It’s the latest idiotic attack on the science of global warming, Joe Queenan tells us it was great for the Vikings! Why the LA Times publishes this crap is beyond me.
So the argument is, the Vikings had a merry old time the last time it was warm like today, therefore, why worry? Global warming is good?
Well, take a look at temperature reconstructions for the last 2 thousand years or so (1):
The Vikings supposedly roamed the northern Atlantic around the year 1000 AD +/- 200 years.
Can you see the problem? We’re at happy Viking now (and that’s if you except the top, end of the distribution and not the mean at 1000AD) and ramping up. If we were to stop here, maybe you could make this argument, but the fact is we’re traveling into the unknown, and if paleoclimatology is right about anything, we’re likely heading towards disaster.
Yet another poorly-thought out argument to justify complacency. Anyone who reads my blog realizes I’m anti-alarmist, but that doesn’t mean we should sit around looking for non-existent silver-linings like this twit.
1. Jones, P.D., M. New, D.E. Parker, S. Martin, and I.G. Rigor, Surface air temperature and its changes over the past 150 years, Reviews of Geophysics, 37, 173-199, 1999.