Public Release: 6-Feb-2019
Study shows that Vikings enjoyed a warmer Greenland
Chemistry of bugs trapped in ancient lake sediment shows a warm climate at a key time in Greenland’s history
Northwestern University
EVANSTON, Ill. — A new study may resolve an old debate about how tough the Vikings actually were.
Although TV and movies paint Vikings as robust souls, braving subzero temperatures in fur pelts and iron helmets, new evidence indicates they might have been basking in 50-degree summer weather when they settled in Greenland.
After reconstructing southern Greenland’s climate record over the past 3,000 years, a Northwestern University team found that it was relatively warm when the Norse lived there between 985 and 1450 C.E., compared to the previous and following centuries.
“People have speculated that the Norse settled in Greenland during an unusually, fortuitously warm period, but there weren’t any detailed local temperature reconstructions that fully confirmed that. And some recent work suggested that the opposite was true,” said Northwestern’s Yarrow Axford, the study’s senior author. “So this has been a bit of a climate mystery.”
Now that climate mystery finally has been solved.
The study will publish on Feb. 6 in the journal Geology. Axford is an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. The study is a part of Northwestern Ph.D. candidate G. Everett Lasher’s dissertation research, based in Axford’s lab.
To reconstruct past climate, the researchers studied lake sediment cores collected near Norse settlements outside of Narsaq in southern Greenland. Because lake sediment forms by an incremental buildup of annual layers of mud, these cores contain archives of the past. By looking through the layers, researchers can pinpoint climate clues from eons ago.
For this study, Lasher analyzed the chemistry of a mix of lake fly species, called chironomids, trapped inside the layers of sediment. By looking at the oxygen isotopes within the flies’ preserved exoskeletons, the team pieced together a picture of the past. This method allowed the team to reconstruct climate change over hundreds of years or less, making it the first study to quantify past temperature changes in the so-called Norse Eastern Settlement.
“The oxygen isotopes we measure from the chironomids record past lake water isotopes in which the bugs grew, and that lake water comes from precipitation falling over the lake,” said Lasher, first author of the paper. “The oxygen isotopes in precipitation are partly controlled by temperature, so we examined the change in oxygen isotopes through time to infer how temperature might have changed.”
Because recent studies concluded that some glaciers were advancing around Greenland and nearby Arctic Canada during the time Vikings lived in southern Greenland, Axford and Lasher expected their data to indicate a much colder climate. Instead, they found that a brief warm period interrupted a consistent cooling climate trend driven by changes in Earth’s orbit. Near the end of the warm period, the climate was exceptionally erratic and unstable with record high and low temperatures that preceded Viking abandonment of Greenland. Overall, the climate was about 1.5-degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding cooling centuries. This warmer period was similar to southern Greenland’s temperatures today, which hover around 10-degrees Celsius (50-degrees Fahrenheit) in summer.
In another surprise, Axford and Lasher found that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) — a natural fluctuation in atmospheric pressure that is often responsible for climate anomalies in the region — probably was not in a dominantly positive phase for multiple Medieval centuries as had been hypothesized. (When the NAO is in its positive phase, it brings cold air to much of Greenland.)
“We found that the NAO could not explain Medieval climatic changes at our site,” Lasher said. “That might call into question its use in explaining long-term climate change over the last 3,000 years elsewhere.”
So what did cause the Vikings’ fortuitously warm climate? Lasher and Axford aren’t sure but speculate it might have been caused by warmer ocean currents in the region. The new data will be useful for climate modelers and climate researchers as they seek to understand and predict what might be in store for Greenland’s ice sheet as Earth warms rapidly in the future.
“Unlike warming over the past century, which is global, Medieval warmth was localized,” Axford said. “We wanted to investigate what was happening in southern Greenland at that time because it’s a climatically complex part of the world where counterintuitive things can happen.”
The Norse settlements in Greenland collapsed as local climate apparently became exceptionally erratic, and then ultimately consistently cold. But Axford and Lasher will leave it to the archaeologists to determine whether or not climate played a role in their departure.
“We went in with a hypothesis that we wouldn’t see warmth in this time period, in which case we might have had to explain how the Norse were hearty, robust folk who settled in Greenland during a cold snap,” Lasher said. “Instead, we found evidence for warmth. Later, as their settlements died out, apparently there was climatic instability. Maybe they weren’t as resilient to climate change as Greenland’s indigenous people, but climate is just one of many things that might have played a role.”
###
“Medieval warmth confirmed at the Norse Eastern Settlement in Greenland” was supported by the National Science Foundation Polar Programs CAREER Award (number 1454734).
From EurekAlert!
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
When the Vikings arrived to Southern Greenland the Inuit hadn’t reached there yet, so there were no indigenous people. The Inuit were migrating into Greenland from Canada taking advantage of the Medieval Warm Period, as the Vikings did. The Inuit, being better adapted to cold, displaced the indigenous population of Southern Greenland, the Vikings, during the early stages of the Little Ice Age.
One of the main reasons the Viking colonies of Greenland prospered was the walrus tusk ivory, a luxury item in Europe at a time the elephant tusk ivory trade route had been disrupted. The ivory commerce provided Greenland Vikings with much needed European imports. The Little Ice Age coincided also with a decline in walrus tusk ivory value, making the colonies less prosperous at a bad time.
It is usually a combination of causes what better explains changes.
The destruction of the Medieval Warm Period continues. Since we have written records of it, what consensus climatists are doing is delimitating the warm conditions to the places where we have records. Everywhere else it did not exist.
“Unlike warming over the past century, which is global, Medieval warmth was localized”/
All of the evidence points to the contrary. There is ample evidence worldwide that the MWP was warmer than what went before and came after.
climate, and therefore weather, changes constantly, our only option is to adapt, now and forever, as long as mankind exists.
YUP! And the best way to ensure our ability to do so is the continued, uninterrupted, unhindered, free og government interference ability to exploit fossil fuel energy.
A couple of things stand out : no mention of the Vatican records of Viking Christian church wine production in Greenland.
Secondly the Vikings refusal to mix with the more experienced locals and learn their survival tricks – imagine, the Viking marauding berserkers then lately Christian, being racist?
And the strange reference to extreme erratic weather swings before it become too cold. Somehow I am reminded of the younger Dryas swings at the “end of the ice age” period long before, correlating with that new crater discovery in north Greenland.
The Norse were the locals.
Inuit arrived later, entering Greenland to the north of the Norse settlements.
They start eating fish, like the newcomers, but too little, too late. They had to option of sailing to Europe, which alternative for dealing with the onset of the Little Ice Age Eskimos lacked.
The derogative term Skraeling meaning barbarian savage and weakling shows the Viking racist attitude , never adapting the harpoon and the locals highly mobile boats that had ployed that area even during the ice age.
Of course the word barbarian comes from the Greeks “they speak bar bar” who labelled the northerners meat eaters : Eskimo.
As the sea froze further from land only those light boats work.
As it happens the Norse (before Viking) went west to Vinland, even reaching Alaska – one was found on a beach with a spear wound – local Amerind tribes claimed it and a law from 1991 (Cheney I think) prevents autopsy.
Seems to me sailing to Europe then meant certain death – the Black Death was lethal.
Nope, wrong. MWP was global.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/12/more-evidence-that-the-medieval-warming-period-was-global-not-regional/
Fake contra evidence from Mann or PAGES2013/2017 was mostly local & just NH (and 1 or a few trees …), even using NH bristlecones as a proxy for SH, LOL.
https://climateaudit.org/2019/02/01/pages2k-2017-antarctic-proxies/
… etc, for more:
https://climateaudit.org/?s=PAGES2K
“Unlike warming over the past century, which is global, Medieval warmth was localized,” is a data-free statement. How does he know? He only has one data point. Since the method appears to be reasonable, find appropriate lakes in other areas and make some observations. Collect more data and then decide if this was magically local to one end of one island, a regional phenomena, or global – unless he is worried the answer won’t agree with his hypothesis.
Yes, they were out to demonstrate that it was not warm, and found that it was.
Thus, it was called regional global warming.
As to the naming of Greenland.
There have been real estate promoters “forever” it seems.
Icelandic friends explain that the early pronunciation of “island” was phonetic.
As in “easland”. The “s” was not silent. Eventually pronunciation drifted to Iceland.
On real estate promotions, I grew up in the Okanagan Valley in southern British Columbia.
North-South running valley with a series of lakes, one is 75 miles long.
The climate in the valley is semi-arid and very pleasant. Ideal for fruit growing, Transportation on the big lake was by paddle wheeler beginning in the late 1800s.
One community on the lake was established in 1905 and promoted as Summerland. Then the developer went up the lake some 20 miles and started Peachland.
They make a lot of conclusions based on assumptions;
A) They did not study many areas where they base assumptions or conclusions.
B) Assumptions and conclusions based upon personal bias and beliefs.
e.g.:
This is sophistry in action.
From 985 and 1450 C.E. it was warmer, these researchers describe the period as brief. While their personal bias is that an equivalent modern warming period since the LIA portends never-ending doom.
In their ‘abstract, they state, “Highly variable δ18O values record an unstable climate at the end of the MCA, preceding Norse abandonment of Greenland”.
Isn’t that amazing!? Fragments and pieces of insect skeletons provide sufficient resolution to declare “an unstable climate”. Researchers are able to identify “record high and low temperatures”?
At what temporal resolution?
Storm by storm? Day by day? Or perhaps decade by decade?
Actually the temporal scale is ”subcentennial resolution over the past 3000 yr using aquatic insect subfossils preserved in lak{sic} sediments”.
Exactly what does that mean over 3,000 years? 30 data points? 60 data points for fifty year intervals?
Remember, the Norse period studied is 465 years; is that 4,8,12 data points?
What is clear, using the words ”record high and low temperatures” is very presumptive.
One begins to suspect a model is involved.
At least 465 years of a warm climate similar to the modern warming period of less than two hundred years.
Why do the researchers gloss over this finding?
“Probably” Such a definitive term.
These researchers entered into this study where their analysis of ” aquatic insect subfossils” is coupled with a number of gross assumptions, including the NAO phases. They did not study NAO phases!
”Might call into question”.
”speculate it might have been caused by warmer ocean currents”; i.e. We do not know, so we assume.
”new data will be useful for climate modelers and climate researcher”.
Here they imply climate models and climate researchers each benefit uniquely and individually.
One doubts the benefits claim for both models and researchers. The climate researchers dependent upon climate models tend to avoid inconvenient data.
” Medieval warmth was localized”coupled with ”counterintuitive things can happen” is more sophistry allowing the researchers to align with alarmist beliefs.
Ignored is the simple fact that the Greenland colony depended upon shipping trade with the Norse homelands. Medieval warming must have joined the two as climate turning colder prevented or interrupted ship voyages.
At least they were honest regarding this inconvenient finding.
More assumptions while keeping to a “climate disruption” meme.
More ’I do not know’ assumptions and conclusions.
here between 985 and 1450 C.E.
just to be sure,
please can someone help me out here:
is this the same as between AD 985 and 1450?
Why bring in C.E. ? what does it mean>>?
Common Era , like AD.
thx
It just takes the Church, A.D. Anno Domini and B.C. Before Christ, out of the equation
Before the international standardization of dates referring to the time of Christ, the usual way of numbering a year was from some preceding major event, like the ascension of an emperor, and the event would be explicitly named, e.g., “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.” But in Christendom, due to general acknowledgement that Christ was more important than any king or emperor, and probably also for simplicity, it came to be more and more common to specify dates in reference to the time of Christ; still, however, with the reference point explicitly named: “in the year of our Lord” (or anno Domini, or simply A.D.).
Even so, the practice of always specifying dates anno Domini was not universal until recently. In act, the U.S. Constitution was dated two ways:
(And note that 1787 – 12 = 1775, not 1776, since the American Revolutionary War actually began in 1775.)
I’ve talked with people from other cultures. Many of them are less offended by AD than they are CE.
Most cultures have their own dating systems, based on important events in their history. So they aren’t bothered by us using ours.
What bothers them is declaring our system to be the “Common Era”. There is nothing common about it, and it is in reality nothing more than cultural imperalism to declare our dating system as the “common” one.
Just to make it clear
I prefer AD
.
Anyone offended does not know yet what is coming.
Begin with studying the website
http://Www.breadonthewater.co.za
Every culture has a calendar – time and astronomy are common to all cultures. Some even with precession of 25,000 years – seek Tilak’s Arctic Home in the Orion. These ancient reckonings survive to this day in Hindu rituals, but precessed. They were developed north of 66 deg – where the Inuit today thrive.
For the Norse – see Hamlet’s Mill – a treasure trove of archaeoastronomy!
Not to mention our Gregorian calendar controversy…
So cut out the touchy-feely decadence…
Correction : The Arctic Home in the Vedas . and The Orion , two books by Tilak.
A lot of nomadic cultures didn’t have calendars.
“Unlike warming over the past century, which is global, Medieval warmth was localized,”
Standard warmist lingo. I remember reading somewhere that there are potato terraces in the Andes from that time period in locations which are too cold to grow anything today.
If the Vikings were not so tough, that may explain why they never won a Super Bowl.
Cheap shot, Tom!
“Unlike warming over the past century, which is global, Medieval warmth was localized,”
Except for the thousands of other places around the globe found to have been warm during this period.
“The new data will be useful for climate modelers and climate researchers as they seek to understand and predict what might be in store for Greenland’s ice sheet as Earth warms rapidly in the future.”
Useful> Howso, any more than similar data that has been available for some time? And how can they conclude from this “study” that the Mideaval Warming was a local event? THat is not at all explained. And note the foregone conclusion that the earth will warm rapidly in the future. That is extemely prsumtive, especially considering that 40 yrs ago, the Climate Change crowd was warning us of dangerous cooling in our futures. This analysis is hardly unbiased.
So…everything I already read in Kirsten Seaver’s “Frozen Echo” two decades ago remains relevant?
https://www.amazon.ca/Frozen-Echo-Greenland-Exploration-D/dp/0804731616/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=kirsten+seaver&qid=1549640228&sr=8-2-spell
Are the heat waves in Australia localized events?
Yes, both in space and time. They don’t last 400 years like the MWP.
Nor did they occur over most of the planets surface, like the MWP did.
So what’s the significance of stating that January 2019 was warmer than normal on planet earth? Is it meaningful when much of the NH was freezing? It just points up the complexities of trying to quantify global temperature.
Conditions that lasted hundreds of years in diverse geographies obviously should not be ignored (unless they contradict the political narrative).
A new study may resolve an old debate about how tough the Vikings actually were.
Notice the somewhat subtle inference here — that if it’s (or gets) too warm, you’re not “tough”. Yeah right, I’m sure the Vikings trying to make a living w/little in their possession, on an isolated, unoccupied, mostly barren, windswept land where little could grow, they weren’t tough at all, so they must have been soft!
It has long been well known that the climate was warmer at least the first 200-300 years of the norse settlement in Greenland. That is proven by contemporary icelandic and norwegian sources that mention that barley could be grown in southern Greenland (confirmed by archaeology) and describes the customary sailing route from Iceland to Greenland, that later (14th century) had to be abandoned due to increasing sea ice.
Barley can’t be grown in Greenland today, and the sailing route (straight west from Snaefelsnaes and then follow the Greenland coast southwards) is not viable today either.
By the way chironomids are midges, not flies, but such minutiae are probably beneath the notice of press-release writers.
Try going to the beach in summer in Scotland – and wonder why are all those people sitting in their cars? The midges even get through most tents, and the minutiae eat you alive.
Chironomids are midges but fortunately vegetarian. They can be irritating when there are a lot of them around, but they don’t bite. Otherwise much of e g Iceland would be uninhabitable.
Funny how widespread all that ‘local’ Medieval warming was….
Archaeological and ice core evidence for temperatures warmer than today have been found all over the world, yet according to modern warmists any warming then was purely a local phenomena.
Do you think someone is being somewhat disingenuous? Or simply toeing the party line to ensure publication?
“Vikings grew barley in Greenland
A sensational find at the bottom of an ancient rubbish heap in Greenland suggests that Vikings grew barley on the island 1,000 years ago.
The Vikings are both famous and notorious for their like of beer and mead, and archaeologists have discussed for years whether Eric the Red (ca. 950-1010) and his followers had to make do without the golden drink when they settled in Greenland around the year 1,000…”
http://sciencenordic.com/vikings-grew-barley-greenland
Sure they did. It is mentioned in “Konungs Skuggsjá” (The Kings Mirror) c. AD 1200.
“Instead, they found that a brief warm period interrupted a consistent cooling climate trend driven by changes in Earth’s orbit. ”
Changes in the Earth’s orbit? Oh no – a natural variable, not CO2!!!
“a brief warm period interrupted a consistent cooling climate trend driven by changes in Earth’s orbit.”
__________________________________________________
part of Northwestern Ph.D. candidate G. Everett Lasher’s dissertation research, based at Axford’s lab
probably return from an innerspace LSD crash trip to the keys.
Nonsense. Plenty of temperature records show that warming over the past century was localized.
RWP, MWP and even Minoan WP were found globaly, as f.e. in India and in Australia as papers show.
During the Oort solar minimum looked much warmer there:
Interesting