Globe Warmer In Time of Vikings

SEWilco writes "A record of recent global temperatures has been assembled by piecing together the hundreds of studies with past temperature estimates [Discovery, Harvard]. The record shows there was a "Medieval Warm Period" warmer than the 20th Century. This was followed by the "Little Ice Age", which ended around 1900. We're having average climate now. Numerous sources indicated this, but apparently were not gathered into one document" This adds some more background reading to the previously linked Telegraph story.

Comments

Re:One Word: Bull

[elmegil]

Feel free to give us some citations for this. I'm sure you're right, but saying so doesn't make it so.

Ummm, this has been extriemly well known for years

[Unknown Poltroon]

Just not well known to anyone who hasnt studied the subject. We may hve jacked global warming up by 1 degree celcius in the last 100 years, but were due to rise 3 degrees anyway due to, well, historical patterns. Look up paleloclimatology(sp) and do your own research. Were just coming out of the ice age that killed off roman civilistaton.

iceland

[austad]

I read an article awhile back, don't remember where, but it said that the vikings inhabited Iceland a long time ago. The climate there at the time was warm enough for them to have large field of grapes and they ran wineries.

Or maybe it was Greenland. Either way, that sort of climate was definitely warmer than it is now. It's kind of interesting to see all of the viking heritage stuff in Iceland. I strongly suggest taking a trip there if you haven't before. Plane tix and hotels are cheap (food and drink is not though), and the people are amazingly friendly. I had an excellent time there.

Re:iceland

[oraevi]

Around the year 900, when the vikings first came to Iceland, the landscape was "filled with trees from the highlands to the see". This is stated in Icelandic scripts, which were probably written in the 13th century. Today there are hardly any trees left. The vanishing of the forests has been attributed to the introduction of the vikings' sheep into the fragile ecosystem but also to a change in the climate.
In Greenland, which is an island almost totally covered by an ancient glacier, we can find hints about how the climate was a thousand years ago by drilling deep into the ice and studying the tiny air bubbles that where trapped there a long time ago. It also shows that the climate was warmer a thousand years ago.
However, Iceland never had "large fields of grapes". These were the words the viking Leif the Luky used to describe the land he found sailing south-west of Greenland. In the year 1000 he discovered America and called it Wineland the Good.

Warmer in the time of Vikings

[Jo.Calder]

Required reading for anyone entering this thread: Still waiting for Greenhouse which has a pretty comprehensive treatment of the whole greenhouse show.

Re: In too deep now...

[Black Parrot]

> They claim explosive growth post 1980 -- when the BRUNT of the industrail growth was PRE-1980 ... and that just sounds fishy to me --

Ponder the marvels of the exponential curve:

$ gnuplot
gnuplot> plot [t = 20:25] exp(t)
gnuplot> plot [t = 25:30] exp(t)
gnuplot> plot [t = 30:35] exp(t)
gnuplot> plot [t = 35:40] exp(t)
gnuplot> plot [t = 40:45] exp(t)
gnuplot> plot [t = 45:50] exp(t)

You get "explosive growth" on any slice you look at .

After marvelling at that, go check out "Past and future CO2 atmospheric concentrations" and other plots from the IPCC's latest report.

And while the trend toward industrialization may have flattened out in the industrialized nations, look what's going on with the forests in the developing nations right now. See also "CO2 concentration, temperature, and sea level continue to rise long after emissions are reduced".

You really need to look at the gas concentrations in the atmosphere rather than a single slice of human behavior, and the relevant concentrations have been growing exponentially throughout human history.

Liberate Vinland from Yoke of Canadian Oppression

[SgtChaireBourne]

Liberate Vinland from the Yoke of Canadian oppression!

Seriously, Black currant (Ribes nigrum), vinbär/solbær, makes excellent wine grows in cooler climates. Wine from grapes is probably an artifact of mediterranean culture / continental Europe. However, mead was more common as the wax was a sought after trade good for the Byzantine empire.

Cooling of the climate in the 1200's seemed to have killed off the Greenland colonies. The Viking groups (Goths, Svear, Danes, Norrmen) had tradroutes from China/Bagdad to the east coast of what is now Canada. Iceland, Greenland, Shetlands, Froes, and parts of Ireland, England and Scotland were all settlements.

Aside from warm weather, technology made the long trips possible. Iron nails and sails were just two of the improvements. Prior to that they were closer to home. The basic ship, even before sails and iron nails, was strong and light because they had no saws. Hewn planks have about twice the strength and flexibility of sawn ones.

Not all changes in technology are improvements. Later, European-style ships were heavier and less maneuverable and could neither handle shallow rivers nor be portaged.