In AD 1000, the Earth was experiencing an episode of climate warming similar to that of the present day. Temperatures in many parts of the world seem to have risen by at least two or three degrees Fahrenheit. Although the scale of this "global warming" may seem small, its effects on human societies were profound. In Europe, several centuries of long hot summers led to an almost unbroken string of good harvests, and both urban and rural populations began to grow. These centuries are known as the Medieval Warm Period. One of the more dramatic consequences of the Medieval Warm Period was the expansion of Viking settlements in the North Atlantic. From their Icelandic base (established in AD 870), the Norse people began to move west and north to Greenland, Canada, and eventually above the Arctic Circle.
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather around 800-1300 AD, during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented. The Vikings took advantage of ice-free seas to colonize Greenland and other outlying lands of the far north.
"The climate at this time was very warm, much warmer than it is today, and crops were able to do well. It seems likely that the name "Greenland" was given to the country, not just as wishful thinking, but because it was a climatic fact at that time. The mild climatic period was fairly short-lived in geologic terms - by about 1200 AD, the ever-increasing cold was making life extremely difficult, and some years no supply ships were able to reach Greenland through the ice-choked seas. During this period, Norway had assumed responsibility for supplying the Norse settlers in Greenland, but as the climate worsened it became a very difficult task.
"At that time, the inner regions of the long fjords where the settlements where located were very different from today. Excavations show that there were considerable birch woods with trees up to 4 to 6 meters high in the area around the inner parts of the Tunuliarfik- and Aniaaq-fjords, the central area of the Eastern settlement, and the hills were grown with grass and willow brushes. This was due to the medieval climate optimum. The Norse soon changed the vegetation by cutting down the trees to use as building material and for heating and by extensive sheep and goat grazing during summer and winter. The climate in Greenland was much warmer during the first centuries of settlement but became increasingly colder in the 14th and 15th centuries with the approaching period of colder weather known as the Little Ice Age."
The Medieval Warm Period coincides with the Vikings' settlement of Greenland, Iceland and possibly North America. Farmsteads with dairy cattle, pigs, sheep and goats were prevalent in Iceland and along the southern coast of Greenland. Even England was able to compete economically with France in wine production. On the other hand, agriculture steadily declined at higher latitudes during the Little Ice Age, while mortality rates and famines increased. By 1500, settlements in Greenland had vanished and the inhabitants of Iceland were struggling to survive.
During the 9th & 10th centuries the Vikings reached Iceland and Greenland during the milder condition that prevailed during Medieval Warm Period. Norse settlers arrived in Iceland in the 9th and Greenland in the 10th century with an agricultural practice based on milk, meat and fibre from cattle, sheep, and goats. The settlers were attracted by green fields and a relatively good climate and driven there by population pressures in Scandinavia. They were able to sail to Iceland and Greenland as well as Labrador because of a decrease in sea ice in the North Atlantic.
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of unusually warm climate in Europe from about 850 until 1250 AD. The warm climate overlaps with a time of high solar activity called the Medieval Maximum. The warmer climate caused historic events such as the spread of Viking settlements in Northern Europe. The Vikings were likely better able to explore and colonize many areas in Northern Europe during this time because the warm climate. They traveled by boats to Greenland among other places through seas that, with cooler climates are typically full of dangerous sea ice. During this time, grape vineyards, which require moderate temperatures and a long growing season, were as far north as England. In comparison, today grapes vineyards are only typically as far north as France in Europe.
Between the 9th and 14th century there was a "Medieval Warm Period", when the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere reached its highest point in the past 4,000 years, which was only about 1°C higher than at present. It has been documented that during this period, American oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and bay scallops (Aequipecten irradiens) formed populations as far north as Sable Island. Neither of these species exists there today. Radiocarbon dating of relict oyster and bay scallop shells compare reasonably well with the dates of the post-glacial warm period. From the 16th to the 19th century there was a "Little Ice Age", when the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere was a degree or two cooler than now. It is during this time that salmon are hypothesized to have relocated to the New England area. Salmon may have migrated from Europe after the end of the Pleistocene, across the Atlantic. Immediately prior to the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period diminished sea pack ice around Iceland and Greenland.
In AD 1000, the Earth was experiencing an episode of climate warming similar to that of the present day. Temperatures in many parts of the world seem to have risen by at least two or three degrees Fahrenheit. Although the scale of this "global warming" may seem small, its effects on human societies were profound. In Europe, several centuries of long hot summers led to an almost unbroken string of good harvests, and both urban and rural populations began to grow. These centuries are known as the Medieval Warm Period. One of the more dramatic consequences of the Medieval Warm Period was the expansion of Viking settlements in the North Atlantic. From their Icelandic base (established in AD 870), the Norse people began to move west and north to Greenland, Canada, and eventually above the Arctic Circle.
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather around 800-1300 AD, during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented. The Vikings took advantage of ice-free seas to colonize Greenland and other outlying lands of the far north.
"The climate at this time was very warm, much warmer than it is today, and crops were able to do well. It seems likely that the name "Greenland" was given to the country, not just as wishful thinking, but because it was a climatic fact at that time. The mild climatic period was fairly short-lived in geologic terms - by about 1200 AD, the ever-increasing cold was making life extremely difficult, and some years no supply ships were able to reach Greenland through the ice-choked seas. During this period, Norway had assumed responsibility for supplying the Norse settlers in Greenland, but as the climate worsened it became a very difficult task.
"At that time, the inner regions of the long fjords where the settlements where located were very different from today. Excavations show that there were considerable birch woods with trees up to 4 to 6 meters high in the area around the inner parts of the Tunuliarfik- and Aniaaq-fjords, the central area of the Eastern settlement, and the hills were grown with grass and willow brushes. This was due to the medieval climate optimum. The Norse soon changed the vegetation by cutting down the trees to use as building material and for heating and by extensive sheep and goat grazing during summer and winter. The climate in Greenland was much warmer during the first centuries of settlement but became increasingly colder in the 14th and 15th centuries with the approaching period of colder weather known as the Little Ice Age."
The Medieval Warm Period coincides with the Vikings' settlement of Greenland, Iceland and possibly North America. Farmsteads with dairy cattle, pigs, sheep and goats were prevalent in Iceland and along the southern coast of Greenland. Even England was able to compete economically with France in wine production. On the other hand, agriculture steadily declined at higher latitudes during the Little Ice Age, while mortality rates and famines increased. By 1500, settlements in Greenland had vanished and the inhabitants of Iceland were struggling to survive.
During the 9th & 10th centuries the Vikings reached Iceland and Greenland during the milder condition that prevailed during Medieval Warm Period. Norse settlers arrived in Iceland in the 9th and Greenland in the 10th century with an agricultural practice based on milk, meat and fibre from cattle, sheep, and goats. The settlers were attracted by green fields and a relatively good climate and driven there by population pressures in Scandinavia. They were able to sail to Iceland and Greenland as well as Labrador because of a decrease in sea ice in the North Atlantic.
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of unusually warm climate in Europe from about 850 until 1250 AD. The warm climate overlaps with a time of high solar activity called the Medieval Maximum. The warmer climate caused historic events such as the spread of Viking settlements in Northern Europe. The Vikings were likely better able to explore and colonize many areas in Northern Europe during this time because the warm climate. They traveled by boats to Greenland among other places through seas that, with cooler climates are typically full of dangerous sea ice. During this time, grape vineyards, which require moderate temperatures and a long growing season, were as far north as England. In comparison, today grapes vineyards are only typically as far north as France in Europe.
Between the 9th and 14th century there was a "Medieval Warm Period", when the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere reached its highest point in the past 4,000 years, which was only about 1°C higher than at present. It has been documented that during this period, American oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and bay scallops (Aequipecten irradiens) formed populations as far north as Sable Island. Neither of these species exists there today. Radiocarbon dating of relict oyster and bay scallop shells compare reasonably well with the dates of the post-glacial warm period. From the 16th to the 19th century there was a "Little Ice Age", when the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere was a degree or two cooler than now. It is during this time that salmon are hypothesized to have relocated to the New England area. Salmon may have migrated from Europe after the end of the Pleistocene, across the Atlantic. Immediately prior to the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period diminished sea pack ice around Iceland and Greenland. - Doppleganger
EPA Says That The Worst Heat Waves Occurred in The 1930s
Before there was global warming, there were the dust bowl years of the 1930s, also known as "The Dirty Thirties." The record-setting heat waves and drought of the 1930s occurred during the middle of the Great Depression and contributed to the economic hardship felt throughout the nation. They also occurred when most people did not have the comfort of air conditioning and many heat-related deaths were reported. Two years during that decade were particularly hot for our region, 1930 and 1936. Those two years set heat records in Washington which still stand today.
The summer of 1930 made headlines due to unprecedented heat and drought that caused disastrous crop failures throughout the United States. The summer of 1930 ushered in the "Dust Bowl" era of unusually hot, dry summers that plagued the U.S. during much of the 1930s.
Washington area farmers were certainly not spared in 1930, as intense, prolonged hot spells gripped the region during late July and early August. The official temperature recorded on July 20 was 106°F, which holds the record as the highest temperature ever recorded in Washington. Unofficially, 110°F was recorded that same day on Pennsylvania Avenue and 108°F at the National Cathedral. The summer of 1930 also set the record for number of days where temperatures reached or exceeded 100°F at 11 days.
High temperatures of over 100°F were recorded during two heat waves that occurred in late July and early August of 1930. The July heat wave high temperatures are as follows:
July 19 - 102°F
July 20 - 106°F
July 21 - 103°F
July 22 - 100°F
July 23 - 94°F
July 24 - 93°F
July 25 - 100°F
July 26 - 100°F
The August heat wave high temperatures are as follows:
August 2 - 94°F
August 3 - 100°F
August 4 - 102°F
August 5 - 102°F
August 6 - 88°F
August 7 - 97°F
August 8 - 104°F
August 9 - 102°F
By the end of the summer of 1930, approximately 30 deaths in Washington were blamed on the heat and thousands more had died nationwide. In Washington, there has never been another summer with a heat wave that has equaled the summer of 1930.
The summer of 1936 stands out as one of the hottest summers felt across the entire United States. The heat wave began in early summer, with the Midwest experiencing June temperatures exceeding 100°F in some locations. The heat peaked in July, with all-time records set in many cities. Steele, North Dakota recorded a high temperature of 121°F and portions of Canada saw high temperatures exceed 110°F. In Washington, the temperature reached 104°F on July 9 and 105°F on July 10. More than 5,000 heat-related deaths were reported across the United States. The heat wave and drought of 1936 finally eased in September.
For you snow-lovers, how do you think the winters that followed the heat waves of 1930 and 1936 fared for Washingtonians? I can sum it up in one word, depressing. Of course, if you like tennis weather or afternoon strolls without an overcoat, the winters of 1930/31 and 1936/37 were awesome.
During the winter that followed the 1930 heat wave, there were only 3 days which had temperatures below freezing all day and only 2.5" of snow fell during the entire winter season. Temperatures in the 40's and 50's were common during the winter months, with 67°F recorded on January 27.
The winter that followed the heat wave of 1936 was even milder than 1930 for Washington. During that winter, there was only 1 day which had temperatures below freezing all day and temperatures in the 60's were common throughout the winter months. An amazing high temperature of 76°F was recorded on January 9. A few late season wet snowstorms salvaged the winter for snow in Washington, with a little over 15" reported for the season.
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
In less than a decade, Germany has given power companies and consumers $130-billion in subsidies, mostly to develop a market for solar energy. Despite all that cash, solar electricity still accounts for only 0.3% of Germany’s power supply. Because only some of that total has been covered by taxpayers, and the rest has been passed on to all electricity consumers, the cost of German green-power subsidies will add nearly $300 to the average German family’s power bill this year alone. For industrial power consumers, the added costs can run into hundreds of thousands of euros per year. Philipp Rosler, the federal minister of economics and technology, warned earlier this month that the cost of green power was a “threat to the economy.” As a result, the federal German government is looking to get out of the subsidy business, and the German solar industry is gasping for air.
http://www.therecord.com/...-failure-of-green-energy/
By the end of 2013, Ontario household power rates will, with exception of Prince Edward Island, be the highest in North America and will continue to accelerate while most other jurisdictions see rates level off. Even more alarming for the province’s economic competitiveness, businesses and industrial customers will be hit by almost $12 billion in additional costs over the same period.
Such is the legacy of the provincial government’s 2009 decision to establish “feed-in” rates ranging from 80.2 to 44.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for solar power and 13.5 cents/ kWh for wind power. These solar feed-in rates average 11 times the 5.6 cents/ kWh paid for nuclear and 18 times the 3.5 cents/ kWh for hydro-generated power. The wind power rates are more than twice as high as nuclear and four times those of hydro.
http://www.forbes.com/sit...at-green-energy-crack-up/
Spain announced a 40% reduction in its wind power subsidy.
The European Commission’s energy department is questioning the wisdom of its go-it-alone global warming policies, citing loss of economic competitiveness.
The British government pulled the plug on its budget-bending carbon capture and storage facility. That’s where carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal is pulled out of the exhaust and sent back into the ocean floor. It sounds expensive and fanciful, and it is.
Japan announced it is reconsidering its plan to cut carbon dioxide by 25% in the next 8 years. Minister Nobutani, of the Global Environmental Affairs Office stated that “Japan’s wealth has been draining out” in its attempt to meet the target.
The price of carbon credits—what you buy as a “permit” to emit—has dropped off the table because the Greek and Italian (and soon, Spanish) crises are crashing the European economy. No one needs to buy a permit to emit carbon dioxide when the factory is down.
http://toryaardvark.com/2...-energy-is-dead-in-spain/
The world was a different place at the beginning of the 21st Century, Climate Religion was at the height of its powers, people and politicians cowered in fear at the predictions of the coming environmental holocaust.
In the early years of the first decade of this century to stave off Global Warming as it was called then, countries like Spain and Portugal followed the Germans and Greened their economies on the German Green subsidy model.
Over a decade later the total economic failure of Green renewable energy has been plain for all to see, a US House of Representatives report concluded that there was no such thing as lasting Green jobs. Green jobs because of the huge subsidies they require kill more jobs in existing industries than they create in the new Green industries.
This killing of real jobs, for short term low carbon jobs has cost Spain 2.2 real jobs for every Green job created, now with the economy in ruins Spain has stopped all the Green subsidies put in place by the previous Socialist government.
This week, Australia and Spain both cancelled most or all of their enormous subsidies for green energy. Germany has done so already. And Britain is expected to follow suit shortly.
Why? The subsidies are expensive and utterly useless. No matter how much money governments throw at wind power, solar power or other alternate energy sources, the results are always the same: Little or new energy is produced and there is no reduction in carbon emissions despite the billions thrown at green projects.
The Spanish government, like most European governments, is staggering under a mountain of public debt after having used borrowed money for decades to pay for massive social benefits.
Spain’s green energy subsidies were among the most generous in Europe - about $5.75 billion annually in a country of 47 million people. Madrid’s deep commitment brought it much praise from environmentalists who have held Spain up as a shining example of what governments can achieve if only they find sufficient will to act.
Except all of Spain’s expensive actions have led to nothing: no energy revolution, no new green jobs, no reduction in greenhouse gases.
Madrid’s chosen form of subsidy, like Ontario’s, has been to vastly overpay producers of alternate energy for the meager amounts of non-carbon electricity they provide. As in Ontario, this has meant billions given to windmill companies and solar panel owners even though their projects are uneconomic and their electricity is hard to get to market.
From the beginning, Spain was warned by free-market economists that its plan was destined to fail - and bound to waste billions of tax dollars. But, as with so many governments and environmentalists, Spain has been guilty of magic-wand thinking: If only it would spend enough money giving green energy a nudge, non-carbon energy would magically become profitable and painlessly replace carbon-based based fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal.
Well, when nudging didn’t produce the promised results - dynamic new industries and scads of new, well-paying, morally satisfying “green” jobs - Spain decided to try a two-handed shove to get its alternate energy sector going. If small subsidies weren’t enough, surely big ones would be.
That didn’t work either. Indeed, it’s hard to believe thinking people ever believed it could.
Green energy hasn’t failed to replace traditional sources because of lack of public funding. It has never rivaled traditional energy because economically it can’t.
Just look at solar energy.
With traditional energy, the power is generated comparatively cheaply in centralized locations. From there it is distributed to consumers via an electrical grid. With solar energy, the power is produced in smaller amounts in decentralized locations from which it must be collected via a grid only to then be redistributed to customers.
Despite billions in tax dollars given to Spanish (and Ontario) solar producers, no one has yet found an economic way to connect thousands of collection sites to millions of consumers.
The solution, so far, has been for governments to overpay for solar power (sometimes on the order of 20 times the market rate for electricity) in hopes that somehow this would provoke a profitable industry. But that was self-evidently doomed to fail from the start.
Wind power is simply too unpredictable. For instance, too often when it is hot and more power is needed to run air conditioners, it is also calm. There is simply no wind to generate power.
Australia announced this week it was giving up on carbon taxes that were adding hundreds of dollars to Australians’ power bills without any appreciable reduction in power consumption or emissions.
These countries are coming to realize green energy is a dream, only - and a very expensive one.
