Viking Climate Refugees – PNAS Paper Shows Rapid (Natural) Climate Swings And “Turns For The Bitter” In The Past

Der Spiegel today has a report here on why the Vikings left Greenland, hat-tip reader DirkH. Also read Brown University press release here in English.

Proxies from all over the world have shown that global climate was as warm or even warmer during the so-called Medieval Warm Period back around a thousand years. It’s not called a “warm period” for nothing!

William D'Andrea, right, and Yonsong Husang, left, with sediment cores. Photo credit: William D'Andrea/Brown University.

Der Spiegel writes about how scientists from USA and Great Britain examined sediment cores from two lakes near Viking settlements in Greenland and how the Little Ice Age hit and was one of the big factors that drove the Vikings off Greenland beginning in the middle of the 14th century. The scientists were able to produce a temperature reconstruction going back 5600 years. This is now reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Der Spiegel quotes William D’Andrea of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

‘There really was a drop in temperature shortly before the Vikings disappeared.’ As a consequence the times for crop growing was shortened and little feed was provided to cattle.”

Yes, there really was a drop in temperature. How many more proxies is it going to take before the warmists abandon the fantasy that temperatures were more or less stable over the last 1000 years and shot up only when the Industrial Revolution began? D’Andrea adds:

“It is interesting to consider how rapid climate change may have impacted past societies, particularly in light of the rapid changes taking place today.”

Of course it’s plain to see where D’Andrea is headed. But there are big differences today. Firstly, society is much better equipped technically to adapt to climate change, and 2) climate gets nasty when it cools, and not when it warms. History shows that warm has benefited human and natural development, and cold always set it back. Indeed we are the first generation where we have a few whiners who constantly complain about warmer conditions.

There are also some non-differences. For example, the change we’ve seen over the last 100 years is no more remarkable than changes we had in the past. There is no more evidence of a significant human imprint today than there was 1000 or 500 years ago.

As another example of the misery brought on by cold, the Brown University press release writes:

The researchers examined how climate affected the Saqqaq and Dorset peoples. The Saqqaq arrived in Greenland around 2500 B.C. While there were warm and cold swings in temperature for centuries after their arrival, the climate took a turn for the bitter beginning roughly 850 B.C., the scientists found.

Yes – warm swings, cold swings, and turn for ther bitter, were all natural. The press release continues.

The Saqqaq exit coincides with the arrival of the Dorset people, who were more accustomed to hunting from the sea ice that would have accumulated with the colder climate at the time. Yet by around 50 B.C., the Dorset culture was waning in western Greenland, despite its affinity for cold weather.

Just how abrupt was climate change back then? The very beginning of the Brown University press release tells us (emphasis added):

Greenland’s early Viking settlers were subjected to rapidly changing climate. Temperatures plunged several degrees in a span of decades, according to research from Brown University.”

And today’s global temperature rise of 0.7°C over the last 100 years is supposed to be “unprecedented”? Yeah, right. Today’s climate change is no different than what we’ve seen in the past. If anything, some change-episodes in the past were considerably worse.

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Note: Scanning the German headlines, centrist and conservative publications are reporting this Greenland story while leftist publications are ignoring it.

7 responses to “Viking Climate Refugees – PNAS Paper Shows Rapid (Natural) Climate Swings And “Turns For The Bitter” In The Past”

  1. DirkH

    “Scanning the German headlines, centrist and conservative publications are reporting this Greenland story while leftist publications are ignoring it.”

    You’re right. Quite the silence on the left. Looks like this doesn’t serve their agenda. (So it’s not newsworthy.) A whole lotta little Prawda pussies.

    1. DirkH

      With the exception of Der Spiegel itself, this must be noted. (but no taz, no Sueddeutsche, no Frankfurter Rundschau…)

    2. Ed Caryl

      That’s OK, you and Anthony are spreading the word.

  2. T. G. Watkins

    I always enjoy Ed Caryl’s posts.
    UK petition against wind farms – see Bishop-Hill blog.
    Thorium is the way to go but probably not in my lifetime. Visit Kirk Sorensen’s blog Energy from Thorium.

  3. TWAWKI » The perfect storm of cooling deepening

    […] media watchdog or UN lapdog? The Australian Press Council – With or without climate prejudice Historical evidence of natural climate shifts Save as Text Save as HTML Save as Word Document Save as PDF Save as […]

  4. Anne

    So-called environmentally induced migration is multi-level problem. According to Essam El-Hinnawi definition form 1985 environmental refugees as ―those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural or triggered by people) that jeopardised their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life. The fundamental distinction between `environmental migrants` and `environmental refugees` is a standpoint of contemporsry studies in EDPs.

    According to Bogumil Terminski it seems reasonable to distinguish the general category of environmental migrants from the more specific (subordinate to it) category of environmental refugees.

    Environmental migrants, therefore, are persons making a short-lived, cyclical, or longerterm change of residence, of a voluntary or forced character, due to specific environmental factors. Environmental refugees form a specific type of environmental migrant.

    Environmental refugees, therefore, are persons compelled to spontaneous, short-lived, cyclical, or longer-term changes of residence due to sudden or gradually worsening changes in environmental factors important to their living, which may be of either a short-term or an irreversible character.

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