How does the "Climatic Optimum" fit into the current "global Warming" worldview?

Question

The Vikings lived in Greenland and grew crops. There was no permafrost at this time. It was obviously warmer then than now with far less population and zero combustion from fossil fuels.

Did humans cause this too? Or is the temprature cyclical like most climatologists say.!?!?!

Answer 1

^^That guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Vikings don't even exist anymore. The Norse died out during the Little Ice Age. The people who survived were the indiginous people who knew how to survive the climate in Greenland for better or for worse. The Vikings took advantage of the warm period but met their match when the Little Ice Age set in. They also refused to seek help from the Inuit population.

And for those doubters that claim Greenland was actually Iceland, the Vikings were not the only evidence of the climate optimum. At this time vineyards thrived in England and Europe experienced a population boom from 40,000 to 60,000. They also grew warm-weather cereal grains which led to many hardships when the Little Ice Age fell.

The Medieval Climate Optimum is strong evidence against the anthropogenic global warming theory, but not conclusive enough to rule it out either. What most people seem to forget is that it takes time to reach a conclusion about the cause of any natural phenomenon. I blame our ADD society for the massive amount of misinformation. We want things explained now and the media indulge us.

If you ask me though, ignoring the MWP can be dangerous, because it is strong evidence that the climate cycle is leading us toward another little ice age. You can google the pentagon report from Schwartz and Randall which describes a scenario in which we enter a little ice age. You should also check out some of the books by Brian Fagan. He writes a great deal about the little ice age.

Answer 2

The temperature is indeed cyclical and for billions of years no the temperature of the planet has either been going up of going down.

At the moment what we're seeing is something unprecedented in that the temperature is going up far faster than can be attributed to natural cycles. Take for example the end of the last 'ice age'. This commenced 18,000 years ago and for the next 7,500 years temperatures rose by some 7°C - about 1°C per 1000 years. In terms of natural cycles this was an extremely rapid rise but compared to today when temps are rising at 17 times this rate it was slow.

It's a popular misconception that temps were warmer about 1000 years ago when Greenland was allegedly green. In fact, it wasn't at all green and this was a piece of Viking propoganda dreamt up by Eirik Raude to lure Icelanders to Greenland. Those that did make the journey had a very tough time of it as crops could only be grown in two places for a short time each year. The fill story is told in Eirik Raude's biography - The Saga Of Eric The Red.

There was permafrost at that time, the last time there wasn't permafrost was about 50 million years ago.

Answer 3

The vikings lived and farmed in the exact same areas of Greenland that are lived in and farmed now. Despite what you were told by the GGWS, there hasn't been a time in human history when Greenland was a lush vibrant paradise.

And please qualify your statement that most climatologists think the current warming trend is part of a natural cycle.

Answer 4

Most climatologists have concluded that the current global warming is primarily due to human greenhouse gas emissions.

You're referring to the Midieval Warm Period (MWP). You don't have to speculate about the global temperature based on claims about Vikings in Greenland. We have other methods of determining past temperatures. Here are 10 temperature reconstructions which include the MWP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

As you can see, it was almost certainly not as hot during the MWP as it is today.

Regarding the cyclical comment, we're in the middle of a warm period right now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

There's no reason that global warming should be accelerating rapidly, as it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Unless there is some un-"natural" factor affecting it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

Answer 5

The answer to your question is historical, not climate related.

The vikings grew crops in Iceland, not Greenland, and still do today. They "reversed the names" as a form of defense (if there is this much snow in Greenland, who wants to go to Iceland). They never lived in Greenland and it was never "green" there.

Greenland and Iceland have very different weather because Greenland is affected by the Labrador Current while Iceland is affected by the Gulf Stream.

Now go optimize your education and stop making false and silly statements regarding Viking history describing paleo weather patterns.

Answer 6

Humans may think yhat they have unworldly power but the truth is, we can't change mother nature on matter how hard we try. It is stupid for us to think we know all. when the truth is we can't even controll our own check books. The climate has been changing for as long as the earth has been around, and it will always be a cycle of contious change

Answer 7

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