Weren’t temperatures warmer than today during the “Medieval Warm Period”?
) This is one of a number of popular myths regarding temperature variations in past centuries. At hemispheric or global scales, surface temperatures are believed to have followed the “Hockey Stick” pattern, characterized by a long-term cooling trend from the so-called “Medieval Warm Period” (broadly speaking, the 10th-mid 14th centuries) through the “Little Ice Age” (broadly speaking, the mid 15th-19th centuries), followed by a rapid warming during the 20th century that culminates in anomalous late 20th century warmth. The late 20th century warmth, at hemispheric or global scales, appears, from a number of recent peer-reviewed studies, to exceed the peak warmth of the “Medieval Warm Period”. Claims that global average temperatures during Medieval times were warmer than present-day are based on a number of false premises that a) confuse past evidence of drought/precipitation with temperature evidence, b) fail to disinguish regional from global-scale temperature variations, and c) use the entire “20th century” to describe “modern” conditions , fail to differentiate between relatively cool early 20th century conditions and the anomalously warm late 20th century conditions.
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Climate
19 September 2007 at 10:38 AM
[…] Medieval Warm Period. Yet another popular myth. The short answer: it’s global warming, not just European warming. […]
15 October 2007 at 2:28 PM
[…] from NOAA. RealClimate, the blog for anyone interested in hardcore climate science, also presents a number of reasons why the perception skeptics have about the Medieval Warm Period are likely […]
30 December 2007 at 3:47 AM
[…] and had relatively little impact on the global averages. Dr. Michael Mann addresses this here (and for an example of a contrarian tactic that can make it appear otherwise, or that the current […]
6 January 2008 at 9:08 PM
[…] and had relatively little impact on the global averages. Dr. Michael Mann addresses this here (and for an example of a contrarian tactic that can make it appear otherwise, or that the current […]
1 February 2008 at 1:35 AM
[…] by mitigating our impact. And I know you like this place so yes, I did look here ==> RealClimate Here is an interesting article. […]
20 September 2008 at 12:52 AM
[…] of the little ice age and medieval warm period and many other discussions of climate change: RealClimate To summarise the ideas very simplistically I think this is what they say - the little ice age and […]
16 March 2009 at 8:57 PM
[…] magnitude of medieval warmth was weaker than that of today. Dr. Michael Mann also addresses this here (and for an example of a contrarian tactic that makes it appear otherwise, or that the current […]
17 March 2009 at 1:46 PM
[…] magnitude of medieval warmth was weaker than that of today. Dr. Michael Mann also addresses this here (and for an example of a contrarian tactic that makes it appear otherwise, or that the current […]
24 May 2009 at 10:58 PM
[…] qualified in a way that I, and the good Cardinal, are not. (The medieval warm period wasn’t warmer. Warming didn’t stop in 1998.) But most appalling to me was this childish attempt to use his […]