by K. Richard, July 25, 2019 in NoTricksZone
About 45 years ago, the “consensus” in climate science (as summarized by Williamson, 1975) was quite different than today’s version.
1. The Medieval Warm Period was about 1°C warmer than present overall while the “largely ice-free” Arctic was 4°C warmer, allowing the Vikings to navigate through open waters because there was “no or very little ice” at that time.
2. The island of Spitsbergen, 1237 km from the North Pole and home to over 2000 people, “benefited” because it warmed by 8°C between 1900 and 1940, resulting in 7 months of sea-ice free regional waters. This was up from just 3 months in the 1800s.
3. Central England temperatures dropped -0.5°C between the 1930s to the 1950s.
4. Pack-ice off northern and eastern iceland returned to its 1880s extent between 1958 and 1975.
5. In the 1960s, polar bears were able to walk across the sea (ice) from Greenland to Iceland for the first time since the early 1900s. (They had somehow survived the 7 months per year of sea-ice-free waters during the 1920s-1940s).
Image Source: National Academy of Sciences, Understanding Climatic Change