New Study: Canada’s New Brunswick Was 1°C Warmer Than Today During the Medieval Warm Period

Pollen-reconstructed New Brunswick (Canada) spring temperatures affirm the Medieval Warm Period or Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, 900-1400 CE) was 1°C warmer (3.2°C vs. 2.2°C) than both the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1400-1850 CE) and modern period (1850 to present).

Other sites in this region also show no net warming since the 1800s and 1-3°C cooling from the MCA to the LIA.

This new research also identifies a higher frequency of natural forest fires during the LIA cooling period than the warmer MCA.

Image Source: Collins et al., 2026

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Michael Flynn

February 21, 2026 11:30 pm

“Pollen based climate reconstruction”. Really? That sounds like tree ring based climate reconstruction – and just as fanciful.

In the conclusions, “fires recorded in the 19th century can be plausibly connected to the historical fire record of the timber industry”.

Colour me impressed. It’s plausible that recorded fires can be plausibly connected to the fires recorded? Wonders will never cease!

Somebody might inform the authors that climate is the statistics of weather observations, but I doubt it.

-6

OR For

Reply to Michael Flynn

February 22, 2026 8:36 am

Eastern Canada has been resided in by humans for 10,000+ years, ever since the ice melted. Those humans set fire to the landscape frequently. This is established historical fact. The authors’ cavalier and frankly racist use of the term “natural fires” demonstrates their profound ignorance and biases.

The historical fire frequency, location, and extent, just like today, is an artifact of human agency and human choices. Attributing ancient fire to climate micro-change is disingenuous and fallacious.

-2

MarkW

Reply to Michael Flynn

February 22, 2026 9:36 am

Interesting, tree rings cannot be used for climate reconstructions, therefore nothing can be.

Please try to learn something before pontificating.
Each type of plant produces a different pollen and the types of plants that grow in a region can be determined by examining pollen deposits.
Since different plants have different climate preferences, climate can be estimated by examining pollen deposits.

Ben Vorlich

February 21, 2026 11:46 pm

So the warmth of the Medieval Period has now become an anomaly has it? Well I suppose in the context of a glaciated Earth it might be, but in that case I’d rather be living in an anomaly.

Tom Abbott

Reply to Ben Vorlich

February 22, 2026 4:59 am

I scoffed at that, too, when I read it.

Liars, always trying to control the language.

johnesm

February 22, 2026 2:09 am

All previous warming was regional.

All previous cold spells were regional.

Ignore the fact that these regional episodes also occurred nearly everywhere else at more or less the same time.

Bruce Cobb

February 22, 2026 2:31 am

Surely that can’t be so. Between the scorching heat, monstrous storms, catastrophic droughts and floods, ravaging diseases and boiling oceans, mankind would not have survived. Oh wait, that’s from CO2 heat. Oops.

Tom Abbott

February 22, 2026 5:01 am

Michael Mann is not going to like this study.

Jeff Alberts

February 22, 2026 7:21 am

Where are the error bars on the graphs? I’ll bet they’re wider than 1C. And what exactly is “high resolution”?

Jeff Alberts

Reply to Jeff Alberts

February 22, 2026 7:23 am

I see the resolution, 10 years. Which could miss El Nino/La Nina and other events.

Fran

February 22, 2026 9:52 am

In regard to previous climate, Kristian Kristianson’s lecture on ytube is interesting. On the basis of a combination of archeology and paleogenetics he points to the neolithic farmers becoming smaller and large settlements being abandoned in a cooling period about 3250 years ago. This, combined with the arrival of mutated ursinia pestes (plague) led to major population collapse just before the Yamnaya arrived to replace virtually all Y chromosome variants in Europe.

Weather sure has major effects on people and animals. This talk is well worth an hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxTVSwt-jsU

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New Study: Canada’s New Brunswick Was 1°C Warmer Than Today During the Medieval Warm Period

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