July 24, 2026
Yes, There was a Medieval Warming Period and it was Good
Timothy Birdnow
Here is a piece of work at Physorg discussing the horribleness of planetary warming. In particular it uses the Medieval Warming Period as a cautionary tale to modernity about how terrible a warming period can be.
I remember a time when they denied there WAS a Medieval Warming Period (hence to be known as MWP). They tried very hard to ignore it. But since that failed they are now trying to trash it to make our current Holocene warming period (cooler still than the MWP and the even warmer Holocene Climate Optimum) appear to be an existential crisis that requires immediate action before doomsday.
But guess what? Populations in England were certainly rising during this time period and the same holds true for the rest of Europe. Populations don't rise in times of famine and crop failures.
The Low Middle Ages saw population contraction as the political environment was unsettled, as was the environment itself; a series of natural disasters, starting in the sixth century, reduced the population of Europe considerably. But at the start of the High Middle Ages in 1300 population began to rise and times were good - this was the heyday of the MWP. It was warmer, there was more food being grown, and commerce increased. But the coming of the Black Death and other plagues caused a major population drop, which this paper appears to be using to justify claims that warming causes all these problems. It wasn't warming - it was an invasion of rats. There were more people who had bad hygiene and the rats carried the Black Death.
This author tries to coin a new name - the Medieval Climate Anomaly - so as to avoid the obvious conclusion. He speaks about how it wasn't universal (and yet we know from what was happening in Central and South America as well as in Asia and Africa) that this was a time of prosperity for everyone - which suggests crops were flourishing in the warmer climate.
He admits this while denying the truth of it:
Not all regions experienced warmer temperatures during this period, however. Many scholars prefer the label Medieval Climate Anomaly instead. This better reflects the fact that climatic changes varied across the globe and involved more than just rising temperatures.
Although the warmer temperatures produced occasional drought conditions, the overall economic effects of the Medieval Climate Anomaly were largely positive for northern Europe and parts of Asia. It led to large-scale and widespread agricultural expansion and population growth.
Between 600–900, the population of Eurasia grew only marginally, from 167 million to 178 million. Between 900–1200, however, it nearly doubled to 324 million.
It was during the Medieval Climate Anomaly that a highly commercialized and monetized economy developed in large parts of medieval Europe, in what historians have described as its commercial revolution.
And we know that the Mongols exploded out of their Gobi Desert home at the end of the 13th century, and why did they do that? Because they had a major population growth spurt and enough food to feed their soldiers.
The Mayans and Incans both experienced Golden Ages during this period too.
And then there was Cahokia. A great civilization known as the Mound Builders flourished in Illinois and other parts of the Midwest (St. Louis is called Mound City in honor of the mounds they build in the "suburbs" of Cahokia) and Cahokia was their capital. In the year 900 it's population was greater than that of London at the time. By 1450 the city was almost completely abandoned. It was not conquered. But conditions changed with the end of the MWP and no doubt they had a series of crop failures along with disease outbreaks that led to the fall of Cahokia. A great civilization perished when it went from warm to cold. Most of her population loss came in the 13th century, just as the MWP was ending.
(BTW the Cahokia Indians came later and settled in the ruins, building a small village on top of Monk's Mound, the ceremonial center of the ancient city. Mounks Mound is a hundred feet high, an artificial mountain constructed on the prairie of western Illinois. The Great Sun - the leader - lived there and all ceremonial events occurred on it.)
So we have evidence in Illinois, in the Yucatan, in in South America, in China and Central Asia and Europe and even in New Zealand
Yes, there were heat waves and droughts but that is normal. It appears to me most people were flourishing around the globe. It was a period, not an "anomaly".
Here's this guy's conclusion:
"The Medieval Climate Anomaly was a largely regional episode of natural warmth. Today's climate change is a rapid worldwide warming trend driven primarily by human greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, temperatures are rising today at unprecedented rates. Records continue to tumble, as weather that was once considered extreme becomes normal.
There are, however, some salutary warnings from the past. As climates change, so too will the risk of diseases spreading and the possibility of weather extremes. With increasing temperatures, it is possible, for example, that malaria may once again become endemic in the UK.
As the medieval period has demonstrated, fire spread can be another acute risk during long periods of dry weather. But unlike the medieval period, we now have the technology to help us prepare, as well as national fire services and more ways to share information quickly. That gives us an advantage that medieval communities just did not have."
He says the MWP was "regional" and yet it impacted much of the globe. How is that "regional"? And he points to things that have nothing to do with the current theory of climate warming as the causes of disasters, like big volcanic eruptions, and then ignores the very point he made to kowtow to the fashionable War of the World's scare.
Most of this conclusion is a non-sequiter. Nothing he discusses in the meat of the article leads one to accept his conclusions.
And he fails to mention what went after, the bitter cold, the hunger, the diseases that befell the world after the climate cooled.
That's how this is done these days. I suppose we now call that "science"?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:25 AM
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As I have rather tiresomely pointed out many times, the MWP is when Eric "The Red" Thorvaldson established a farming colony in Greenland, populated from Icelanders. which he named -- because at that time it was green enough to be farmed, and he was also a good PR person. The colony survived for quite awhile, until the climate turned cold again and the farmers starved because they weren't able to make a living any other way. During that time his sons explored further to the west and made landfalls in places such as Labrador, attempting to establish colonies in the New World but without much success.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at July 25, 2026 12:36 AM (lBLsY)
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Absolutely Dana.. They've found Viking villages in Greenland that were under glaciers, thus proving they were not ice covered back then.
For that matter we've found old WWII bases and artifacts under the ice in Greenland, telling us it was warmer then than it was in the sixties or seventies and only NOW is the ice receding.
And then there are plants. As we know they were growing olives in Germany during the MWP, and grapes in Britain. Only now are grapes coming back to Britain but not the kind they grew then. I once read Gavin Schmidt, the NASA climatologist and alarmist, trying to claim Britain grows grapes now proving it was always warmer. He couldn't even be bothered to look up what KIND of grapes they grow in Britain now; mostly cold hearty French American hybrids or Muller Thurgau, the German grape specifically bred for cold and damp. Vitus Vinifera as is grown in France can't produce in the cold and rainy conditions of the islands.
For that matter we've found old WWII bases and artifacts under the ice in Greenland, telling us it was warmer then than it was in the sixties or seventies and only NOW is the ice receding.
And then there are plants. As we know they were growing olives in Germany during the MWP, and grapes in Britain. Only now are grapes coming back to Britain but not the kind they grew then. I once read Gavin Schmidt, the NASA climatologist and alarmist, trying to claim Britain grows grapes now proving it was always warmer. He couldn't even be bothered to look up what KIND of grapes they grow in Britain now; mostly cold hearty French American hybrids or Muller Thurgau, the German grape specifically bred for cold and damp. Vitus Vinifera as is grown in France can't produce in the cold and rainy conditions of the islands.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at July 25, 2026 01:10 PM (oflqW)
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