We’ve always suspected this for some time, as the MWP ended, they became isolated by the change in weather patterns as the climate turned colder. Nice to see it in a peer reviewed publication finally.
From Wiley-Blackwell
Did climate change cause Greenland’s ancient Viking community to collapse?
Our changing climate usually appears to be a very modern problem, yet new research from Greenland published in Boreas, suggests that the AD 1350 collapse of a centuries old colony established by Viking settlers may have been caused by declining temperatures and a rise in sea-ice. The authors suggest the collapse of the Greenland Norse presents a historical example of a society which failed to adapt to climate change.
The research, led by Dr Sofia Ribeiro from the University of Copenhagen, currently at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, focused on Disko Bay in Western Greenland and used a marine sediment record to reconstruct climate change over the last 1500 years.
Events which occurred during this time frame included the arrival of Norse settlers, led by Eric the Red in AD 985. After establishing a colony known as the Western Settlement the Norse traveled north to Disko Bay, a prime hunting ground for walruses and seals.
“Our study indicates that at the time the Norse arrived in West Greenland, climate conditions were relatively mild and were favorable to the settlers” said Ribeiro. “However, in AD 1350 the settlement collapsed, the cause of which has long been debated.”
The marine perspective of the research is especially relevant as the Norse inhabited inner fjord areas. The team’s research compared robust air temperature reconstructions based on ice-core data with their own marine record. The results underline the regional complexity of climate patterns in the study area, which may vary from ice core reconstructions, and are strongly controlled by the fluctuating influence of “warm” Atlantic waters entrained by the West Greenland Current.
“Our study shows a major shift towards cooler conditions and extensive sea-ice which coincides with the estimated time for the collapse of the Western Settlement in AD 1350,” said Dr Ribeiro. “The Norse were proud of being Europeans, farmers and Christians, and never adopted the hunting and survival techniques of the Inuit, so these temperature shifts would have caused significant problems for the colonists and their livestock.”
Agricultural difficulties are believed to have forced the Norse to rely on marine resources, yet the increase in sea-ice, the team suggests, would have had a major impact on species such as migratory seals, while blocking trade routes.
“We cannot attribute the end of the Norse civilisation to a single factor, but there is enough evidence to suggest that climate change played a major role in determining its collapse,” concluded Ribeiro. “Harsh climate conditions made farming and cattle production increasingly difficult and the extensive sea-ice prevented navigation and trading with Europe.”
“There is perhaps an important lesson to learn from the Norse collapse and that is a lesson of adaptation, of being able to adjust our values and life-style when times change. That is an important challenge we face today as a society.”
Climate variability in West Greenland during the past 1500 years: evidence from a high-resolution marine palynological record from Disko Bay
Ribeiro, S., Moros, M., Ellegaard, M. & Kuijpers, A. 2011: Climate variability in West Greenland during the past 1500 years: evidence from a high-resolution marine palynological record from Disko Bay. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2011.00216.x. ISSN 0300-9483.
Here we document late-Holocene climate variability in West Greenland as inferred from a marine sediment record from the outer Disko Bay. Organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts and other palynomorphs were used to reconstruct environmental changes in the area through the last c. 1500 years at 30–40 years resolution. Sea ice cover and primary productivity were identified as the two main factors driving dinoflagellate cyst community changes through time. Our data provide evidence for an opposite climate trend in West Greenland relative to the NE Atlantic region from c. AD 500 to 1050. For the same period, sea-surface temperatures in Disko Bay are out-of-phase with Greenland ice-core reconstructed temperatures and marine proxy data from South and East Greenland. This is probably governed by an NAO-type pattern, which results in warmer sea-surface conditions with less extensive sea ice in the area for the later part of the Dark Ages cold period (c. AD 500 to 750) and cooler conditions with extensive sea ice inferred for the first part of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (c. AD 750 to 1050). After c. AD 1050, the marine climate in Disko Bay becomes in-phase with trends described for the NE Atlantic, reflected in the warmer interval for the remainder of the MCA (c. AD 1050–1250), followed by cooling towards the onset of the Little Ice Age at c. AD 1400. The inferred scenario of climate deterioration and extensive sea ice is concomitant with the collapse of the Norse Western Settlement in Greenland at c. AD 1350.
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Supporting info:
Table S1: Raw counts of charcoal, foraminiferal linings, dinoflagellate cyst taxa, and other palynomorphs from the Disco Bay sediment core.
Please note: Wiley-Blackwell is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting materials supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing material) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
| Filename | Format | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| BOR_216_sm_supplinfo-s1.pdf |
It does not fit the meme of “MWP only in Europe” therefore it must be silenced / sarc
lack of adptation?
REPLY: Fixed, thanks, -A
OK…and what exactly? It’s been warmer. It’s been cooler. How does that negate any of the science that shows that excessive CO2 from our activities is cause changes in the earth atmosphere?
“The Norse were proud of being Europeans, farmers and Christians, and never adopted the hunting and survival techniques of the Inuit, so these temperature shifts would have caused significant problems for the colonists and their livestock.”
I heard this many years ago on a TV documentary. I found it interesting that the Christian Norse would not have adopted the Inuit techniques as the Inuit techniques were bound up with their religion.For example, in order to learn how to hunt, seal the Norse may have been told they needed to say prayers to the appropriate Inuit Gods.
Adaption is difficult if it contradicts religion.
All I can say is that we have a planetary emergency. Buy your Al Gore style beachfront property now. It’s an emergency afterall! ;O)
Greenland is now warm enough for increased vegatable farming.
*Rate of sea level rise has flattened after the hottest decade on the record.
Interesting how a peer reviewed paper like this is spun on the theme that we should learn to adapt to climate change in our current era. They are ignoring that their study is now making the hockey stick graph more than a bit silly.
Of course, it is imperative that society prepare to adapt to climate change. After all, without some pre-planning where will we put all the Canadians as we expand out onto our continental shelves.
Oh, and moderate republican – time for you to study some paleo-climate. We’ve been on an up down roller coaster in temps since the end of the last ice age but the overall trend is down I’m afraid. I wish the models were correct with their water vapor feed backs, but since they have been tracking wrong for a decade now it looks like there is nothing we can do to prevent the ultimate end of this inter-glacial.
vegatable = vegetable
;>)
((Moderate Republican says:
June 20, 2011 at 4:54 pm
OK…and what exactly? It’s been warmer. It’s been cooler. How does that negate any of the science that shows that excessive CO2 from our activities is cause changes in the earth atmosphere? ))
And what science would that be MR??
It can’t be this so it must be that.
New Age religious beliefs maybe??
Government power and taxation??
NGO backdoor influence??
Sorry if I have missed some of your science. Maybe you could go through some of it for us.
regards
The Norse colonies in Greenland survived for 365 years, which compares in duration to the Anglo-Saxon (and everything else) presence in North America — the first (surviving) English settlement in North America was founded at Jamestown 404 years ago.
Here is evidence of the Medieval Warm Period around the world in peer reviewed scientific papers.
South America, southern Africa, Australia, Antarctica, New Zealand, Asia and the oceans. Note: The MWP was a very localized event in the Northern Hemisphere. ;O)
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Moderate Republican says:
June 20, 2011 at 4:54 pm
OK…and what exactly? It’s been warmer. It’s been cooler. How does that negate any of the science that shows that excessive CO2 from our activities is cause changes in the earth atmosphere?
=============================================================
MR. does anyone posit that more CO2 doesn’t cause a change in the earth’s atmosphere? The very definition of “increased atmospheric CO2” means there are changes in earth’s atmosphere. But that really had absolutely nothing to do with the article, now does it? Thanks for the fail at the strawman.
Here’s what I take from this…..It turns out, once again, there is more evidence that there was a LIA, and a MWP. We know the MWP was warmer than it was today because of the agriculture and shipping that had gone one in places where it is impossible today. (Consider the water craft of the time.) We also see evidence of human culture thriving in a warmer climate and dying to the point of extinction in a colder one. (And people wonder why skeptics draw parallels of alarmists to Malthusians.)
It is simply more evidence, that even if the improbable is occurring, (that we’re significantly changing earth’s climate by our GHG emissions) the occurrence would have a positive impact on humanity.
Is there really anymore that needs discussed when regarding climate change? No wonder the loons refuse to give up their hockey stick in spite of what reality says.
This little bit of seemingly insignificant piece of human history entirely destroys the posit of global warming alarmism.
You should have said:
You nearly got away with that. ;O)
The atmosphere is changing, but I don’t give a crap. Show me the science that shows that the world is warming due to man-made greenhouse gases? [warming trend has stalled for over a decade]
Moderate Republican
You do realize approximately 96% of all CO2 is natural in origin. In other words NOT man made what so ever. Now, keeping in mind both China and India (both the largest CO2 culprits on the planet) have no intention of curtailing CO2 – perhaps you have a plan to force India and China to act responsible as is the western world. Barring that short of war India and China are not about to dismantle their entire economy just to please hysterical Global Warming advocates who are delusional at best and outright liars at worse.
‘
Then they traveled to Kensington Minnesota in 1362.
Anything new here? I thought it was already well established that the Greenland settlements failed because of a cooling climate and inability or unwillingness to adapt.
“I found it interesting that the Christian Norse would not have adopted the Inuit techniques as the Inuit techniques were bound up with their religion.For example, in order to learn how to hunt, seal the Norse may have been told they needed to say prayers to the appropriate Inuit Gods….Adaption is difficult if it contradicts religion.” (John in NZ)
I would modify the last sentence to “adaption is difficult if it contradicts culture.” Religion alone, being largely a cognitive and behavioural thing of ours, is surprisingly flexible and amenable to tolerance and change when under physical pressure. Established customs, traditions, hierarchies, kinship structures, diets, technologies and habits, on the other hand, are very resilient. On the basis of comparative examples, such as those of Europeans adopting trchnologies and methods of native peoples when cut off from assistance, my guess is that the Norse too would have eventually adapted….except that they seem to have run out of time.
@Moderate Republican
> OK…and what exactly? It’s been warmer. It’s been cooler. How does that negate any of the science
> that shows that excessive CO2 from our activities is cause changes in the earth atmosphere?
Very simple. The CAGW religion is based on these two tenets:
1. The current warm climate is unprecedented.
2. CO2 must be causing this warm climate exactly because the warmth is unprecedented (i.e. “what else could it be?).
The mere existence of the MWP falsifies both of these premises. I.e. the current warming really isn’t unprecedented. It seems to occur cyclically in nature. Hence no man-made CO2 nonsense is needed to explain it.
This negates the claims that only man-made CO2 could possibly account for the current warm climate, precisely because there was never any convincing proof for man-made warming, other than “what else could it be”?
Now there’s an “else”.
😐
Whatever happened to global warming? Mod Republican, we are not idiots. Try another blog.
Some warmists have pooh-poohed the evidence of the viking settlements in Greenland as being “anecdotal” and hence unscientific (non sequitur) and hence dismissible. This evidence provides scientific data to back up their accounts.
To some extent, this evidence strengthens the case for the MWP & the LIA, which weakens the case for the hockey stick, which both weakens the credibility of warmism (which endorsed it) and the warmists’ message that today’s warmth is unprecedented (and hence dangerous and likely due to CO2).
I strongly suspect moderate republican is neither moderate or republican, and, based on his comments, is but one of the many species of internet trolls. He doesn’t seem very smart. Alas, my witty comebacks have all been taken already. Sniff. Sniff.
Nice to see the MWP acknowlegement. However, I’m still skeptical of the whole idea that climate change is or has been significant enough to knock off whole civilizations, even relatively small ones. There are plenty of groups who have come and gone, and climate change is certainly not a unique culprit for declining civilizations. In the present case, are we to understand that these folks chose to die rather than learn to hunt, or that the summer temperatures were so cold as to prevent any sea-faring travel? As with most departed civilizations, there is a natural desire to figure out the cause (and to gain recognition by doing so), but it is far from clear that we can inter that climate change was a sufficient cause, or even a significant contributing cause.
There’s nothing new under the Sun… a famous quote.
One has to wonder just how long it will be before the increasingly long and colder winters in the N. Hemisphere will lead to expansion and longevity of sea ice.
“Then they traveled to Kensington Minnesota in 1362.” (Elmer, June 20, 2011 at 5:59 pm)
Highly unlikely; actually, probability zero. The tablet with its runic inscription upon which the idea of Vikings travelling to the area of present day Kingston, Minnesota is now deemed to be a forgery, written in a rune-based code developed by a young Swede in the early 1800s, and with words and individual chracters unknown in the 14th century. Another runic inscription, very similar to the Kingston one was found recently, and two former students at the university nearby confessed to having carved it as a prank in the 80s.
Indur M. Goklany says:
June 20, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Nice point. Trade with the Ukraine & Turkey is what kept Europe from a famine in the early Dalton.