et al. 2001). Lake levels are highly dependent upon local climatic conditions, and the lake provides a specific record of regional climatic change.

Shindell et al. (2001) has mathematically modeled a mechanism of climate response specifically applicable to 17th, 18th, and early 19th Century portions of the Maunder Minima event (during portions of which Mountain Lake was low or dry.) These accentuated changes illustrate the effects of even a small decrease in solar radiation.

For the southern Appalachians the Shindell model predicts shifts to colder, drier conditions during a Maunder type minimum. Looking at these changes in the decade to century scale within Mountain Lake sediment core provides a “test-case” for comparison between the mathematical model and history.

From this we can develop a scenario of potential agricultural, economical, and societal changes which could be possible consequences if such an event were to reoccur in the Southern Appalachians.