little grey rabbit
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2010
- Messages
- 3,164
Being quite unimpressed with the prevailing orthodoxy regarding historical CO2/temperature interactions, I thought I would turn my attention to the nearer past and the ways the Medieval Warm Period is depicted in the Climate Change literature.
There is a helpful wiki article here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descri...arm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_in_IPCC_reports
The red shows the view of the IPCC in 1990, the blue shows it in 1999 and the black, the view of an author in 2005 (see wiki articles for more details).
When I was in Iceland for a little while almost 10 years ago I did a little reading on the history and archeology of the arctic readings. I guess you have all heard how medieval documents claim that wheat and apple trees used to grow in Greenland, so I wont repeat that.
I also remember seeing the small tree plantations the icelanders work very hard to try and establish and was told that the Sagas record that when the Vikings arrived "Forests covered Iceland from the mountains to the sea". Despite the very best husbandry efforts by their descendants, the forests are very far from doing that today.
I also remember reading about Northern Greenland archaeological excavations (and my climate panic skepticism dates from then). There is a nice wikipedia summary on Peary Land
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peary_Land
and some interesting comments about the historical periodicity of settlements in that northern area
But even better is this
"One to two million years ago, when climates were warmer, trees such as larch, black spruce, birch, yew, and thuja grew in the northernmost Peary Land."
Although I assuming we don't have to factor in continental drift here.
In light of which I can only say that the IPCC in 1990 was perhaps closest to understanding the extent of the MWP and there is absolutely nothing exceptional about the temperatures we are experiencing today.
There is a helpful wiki article here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descri...arm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_in_IPCC_reports
The red shows the view of the IPCC in 1990, the blue shows it in 1999 and the black, the view of an author in 2005 (see wiki articles for more details).
When I was in Iceland for a little while almost 10 years ago I did a little reading on the history and archeology of the arctic readings. I guess you have all heard how medieval documents claim that wheat and apple trees used to grow in Greenland, so I wont repeat that.
I also remember seeing the small tree plantations the icelanders work very hard to try and establish and was told that the Sagas record that when the Vikings arrived "Forests covered Iceland from the mountains to the sea". Despite the very best husbandry efforts by their descendants, the forests are very far from doing that today.
I also remember reading about Northern Greenland archaeological excavations (and my climate panic skepticism dates from then). There is a nice wikipedia summary on Peary Land
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peary_Land
and some interesting comments about the historical periodicity of settlements in that northern area
But even better is this
"One to two million years ago, when climates were warmer, trees such as larch, black spruce, birch, yew, and thuja grew in the northernmost Peary Land."
Although I assuming we don't have to factor in continental drift here.
In light of which I can only say that the IPCC in 1990 was perhaps closest to understanding the extent of the MWP and there is absolutely nothing exceptional about the temperatures we are experiencing today.
