It all starts with Dickens. As in Charles Dickens, the English novelist and author of the enormously popular "A Christmas Carol," first published in 1843. "It cemented his role as one of the most ...

This is clear over the past 2,000 years, which includes both the Medieval Warm Period, when grapes grew in Britain, and the Little Ice Age, when the Thames river froze so hard Frost Fairs were ...