It is widely held by both evolutionists and creationists that earth history includes periods of glacial advance known as "ice ages." In most cases, the extent, causes, and effects of an ice age are speculative excursions into undocumented natural history. The salient exception is the Little Ice Age, which extended into the beginning of the modern age of weather instrumentation and measurement. While evidence indicates the Little Ice Age was global, it was particularly well documented in the North Atlantic Region. This is particularly fortuitous for diluvialists, as this region provides an especially useful set of conditions for testing predictions of the rapid, postdiluvial Ice Age model. The first paper in this series reviews the methods used to study climates of the past, particularly their application to the Little Ice Age.