Middle Ages were warmer than today, say scientists

London Daily Telegraph ^ | 4-6-03 | Robert Matthews

[Dajjal]

This is from a friend's e-mail:

James Burke talks about this in "Connections" -- The 13th was THE GREATEST OF CENTURIES, because the weather had never been so good ...

The way the "North Atlantic Conveyor Belt" works is that if you pump enough warm water up to the ice caps, they melt, releasing fresh water into the North Atlantic ... Since fresh water is lighter than salt water, the polar water stays at the surface while the warming tropical water sinks ... This creates what you can think of as a wall of fresh water that blocks the Gulf Stream from getting to Europe ... Thus cooling the climate and tripping off the next ice age ...

That is the real danger of global warming : That it will cause an ice age ...

In that "paradigm," more evidence of a warm middle ages doesn't discredit global warming ... It is also troubling in highlighting how the global temperature changes quickly ...

The evidence also shows that the period of the Roman Empire was very warm and things cooled down after 450, bringing the "Dark Ages" ...

Since the earth itself pours out more gases than we do, I'm not very worried about most "greenhouse" gases, though the extremely odd chemicals we produce are best regulated, because they will last longer than plutonium ... For carbon, methane, water vapor, etc., cows and termites are the main sources, not man ...

Something Steven Gould said is right ... to focus on man instead of bacteria is to focus on the tail, not the dog ...

[GummyIII]

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Press Release

Release No.: 03-10
For Release: March 31, 2003

20th Century Climate Not So Hot

Cambridge, MA - A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.

Smithsonian astronomers Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, with co-authors Craig Idso and Sherwood Idso (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change) and David Legates (Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware), compiled and examined results from more than 240 research papers published by thousands of researchers over the past four decades. Their report, covering a multitude of geophysical and biological climate indicators, provides a detailed look at climate changes that occurred in different regions around the world over the last 1000 years.

"Many true research advances in reconstructing ancient climates have occurred over the past two decades," Soon says, "so we felt it was time to pull together a large sample of recent studies from the last 5-10 years and look for patterns of variability and change. In fact, clear patterns did emerge showing that regions worldwide experienced the highs of the Medieval Warm Period and lows of the Little Ice Age, and that 20th century temperatures are generally cooler than during the medieval warmth."

Soon and his colleagues concluded that the 20th century is neither the warmest century over the last 1000 years, nor is it the most extreme. Their findings about the pattern of historical climate variations will help make computer climate models simulate both natural and man-made changes more accurately, and lead to better climate forecasts especially on local and regional levels. This is especially true in simulations on timescales ranging from several decades to a century.

Historical Cold, Warm Periods Verified

Studying climate change is challenging for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the bewildering variety of climate indicators - all sensitive to different climatic variables, and each operating on slightly overlapping yet distinct scales of space and time. For example, tree ring studies can yield yearly records of temperature and precipitation trends, while glacier ice cores record those variables over longer time scales of several decades to a century.

Soon, Baliunas and colleagues analyzed numerous climate indicators including: borehole data; cultural data; glacier advances or retreats; geomorphology; isotopic analysis from lake sediments or ice cores, tree or peat celluloses (carbohydrates), corals, stalagmite or biological fossils; net ice accumulation rate, including dust or chemical counts; lake fossils and sediments; river sediments; melt layers in ice cores; phenological (recurring natural phenomena in relation to climate) and paleontological fossils; pollen; seafloor sediments; luminescent analysis; tree ring growth, including either ring width or maximum late-wood density; and shifting tree line positions plus tree stumps in lakes, marshes and streams.

"Like forensic detectives, we assembled these series of clues in order to answer a specific question about local and regional climate change: Is there evidence for notable climatic anomalies during particular time periods over the past 1000 years?" Soon says. "The cumulative evidence showed that such anomalies did exist."

The worldwide range of climate records confirmed two significant climate periods in the last thousand years, the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. The climatic notion of a Little Ice Age interval from 1300 to1900 A.D. and a Medieval Warm Period from 800 to 1300 A.D. appears to be rather well-confirmed and wide-spread, despite some differences from one region to another as measured by other climatic variables like precipitation, drought cycles, or glacier advances and retreats.

"For a long time, researchers have possessed anecdotal evidence supporting the existence of these climate extremes," Baliunas says. "For example, the Vikings established colonies in Greenland at the beginning of the second millennium that died out several hundred years later when the climate turned colder. And in England, vineyards had flourished during the medieval warmth. Now, we have an accumulation of objective data to back up these cultural indicators."

The different indicators provided clear evidence for a warm period in the Middle Ages. Tree ring summer temperatures showed a warm interval from 950 A.D. to 1100 A.D. in the northern high latitude zones, which corresponds to the "Medieval Warm Period." Another database of tree growth from 14 different locations over 30-70 degrees north latitude showed a similar early warm period. Many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.

The study - funded by NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the American Petroleum Institute - will be published in the Energy and Environment journal. A shorter paper by Soon and Baliunas appeared in the January 31, 2003 issue of the Climate Research journal.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos of key climate indicators are available online at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0310image.html

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists organized into six research divisions study the origin, evolution, and ultimate fate of the universe.

For more information, contact:

David Aguilar, Director of Public Affairs
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: 617-495-7462 Fax: 617-495-7468
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu

Christine Lafon
Public Affairs Specialist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: 617-495-7463, Fax: 617-495-7016
clafon@cfa.harvard.edu

Last modified on Monday, 31-Mar-2003 15:18:29 EST Comments or Questions? Contact pubaffairs@cfa.harvard.edu

Found here.

[BJClinton]

Could you add me to the global warming hoax list, please?

[powderhorn]

I'm betting that the scoolhouse wasn't red...

Well ok, I may have embellished just a bit. It wasn't red, it was sort of brown with a tinge of red--and though I didn't say it, I may have implied that it was a little one room school house; there were actually six or seven rooms. And no, it wasn't exactly 12 miles. And it snowed a lot less during the summer.

But I'll stick with my recollection that it was uphill both ways.

[cogitator]

Oddly enough, neither are the satellite observations, the weather balloons, or the high-confidence ground observations.

Lower tropospheric temperatures made by the MSU or AMSU instruments on NOAA satellites show a warming trend of 0.07-0.1 C per decade, depending on which group is analyzing the data. This data set originates in 1979.

[presidio9]

bump

[SunkenCiv]

Greenland Ice Cap Is Melting, Raising Sea Level
Source: The Associated Press
Published: Jul 20, 2000 - 04:05 PM Author: By Paul Recer
Posted on 07/20/2000 14:37:50 PDT by Ms. AntiFeminazi
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3977712e1941.htm

[SunkenCiv]

The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 by Brian M. Fagan Paperback	Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations by Brian M. Fagan	The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization by Brian M. Fagan

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 4/05/2003.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Note: this topic is from 4/05/2003. Blast from the Past. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[DariusBane]

You don’t need to look at tree rings and ice cores, the great warmth of the middle ages is well known, and changed the future of Europe forever. These guys just need to read a history book. But even infallible truth is not as important as a big fat gubment grant!

[Ramius]

In the Middle Ages England was a major wine producer--hardly the case today.

Heck... in the Middle Ages, Germany was a major wine producer. They don't call it "the medieval warm period" for nothing.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Surely they knew about the Medieval Warm period before the date of this article. If I am not mistaken if you go back to the time of Christ, this is the third warm period (Classical Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, Modern Warm period) interspersed with two cold periods (Dark Ages Minimum, Little Ice Age). Likely this has been going on ever since the last glacial advance of the Ice Age.

[dsc]

“Fortunately, some research is ongoing, and the libs may soon be OBE.”

They will plague us for as long as they draw the breath of life, for they are instruments of Satan.

[BenLurkin]

[workinfool]

The nail should have been this bit of data from NASA. Remember them? One of their own started this whole “Global Warming” hoax as a way to increase funding for NASA. Check out this link. What they observed on Mars has also been observed on other non-man inhabited planets. Guess these idiots will want to argue that the two solar powered rovers on Mars are warming it up. This is nothing more than economic warfare against the West. We should put them all on trial for economic terrorism and treason, hang the leaders and imprison the rest as slave labor to pay back the economic damage they have already caused.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html