Guest post by S Jay Porter
In 891 AD. Eric The Red set off from Iceland with a few followers to explore a land to the west which they had probably spotted some time before while sailing out in their longboats, and then returned three years later with about 500 fellow Vikings. At first they settled on the south-east coast, close to the tip of this new land and then, as the population grew, created a further settlement to the south-west. They called their new home ‘Greenland’.
It has been said that this name was a ‘spin’, a publicity stunt to entice more Vikings to come to join the new settlers, but this would have been pointless if it had been impossible for them to survive. They must at least have been able to create their own dwellings, build their own fires, make their own clothes and above all, grow their own food. The settlers might have been able to trade such things as polar bear-skins and fox furs for iron and other necessities on occasional trips to Europe, but their compatriots in Denmark and Iceland would have been neither able nor willing to row their longboats out each month with groceries.
At present, the temperatures in Greenland range from a maximum of 7C in July to -9C in January. This is too cold for grain such as wheat and even rye to grow and ripen in the short summer of such northern latitudes. Nor are sheep and cattle happy at those temperatures. Hill sheep might be able to nibble away at moss and short grass, but cattle need lush meadows and hay to fatten and live through a winter. Solid wood is needed for building, boat building and warmth, but only bushes and such weak trees as birch now grow in Greenland.
In 1991, two caribou hunters stumbled over a log on a snowy Greenland riverbank, an unusual event because Greenland is now above the treeline. (1) Over the past century, further archaeological investigations found frozen sheep droppings, a cow barn, bones from pigs, sheep and goats and remains of rye, barley and wheat all of which indicate that the Vikings had large farmsteads with ample pastures. The Greenlanders obviously prospered, because from the number of farms in both settlements, whose 400 or so stone ruins still dot the landscape, archaeologists guess that the population may have risen to a peak of about five thousand. They also built a cathedral and churches with graves which means that the soil must have been soft enough to dig, but these graves are now well below the permafrost (2).
There is also a story in ‘Landnamabok, the Icelandic Book of Settlement, which tells of a man who swam across his local fjord to fetch a sheep for a feast in honour of his cousin, the founder of Greenland, Erick the Red. Studies of Channel swimmers show that 10C would be the lowest temperature that a man would be able to endure for such a swim, but the average August temperature of water in the fjords along the southern Greenland coast now rarely exceeds 6C. The water at that time must therefore have been at least 4C warmer and probably more than that which means that the summer temperatures (for the air) in the fjords in southern Greenland would then have been 13C-14C, (3) as compared with the present temperatures mentioned above.
It follows that temperatures must have been higher than those of today’s during that first settlement of Greenland which lasted from approximately 900 until the mid-1400s AD, when these settlements died out. There is no written explanation for this sudden demise but climate scientists have discovered that Iceland, like the rest of Europe, was gripped by a rapid and centuries-long drop in temperature, known as the Little Ice Age. And in a recent study, William D’Andrea and Yongsong Huang of Brown University, Providence RI (4) have traced the variability of the Greenland climate over a period of 5,600 years when previous inhabitants were also subjected to rapid warm and cold swings in temperatures
Yet the whole reason for the existence of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is to thrust upon the world’s population the idea that industrialisation in the West over the last 100 years and our profligate use of fossil fuels is producing a run-away heating of the planet through the emission of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, which unless checked will lead to its — and humanity’s — death. The western governments are happily looking forward to a vast increase in taxes to pay for measures to reduce ’carbon emissions’ and even the possibility of a Global Government to control everything has been mentioned (5).
So the possibility that temperatures were higher in the past in any part of the world was a thorn in the sides of those Climatologists who are wedded to the whole idea of Anthopogenic Global Warming (AGW), also known as Climate Change.
Unfortunately for them, an English Climatologist, Hubert H Lamb, first formulated the idea of a Medieval Warming Period (MWP) in 1965 and other surveys have found that this warming did not just occur in the northwestern hemisphere but was global (6). Lamb founded the UK Climate Research Unit (CRU) in 1971 and until the mid 1990s the MWP was undisputed fact and was shown even in the IPPC progress report of 1990. But Dr David Darning (University of Oklahoma College of Earth and Energy) in his recent testimony to Congress (7) said ‘…I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. It said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”’ And this the ‘warmist’ Climatologists certainly tried to do.
In 1998 a graph was produced by geophysicist Michael Mann, known as the Hockey Stick Graph’, which managed to almost air-brush out of existence the Medieval Warming Period . This was published in the eminent scientific magazine Nature and also in several places in the IPPC Report of 2001 and created a world-wide sensation. Here was proof positive the world was overheating and it was All Our Fault.
However, investigation of the graph by historians and climatologists who doubted the existence of global warming, brought criticism centred around the statistical method used and the associated computer programme. It was eventually called the most discredited study in the history of science and quietly dropped by the IPPC from the latest 2007 IPPC report for policy makers.
The Hockey Stick graph had also attempted to remove the Little Ice Age which was another world-wide event, lasting from roughly the early 14th century to the mid-19th century with short interspersed warm periods. It is well-known from written reports that temperatures must at times have been considerably lower than in the Medieval Warming Period since Frost Fairs were often held on the frozen Thames until 1814 and in 1658, during the coldest period of the Little Ice Age, King Karl X Gustav of Sweden led an army across the frozen Danish waters to lay siege to Copenhagen.
It was also at this time that the Viking settlements in Greenland gradually died out. The Medieval Warming Period is usually agreed to have lasted from approximately 900 to approximately 1300 AD and from then onwards the climate cooled again. Glaciers grew, sea ice advanced and marine life migrated southwards as it did so, leaving the Greenlanders with a smaller and more difficult catch. The summers became shorter and progressively cooler, limiting the time cattle could be kept outdoors and increasing the need for winter fodder which became less available. Trade between Greenland, Iceland and Europe became more difficult and finally ceased. (3) It can only be hoped that a few Greenlanders escaped to re-settled somewhere less cold before starvation overcame them all.
But since temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period were higher in Greenland than they are even today, and since this was followed by a Cooling Period, and since this has happened many times before (which have not been considered here), the fact that the earth may have warmed somewhat since the mid 1850s is not unusual. Nor will it be unusual if the temperatures now start to drop.
Above all, since man was not industrialised before the mid-1850s and so was not emitting any huge amounts of CO2, any warming which has occurred over the past 150 years (for which we should be grateful) is obviously a natural event and —
— NOT ALL OUR FAULT!
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Word Count: 1,418
Sonya Porter
Source Material:
(1) http://watsupwiththat.com (The Viking farm under the sand in Greenland by Terese Brasen)
(2) http://www.archaeology.org
(3) ‘Heaven and Earth’ by Prof. Ian Plimer
(5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lsltxgrr_o
(6) http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog
(7) http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543
Question for the astronomers commenting above à propos of the apparent disparity of arrival times for specific segments of the Electromagnetic Spectrum …
Isn’t there a large assumption being made that the origination times from the Supernova are identical? Seems to me that there is no reason to think that the ‘visible light’ and gamma rays and X-rays (and etc) had to have been released at the exact same time, and perhaps logically they should originate at different intervals.
To use a racing analogy, when noticing different arrival times at our ‘finish line’ here on Earth, to be able to accurately determine who won the race, and how fast they traveled, wouldn’t we also have to be sure no-one had a head start?
Yes! I fully agree. That show was very very good.
I would say that 95% of it was excellent. What happened is that for the last segment they apparently (pardon the pun) spliced commentary from a bunch of AGW nitwits onto the end in attempt at political correct balance. You can’t miss it because it is disjointed and completely out of place. Unfortunately for them, the show was so strong that it didn’t tarnish it much at all. Just watch the whole thing and skip the last segment.
Well since Martin is a global warmie I just gotta ask: how did that quote (you provided) taste to you? 😉 Confused? Okay let’s highlight then …
So that it’s clear enough for even the stubbornest AGW cult membership, Martin supplied us with the following quote from this SPIEGEL Magazine Climate Change article …
The only question that remains for me, is whether even this simple observation will penetrate their AGW soaked brains and allow them to connect the dots and realize something interesting about those hundreds of years ago, the intervening years, and today.
P.S. Thank you for the quote Martin. 😉
MrX says:
June 1, 2011 at 6:22 pm
“The only vegetables they can grow is potatoes. Most (ie. nearly all) of their food is imported. I live in Canada and I say 12C is too damn cold. Without technology, Greenland would be deserted today. Can’t grow food. And the trees have to be personally attended by people on site.”
The Greenland farms are growing cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage as well.
The average temps in summer is 12C. Many days are at or above 16C in summer. Plenty warm enough for agriculture, as is evident in the youtube video above.
Blade says:
June 1, 2011 at 10:17 pm
Isn’t there a large assumption being made that the origination times from the Supernova are identical? Seems to me that there is no reason to think that the ‘visible light’ and gamma rays and X-rays (and etc) had to have been released at the exact same time, and perhaps logically they should originate at different intervals.
The collapse of a supernova happens in seconds…
But more importantly, there are no observations of different arrival times on time scales of weeks.
Robert said: “One of the signatures of greenhouse warming is that it is bipolar.”
Oh noes! Think of the poor endangered bipolar bears!
Forget about CO2 – they just need lithium!
Ferdinand Egede would be a perfectly normal farmer if it weren’t for that loud cracking noise. Wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt and overalls, he hurries through the precise rows of his potato field, beads of sweat running down his forehead.
Egede, 49, occasionally picks up a handful of earth and rubs it between his solid fingers, but he isn’t at all satisfied with the results. “It’s much too dry,” he says. “If I don’t get the irrigation going, I’ll lose my harvest.”
The cracking noise has turned into a roar. What’s happening in the sea below Egede’s fields doesn’t square well with what one would normally associate with rural life. The sound is that of an iceberg breaking apart, with pieces of it tumbling into the foaming sea.
Egede, a Greenland potato farmer, has little time to admire the view. He spends most of his days working in the fields and looking at the dramatically steep table mountains at the end of the fjord and the blue and white icebergs in the bay. But today he’s more concerned about a broken water pipe. “The plants need a lot of water,” he says, explaining that the soil here is very sandy, a result of glacier activity.
But he could still have a decent harvest. He pulled 20 tons of potatoes from the earth last summer, and his harvests have been growing larger each year. “It’s already staying warm until November now,” says Egede. And if this is what faraway scientists call the greenhouse effect, it’s certainly a welcome phenomenon, as far as Egede as concerned.
Egede is a pioneer and exactly the kind of man Greenland’s government, which has launched an ambitious program to develop agriculture on the island, likes to see working the land. Sheep and reindeer farmers have already been grazing their herds in southern Greenland for many years. As part of the new program, cattle will be added to the mix on the island’s rocky meadows, part of a new dairy industry officials envision for Greenland. One day in the near future, the island’s farmers could even be growing broccoli and Chinese cabbage.
There are many reasons for this agricultural boom, the most important being a rise in temperature. For most people on earth, global warming still consists of little more than computer models and a number that seems neither concrete nor threatening: an increase of about 4.5°C (8.1°F) in the average temperature worldwide by the year 2100. But what this will mean for Greenland is already becoming apparent today. In Qaqortoq, for example, the average temperature increased from 0.63°C to 1.93°C in the last 30 years. This, in turn, has added two weeks to the growing season, which now amounts to 120 days. With up to 20 hours of daylight in the summer, those two weeks make a huge difference.
A fast-melting ice cap
If what scientists are predicting is true, Greenland will become a central setting for climate change. Temperatures on the island are expected to rise almost twice as much as in Europe — to farmer Egede’s delight but to the consternation of many millions of people. That’s because the Greenland ice cap, which rises behind the chain of hills where his farm is located, is shrinking.
Greenland’s interior is made up of 2.5 million cubic kilometers of ice that is also up to 3,400 meters thick in places. If this huge mass of ice melts, sea levels will rise by almost seven meters (about 23 feet). Although this horrifying scenario isn’t likely to happen quickly, new studies published last month suggest that the shrinking of Greenland’s ice sheet is speeding up.
In an article published in the journal Science, US researchers write that 224 cubic kilometers of ice disappeared in 2005, almost three times the annual average between 1997 and 2003.
For Greenland’s fortunate new farmers, this means that they’ll be able to repeat an important part of human history within a much shorter period of time. Their grandfathers were nomadic hunters in what was then a desolate, ice-covered wasteland, their fathers raised livestock and the current generation is plowing the fields. For farmer Egede, the only evidence of a bygone way of life can be found in the crocheted hunting scenes hanging on the wall next to a giant flat-screen TV in his living room. “Hunting is getting more and more difficult,” he says. “The fjord hardly ever freezes over in the winter anymore; nowadays, snowmobiles would sink.”
Høegh points proudly at the wealth of flowers in his garden. “This is a special variety from Nepal,” the agronomist says, pointing to his potatoes. He says that if he forgets to harvest a few potatoes, he’ll find them there, undamaged, in the next year. “The ground doesn’t freeze as deeply as it used to,” says Høegh.
But he’s especially fond of his trees, which comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with southern Greenland’s barren landscape. He planted the first of them a few years ago, just after his house was built. They’re already taller than he is, or about the maximum height of the few stunted little trees that dot the Greenland countryside.
“But the look of our city will have changed completely within a few years,” says Høegh, gazing at brightly colored wooden houses hugging the bare, rocky ground. He imagines the spaces between the houses filling in with birch, ash and poplar trees in the future. The wind has already carried seed from Canada, northern Europe and Iceland to Greenland. “The trees will soon be as tall as the houses.”
In an agricultural research facility on the other side of the fjord, scientists study the behavior of useful plants when they are exposed to conditions approaching their biological limits. Greenland’s first broccoli thrives there, albeit under white plastic tarps. It has to be protected against freezing nighttime temperatures, which can extend into June in the region.
“The growth period is already as long as it is in the Alps, at an altitude of 1,500 meters (4,921 feet),” Høegh says. It currently starts in early May, but if it began two weeks earlier, farmers could even grow apples and strawberries.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,434356-2,00.html
What’s missing from this recipe is temporality. The MWP happened at different times in different parts of the world. Consider the easy-to-use graph in the top post (reference 6). There are three graphs for Greenland, and the peak of the MWP for each is ~900 AD, 1050, and 1150.
But the peaks aren’t that far apart. How about the rest of the world?
Studies of locations near or in Antarctica show MWP peaks at 780 AD (Bransfield Basin) and 850 (Sombre Lake). New Zealand MWP peaks at 1350 AD. In the Baltic region, Lake Teletskoye peak MWP was around 1400 AD, while Lake Qinghai in China peaks at 700 AD. In many instances, the temperatures are cool for one place when they’re hot at another.
This suggests that the MWP may not have been a global phenomenon. The studies on that page are a fraction of the 200 collected by NICCP. To build a case from these sources requires accounting for these spatio-temporal anomalies during the MWP. The ensemble mean of 200 locations would give a clearer picture of the global MWP, and a firmer platform from which to make statements about the periodicity and temperatures for a global MWP.
I think combining would show a definite warm period a millenia or so ago, but it would be difficult to speculate about the amplitude of global temps back then as compared to now.
Hello Warmists,
Greenland is cooler today than during the MWP. Why the alarm today over Greenland?
“IF………….blah, blah, blah……………” ;>)
Still can’t beat Jeremy Clarkson and James May driving to the North Magnetic pole. Must be hard to drive there if all the ice has melted, or if it is ‘rotten’. Truly a stick poked in the eye of alarmism.
As for the alarmists – the whole Greenland history is one of the largest problems in the entire edifice. For one – it shows that temps go up and down without human influence. For two – it shows that a warming world is better than a cold one, and for three – it shows that a partially melted Greenland ice cap doesn’t equal 6 or 9m higher seas. Some might say – there are 55 farms in Greenland now – others might say – tell us when you get to a couple of hundred like there used to be.
Oh, and I wanted to say. Perhaps the reason Greenland wasn’t called ‘iceland’ was the name was already taken?
Maybe ‘green’ had some other connotation – we use ‘green’ as a substitute for envy, for example. Do we really understand Norse culture that well to know? It might have literally meant grassy, or it could have meant something else. We have a ‘Gold Coast’ that has no gold. We have Smokey Mountains with no smoke. Perhaps Eric the Red was the first real estate spruiker. Perhaps he was color blind. It doesn’t matter- the fact is they setup and farmed the place, and then got driven back by the cold. Climate changes of it’s own accord and we really don’t understand why, much less have the ability to predict, and much less the ability to control via taxation.
Blade
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/01/greenland-and-agw/#comment-672185
You are a man after my own mind . . . . outstanding rationality . . . . great point!!!
I will remember that lovely strategy (approach) . . . .
Oh, look I think I stumbled upon “how to link to a particular comment”!
>>steven mosher says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:33 pm <<
1. You're conflating two different arguments. That the average global temperature might have been higher in the MWP doesn't imply that it's a good proxy to the Earth's energy balance.
2. First, the MWP lasted 4 times longer than the current 1 degree C warming. Secondly, the warmists basically just make up data before 1979 for the 2/3 of the planet covered in ocean; to my recall no skeptic here ever claimed to have temperature data over the oceans in 1100 AD.
3. I think the overall historical and archeological record of Greenland makes the case; the fjord swim was just one data point among many.
The records require 12th century Greenland to have been much warmer than 20th century Greenland, while the claimed AGW warming is within the instrument error. The agriculture in 12th century Greenland is impossible even with the current warmer temperatures. Do you have a example of a place where agriculture changed that significantly since 1900 because of warming? I know that here in Florida orange trees no longer grow as far north they did in the early 1900s, but that's an example of cooling.
It’s only the extremists in either camp who claim that it’s “all our fault”.
The truth of the matter is that the earth naturally goes through rapid changes in temperature and climate and the concern is that our modern influence will cause those swings to be more drastic, more rapid, and will push them toward the warmer end of the spectrum. That’s what the concern about industrialization and global warming is about. No respectable scientist attempts to deny past changes, their concerns are based on past changes.
This is a good article, but misses the point.
“This is a good article, but misses the point.”
That’s what I thought as well. I have never heard any scientist dismiss that the earth regularly experiences climate fluctuations, (with the exception of the two mentioned in the article, one named, one un-named out of thousands). Only that this current fluctuation is far more rapid.
But climate change is only one indicator that we simply cannot continue to use our resources the way we have been. I would fully support moving away from fossils fuels as quickly as possible even if it was proved that the science of climate change were as credible as alchemy. Fossil fuels are dirty, toxic, expensive and destructive. Not to mention that we are fast running out of them and are now searching for even more toxic forms of them. I could probably deal with having to grow mangoes in the Yukon, but not with having to fill in the tar sands in Alberta.
N_Leonard said:
June 2, 2011 at 9:24 am
“It’s only the extremists in either camp who claim that it’s ‘all our fault’.”
No, it’s the extremists in big-warming who claim that it’s “all our fault”.
“The truth of the matter is that the earth naturally goes through rapid changes in temperature and climate and the concern is that our modern influence will cause those swings to be more drastic, more rapid, and will push them toward the warmer end of the spectrum.”
Concern does not equal science. Concern does not make reality conform to the presupposition that “our modern influence will cause those swings to be more drastic…”, etc.
Besides, such concern is not what drives big-warming; that would be a luddite effort to return us to a pre-industrial lifestyle, and a crypto-commie effort to re-order the world economy.
“That’s what the concern about industrialization and global warming is about. No respectable scientist attempts to deny past changes, their concerns are based on past changes.”
The big-warming “scientist” attempts to deny past changes by hiding MWP, etc. Their efforts are based on “cooking the books”.
“This is a good article, but misses the point.”
Disagree with your implied definition of “the point”!
Cuprik: Wrong on all counts. Fossil fuels are not dirty, toxic, expensive or destructive, nor are we going to run out of them anytime in next few centuries.
Keith says:
June 1, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Well, I was sort of referring to their apparent absence from the general climate debate about the MWP in general.
But thanks for the references.
MarkW says:
June 2, 2011 at 1:09 pm
“Cuprik: Wrong on all counts. Fossil fuels are not dirty, toxic, expensive or destructive, nor are we going to run out of them anytime in next few centuries.”
The good folks of the Gulf of Mexico wouldn’t agree that Fossil fuels are not dirty, toxic, expensive or destructive.
Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are making people sick. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.
http://www.medindia.net/news/Toxicity-from-Fossil-Fuels-Greatly-Impacts-Fish-and-Human-Lives-33142-1.htm
steven mosher says:
June 1, 2011 at 1:19 pm
RE: “Practice the same level of scepticsm about this paragraph that you do about AGW.”
Can’t be done, old friend. Why?
Without Sagas, we have very little to go on.
For example, take the subject of Viking boats. In actual fact we only have a few from graves. If you check out the ship modeler’s site at
http://www.jans-sajt.se/contents/Navigation/Modelling/Patterns_Rigg_Viking.htm
You are confronted by the truth, “Well, in fact we know almost NOTHING about the Vikings and their ships really. ”
However, if you check out this site:
http://home.online.no/~joeolavl/viking/vikingshipclasses.htm
You learn a lot more. Obviously the information came from old writings, because no ships survive. As true Skeptics, we cannot be sure the information is true unless we dig up some thousand-year-old ship. However the information about the Viking cargo ships, (called “knarr,”) is very important if you thirst to know more about Greenland.
Therefore you are tantalized by these two sentences, “One special kind of the knarr was called “Grønlandsknarr” (Greenland) and “Vinlandsknarr” (New Foundland). They were large ships with as much as 35 rooms.” (Before you get too excited, a “room” was more or less a rowing bench the sailors slept on.)
The fact there were two types, one for Greenland and one for BEYOND Greenland, gets any lore-lover’s heart quickening, but, of course, a true Skeptic won’t go there.
Forgive me, but there are time true Skeptics are real party-poops. They have no imagination, and refuse to see what is suggested by the few slim bits of evidence we do have.
Just for another example, suppose only half the population of Greenland were farmers. Suppose the other half was swashbuckling seafaring traders, mostly male, coming and going between Iceland and Vineland, and only stopping in to do what sailors do, when at port. What evidence would you expect to find of this, in Greenland?
Odd thing about the graveyards in Greenland: There are something like two men for each woman. Also there is more “treasure” in the woman’s graves than the men’s.
Does this suggest anything to you?
There is no mention of what I am suggesting in any Saga that I know of. However such things can be suggested, if you put your grim Skepticism aside, (or at least into a state of abeyance,) for just long enough to consider possibilities, using a healthy imagination.
Personally I hold the view the Greenland Vikings were not only tough farmers, but great traders. It explains things such as the Viking penny found in a heap of clam shells in Maine, and the chain mail found up on Ellesmere Island.
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic33-3-454.pdf
(….Among other things….)
I think a true Skeptic looks for disproof. It is different, when you demand proof.
As a teenager I went on some remarkable adventures. They shaped the rest of my life. Can I prove, to a Skeptic like you, that the adventures really happened?
I do have the yellowing pages of a diary from the 1960’s. Not the most scientific of proofs, I’ll admit, but darn good reading all the same.
I very much enjoy the information about the farmers who dare to farm Greenland. It takes real guts to farm in the north. However they’ve a way to go to match the Vikings, who had thousands of cows and over 100,000 sheep and goats, and no way to get hay from outside, to help them through the long winters.
For a peek at the Geenland Viking Farmer’s life, check out this link:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp04/mq22551.pdf
How is it hidden when it is discussed in paleoclimate reconstructions from Mann 98/99 onwards and is discussed in the IPCC reports?
The talking point is scientists ‘hiding the MWP’, but that’s just a straw man. There are healthy questions on its spatio-temporal persistence, duration and magnitude. For the purposes of skeptics, all that matters is whether global temps were warmer back then than now*. Anyone who says anything categorically on this, on either side of the debate, is selling something.
* Setting aside the conspiracy theories.
I didn’t read all the above comments, but has anyone considered the possible consequences of a greener Greenland in the past? If the ice sheet can melt significantly with natural fluctuations, that could be troublesome the next time a natural warm spell is augmented by CO2 warming. More room for farming, sure, but also enhanced sea level rise.
I think that we could have had more then one cause for the little ice age.The present negative Arctic Oscillations are believed at least by some to be caused by the low solar minimum and we see both low solar activity and severe winters in the little ice age just as today.The little ice age was also a period when we had major volcanic activity which produced years without a summer and we have not seen that yet today but if we do the effects of both working together would create a cooling trend,the severe winters would produce more snow but the cool summers would not cause melting so that the greater ice albedo would add to the effect of volcanic activity making it even cooler.
Readers may be interested in A Viking Voyage by W. Hodding Carter, who devoted 3 years of his life to work on first building, and then sailing a replica of a Viking ship from Greenland across the open sea to Baffin Island and then down the coast to Newfoundland. Very interesting read.