In an amazing article (although I should know by now not to be amazed), Reuters reports on a "startling" new theory about why the Vikings left Greenland in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Guess what, the departure was most likely caused by a major cooing of the climate. Scientists have drilled cores in Greenland ice that tells them that in the mid 1200's the temperature started cooling and eventually went down by four degrees Celsius (according to the article). Not surprisingly, the farms in the area were unable to grow sufficient crops to sustain the Vikings through the much harsher and longer winters being experienced, so they left.
This cooling coincides with the end of what is called the Medieval Warm Period. It lasted until about 1300 and then came a much cooler mini-ice age that continued until about 1800. Since that time, the earth has been warming steadily. Although we have records showing two hundred years of warming with much of it prior in time to any of the human activities that are now being blamed for global warming, many "scientists" are still claiming that man is causing global warming. Indeed, even though Reuters is reporting on evidence that severely undercuts the man-made global warming theory, it cannot end the article there. The last paragraph of the Reuters article reads as follows:
"Scientists fear that the 21st century warming is caused by climate change, stoked by a build-up of greenhouse gases from human activities. An acceleration of warming could cause a meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, raising world sea levels."
Reuters cannot bring itself to point out that there was a warm period that lasted from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries followed by a cooling period that also lasted 600 years all of which had nothing to do with human activity and all of which undercuts the global warming theory. Instead, it reports the evidence but then announces the contrary conclusion.
Oh well!
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