The Vikings - During the High Middle Ages, the Scandinavians became world travelers. The Scandinavians, also called the Norsemen, traveled the rivers of Russia, traded with the Arabs, settled in Greenland, deforested Iceland, and set foot in North America.
The Scandinavian travelers, the Vikings, came across the Arctic Ocean to Iceland and Greenland in the ninth and tenth centuries (The Medieval Warm Period) unimpeded by drift ice and stormy weather. Drift ice is carried by ocean currents and scientists have found that there was a direct relationship between global temperature and ice sighting. Iceland, an island in the North Atlantic Ocean and 750 miles west of Norway, is located at the meeting place of the Arctic water and the Gulf Stream. In cold times the Arctic water carries the ice south. In warmer times the Gulf Stream dominates the area and the ice is kept away. The Greenlander's Sagas, early Icelandic prose narratives of the exploits of Lief Ericson and his son Eric the Red, do not mention drift ice until the 13th century. Over 100,000 people made the journey to settle in Iceland. No icebergs or severe winter storms impeded the ships bringing colonists or supplies from the mainland. The warmth of the climate allowed settlers in Greenland to grow vegetables and hay for their livestock. Today the Greenland homestead of Eric the Red is barren tundra (polar zone).
Around 1350, the drift ice and bad winter storms were making the voyages to Greenland and Iceland more difficult and more expensive. Eventually the voyages stopped altogether. Deforestation, overgrazing, and soil erosion reduced the inhabitants' ability to sustain themselves. The colder climate compounded their problems by shortening their growing season. Spring and fall temperatures determine the length of the growing season and a small drop in temperature can shorten the growing season by several weeks. This is enough to make the difference between having a good harvest and not having one. While grain was grown in most of Iceland during the early years only barley, a short season grain, could be grown after 1300. By 1450 all the settlers had perished. The Vikings that first settled Iceland were tall, averaging 5'7" in height. In their last years, according to a commission sent from Denmark to find the remains of the early settlers, they were "crippled, dwarf like, twisted and diseased" and less than five feet tall. Excavation of their graves indicated that they still wore European clothing and ate European food. They did not adopt the ways of the Indians that survived this change in the climate.
They failed to change their cultural ways and perished. Are we smart enough not to do the same?
The evidence suggests that during thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the jet stream shifted to the south bringing the cold Arctic air with it. Sailing records also suggest that the gulf steam moved south and both movements correlate with the increased volcanic activity in 1250-1500. This was a time of climate change for all the civilizations under the influence of the northern jet stream. The vineyards in England froze, alpine glaciers advanced across farmland in Norway, and the colonists in Iceland and Greenland starved. The climate change brought floods to China and, as we have already seen, wet weather to all of southern Europe with equally disastrous consequences, and drought stuck North America.
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