Was the Middle Ages warmer than today? New findings answer the question

2023-08-13 09:17:22

The medieval climatic optimum is known as a phase of natural global warming that occurred during the 1200s. This has given rise to much debate in recent years on the unprecedented nature, or not, of our current global warming. New scientific discoveries call into question the existence of this climatic optimum in the Middle Ages, even in areas where it seemed reliable.

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Since reliable meteorological records did not exist at the time, between the 10th and 14th centuries, scientists used reconstructions made from climate models. But the results never showed actually higher temperatures, despite the findings of other scientists. Generally speaking, climatologists already agreed on the fact that the Middle Ages were globally no warmer than today, except for certain specific regions of the world, such as around the North Atlantic: lands located around this ocean would have experienced overheating in a way that is difficult to explain.

The study of trees shows that the warming of the Middle Ages is weaker than the current one

Until now, scientists thought that Scandinavia was one of the areas that experienced a very hot period in the medieval era. But new analyzes carried out on tree rings show that the medieval period was ultimately cooler than expected. According to a study published in Nature, including in Scandinavia. The tree rings of pine trees (alive or dead) collected in Sweden and Finland are the most precise indicators: the thicker and darker they are, the more it testifies to abnormally hot periods. These show that the most recent rings are much thicker than those from the 1200s.

The more science progresses, the more this localized medieval climatic optimum turns out to be much cooler than we thought, contradicting all the theories of the past on the fact that our Planet had already experienced a stronger warming than the current one.

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