Russ Steele
Ted Thornhill writing in the Daily Mail Online:
Temperatures in Baghdad range from around 2C in winter to 45C in the summer – but ancient Arabic writings have revealed that the city experienced a dramatic frozen period around 1,000 years ago.
Spanish researchers from the University of Extremadura found 9th and 10th century (3rd and 4th in the Islamic calendar) sources that refer to snowfalls in the Iraqi capital in 908, 944 and 1007 and even rivers being frozen.
These are extreme events for Baghdad – for example, the only snowfall in the modern era took place in 2008 – and help meteorologists better understand today’s climate.
Clues about weather patterns in Baghdad came from writers such as al-Tabari (913 AD), Ibn al-Athir (1233 AD) and al-Suyuti (1505 AD) – who all mentioned the climate from time to time.
Lead author Dr Fernando Domínguez-Castro, writing in the journal Weather, said:
‘Climate information recovered from these ancient sources mainly refers to extreme events which impacted wider society such as droughts and floods.
‘However, they also document conditions which were rarely experienced in ancient Baghdad such as hailstorms, the freezing of rivers or even cases of snow.
These signs of a sudden cold period confirm suggestions of a temperature drop during the tenth century, immediately before the Medieval Warm Period.
‘We believe the drop in July 920 AD may have been linked to a great volcanic eruption but more work would be necessary to confirm this idea.’
You can read the rest of the article HERE. This Chart puts the dates in perspective with a historical time line:
I would like to see if there were similar freezing events during the LIA. I will do some digging on the Internet. If you know of some, please let me know.
The Next Grand Minimum 
Little Ice Age 1400-1800 in the graph above. I notice most volcanoes are at the end of the age when temperatures were rising. Aren’t they meant to reduce temperatures? Certainly weakens case of warmist that volcanoes caused cool period!
Rod,
Check out this post by Willis Eschenbach at Watts Up With That titled Volcanic Disruptions at this URL: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/16/volcanic-disruptions/ Willis found it hard to find recent eruptions in the climate data. A very interesting analysis.