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 |
An unwillingness to adapt? Perhaps there were not the available animal resources in their area to go Inuit as it cooled. The assumption that they might have been unwilling to adapt is mean, as perhaps they were trying but did not have the time to implement or invent the needed changes. The Inuit skills were not developed overnight. Failed colonies abound in the history of humans.
All tise was very well known in 1913 when Swedish geologist and oceanographer Ptto Pttereson published his paper about the issue, a long and fascinating study of all kinds of data available then, including ancient Viking Sagas and documents, where Petterson correlates climatic changes to “solar-lunar generating forces”:
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/calen12/petterson_1.html
“Climatic variations in historic and prehistoric time”.
By Otto PETTERSON
Published in 1913 in UR Svenska Hydrografisk-Biologiska Kommisionens Skrifter
In the last centuries of the Middle Ages a series of political and economic catastrophes occurred all over the then-known world.
Read it because it is well worth it.
@ur momisugly Peter Kovachev says:
June 20, 2011 at 6:02 pm
“I would modify the last sentence to “adaption is difficult if it contradicts culture.”
Perhaps you are right, but religion plays a very big part. And religion is also a big part of the environmental movement.
Peter Kovachev-
Thanks the religion of the Norse wasn’t the problem there were may settlers learned the way of the
natives, look at Plymouth colony, for example-Johnstown too. There were many Highland Scots moutain
men in the American west who found friends and wives among the Local Native American tribes,and found the
lifestyle not too different. ..
I agree- time was not on their side…
One thing that is not considered is is the social stability ,land was not just to grow food it defined the social order.I remember at school being taught about the settlement of England by the angles and the jutes who invaded England and this gives me an insight into what might have happened in Greenland.Many of the imperial measurements were devised at this time the foot ,yard and the furlong they measured the strips of land farmed by individual farmers.
The exact time of the collapse is not known, but it’s certainly later than 1350. The latest written record relating to the settlements is of a wedding which took place in 1408, and it’s generally agreed that the collapse was some time during the 15th century, i.e. at least 58 years after 1350.
Almost everyone agreed solar activity had little to do with climate change, until it did.
I like to think the creators of the universe answered my prayers for an extended solar minimum, so we could teach the sheeple of the world a lesson they would never forget.
Thanks for answering my prayers fellas.
History repeats itself – this very scenario is playing out as we speak, and the climate experts at the UEA are looking the other way. Will they believe the world is safe from incineration when they can walk their poodles across the Thames?
Perhaps a Josh cartoon of Phil Jones and Jim Hansen standing in the middle of a frozen Thames crying on one another’s shoulder paints a better picture. Maybe Hansen can be towing a toy death train. Hansen should never be cartooned without a toy death train.
What else happend around 1350?
Black death spread in europe.
“The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% – 60% of Europe’s population”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
That may also affect the settlement either direct or indirect with no homeland base left for supply.
Fastest Sea-Level Rise in 2,000 Years Linked to Increasing Global Temperatures
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110620183242.htm
“The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years — and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.”
Panic in the city. .3mm???? Hmmm. Sound familiar? Sure it does. That is what the U. of Co. determined was the rate of continental rise. Hey! Were even gang!
Yawn.
Jared Diamond wrote an interesting book (‘Collapse’) about marginal societies a few years ago. He wailed on about not adapting to climate change etc, but basically he just demonstrated that marginal societies are, well, marginal.
The Norse sensibly adapted by moving back to Europe, where their descendents played their part in the Age of Enligtenment and the Indusrial Revolution. The Eskimo (oh, sorry, Inuit) remained, where their descendents sell crap to cruise ships in tourist traps. Yet Diamned praised the latter, drided the former.
When did the Medieval Climate Optimum or Medieval Warming Period become the Medieval Climate Anomaly? Maybe I am reading something into it that shouldn’t be there, but it sounds like an attempt to marginalize the MWP as anomalous since they have to acknowledge it now.
Why Vikings would go to the colder and more inhospitable climate?
Negative NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) makes Scandinavian winters dry and very cold , while the west Greenland in contrast turns wet and milder.
These conditions are currently setting in, the trend may last at least through forthcoming decade and possibly longer.
The negative NAO, and why may be a prolonged one :
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAO-.htm
You have to laugh at the way they jump through hoops to avoid taking a shot at Team AGW in order to get this published. Notice that no mention is made of the end of the MWP – the problem with Greenland settlements was specific to the peculiarities of the ocean currents around Greenland, and the fact that it was much warmer than it is today is just a “Greenland” thing – nothing for us skeptics to get excited about. Ocean currents changed the climate in Greenland by 10degrees, but only in Greenland and nowhere else.
So the rest of us must continue to be very afraid of AGW. Personally I’d be more afraid of these capricious ocean currents which, it seems, can end human civilization on a whim. They must be stopped…..
I agree with Ray B. We should resist the attempt to rename the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ as the ‘Medieval Climate Anomaly’ until it has been demonstrated that there was anything anomalous about it. Isn’t it a blatent attempt to support the ‘warm is unusual’ theme without requiring evidence?
Ray B says:
June 21, 2011 at 1:15 am
When did the Medieval Climate Optimum or Medieval Warming Period become the Medieval Climate Anomaly? Maybe I am reading something into it that shouldn’t be there, but it sounds like an attempt to marginalize the MWP as anomalous since they have to acknowledge it now.
I thought exactly the same thing. Digging around on Google (listing results in date order) the oldest reference I can find is a reference to this paper:
Trouet, V., Esper, J., Graham, N.E., Baker, A., Scourse, J.D. and Frank, D.C., 2009. Persistent positive North Atlantic Oscillation mode dominated the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science, 324, 78-80
In this article: http://www.connectedwaters.unsw.edu.au/resources/articles/stalagmitesarchives.html
So at least 2009, although my bet is probably quite a bit earlier, given the comment on the Wikipedia entry for the MWP, vis:
“Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that effects other than temperature were important.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Although Dellingpole notes a thwarted attempt to rename the Wiki entry to the new name by William Connelly in an article ostensibly about Hal Lewis’ resignation from the APS:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100059077/professor-hal-lewis-is-not-an-irrelevant-senile-old-fool/
Hmm, probably too many links. Hey ho.
An older reference to the MCA, this from 2001, I doubt I’ll find any which are very much older:
http://atlas-conferences.com/c/a/h/i/82.htm
Where Keith Briffa mentions it in an abstract to a 2001 conference.
The important thing about the study might be, that it to some extent differs from the ice-cores (compare ljungqvists paper from 2009): here: cooler c. AD 750 and 1050, warmer from c. AD 1050 to 1400/1500 (cooling trend since 1250) and cool afterwards. However it nicely fits with lambs very early assessment of lia and mwp/mca (and this paper could even be interpreted to fit the models, oops).
I find that so hard to believe. As we all know, Michael Mann has demonstrated that there was a stable temperature across the whole world for the thousand years preceding the industrial revolution via his justly famous and IPCC endorsed hockey stick.
It is much more likely, indeed highly probable that the vikings abandoned greenland due to one of the following reasons.
[1] Homesickness for the fjords of denmark, and finland.
[2] The old lady who knew the recipe for Mead passed away and they all embarked for the homelands for a decent drink.
[3] The were repeatedly attacked by Fenrir the wolf.
[4] The world circling serpent Jorgunmundir attacked the settlements much like godzilla has done in Japan.
[5] The depredations of frost giants were just too much trouble.
As you can see from the above demonstrated proofs – a fantasy such as the Medieval Warming Period just doesn’t stand up.
I distrust all research that is based on the assumption that people are too stupid and just do nothing as they start to die away.
Authors’ spiel.
“The authors suggest the collapse of the Greenland Norse presents a historical example of a society which failed to adapt to climate change.”
The trading ships from Europe had stopped, because the voyages had become far too dangerous. There weren’t suitable trees for the Greenlanders to build any ships so they could not leave. That’s not failure to adapt, that’s being caught out by the vagaries of the ever changing climate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlanders#Early_Paleo-Eskimo_cultures
Another example springs to mind. The Polynesians on Rapa Nui felled every tree for use as rollers to move the Moai, so no canoes & a grossly destabilised society. By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island’s population had dropped to 2,000–3,000 from a high of approximately 15,000 just a century earlier.
Reference. Barbara A. West
Socialist scientists don’t do manual work , so the meaning of the phrase, “Don’t paint yourself into a corner.” escapes them. Always leave yourself a means to escape off the island.
@TheSkyIsFalling
> I agree with Ray B. We should resist the attempt to rename the
> ‘Medieval Warm Period’ as the ‘Medieval Climate Anomaly’
> until it has been demonstrated that there was anything
> anomalous about it. Isn’t it a blatent attempt to support the
> ‘warm is unusual’ theme without requiring evidence?
I wouldn’t necessarily rule out any sinister machinations behind these name changes.
But I would like to point out that the term “anomaly” is used somewhat differently in meteorology/climatology than it is in statistics. In statistics (and elsewhere) an “anomaly” is an unexpected deviation from the norm. Weathermen, on the other hand, tend to use “anomaly” as a synonym for “deviation”, to point out and measure any departure from a statistical mean. So, in this usage, anomalies are expected to happen and are not necessarily “unusual”.
The justification for this usage is partly that changed values are easier and more reliably detected than absolute values. So, we can easily see the temperature changes in ice cores and other proxies, but there is considerably more uncertainty about the baseline temperature (unless other more reliable proxy values are available for calibration).
Roger Knights says:
June 20, 2011 at 6:43 pm
“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).”
Strange, just looking at the IPCC hockey stick graph for 2001 and 2007 and they both show the imprint of the MWP and a LIA so I don’t know where you get the idea that this somehow “weakens the credibility” for AGW.
The rate at which temperature has risen in resent decades is unpresidented on those graphs though, what was the rate of temperature rise for the MWP? I can’t find any evidence that suggests that it was nearly as fast as what we are observing in the last few decades…
Elmer says:June 20, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Then they traveled to Kensington Minnesota in 1362.
I know, that is where they got their copper, from the natives. Your date is off by 2000 years, it was 1700 B.C., and near Toronto, Canada. See, ‘Bronze Age America’, by Barry Fell
If I had been asked 30 years ago why the Vikings Greenland colony failed, I would have answered climate change and failure to adapt. So what exactly does this new study add that previous studies didn’t cover?