1. The Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Vikings

2. The climate varies a lot in Iceland and Greenland! Affected by: Position of Storm Track/ Jet Stream Oceanic Currents North Atlantic Oscillation Sea-Ice in Greenland sea

3. North Atlantic Oscillation

4. Haine, Weather, 2008

5. Vikings in Iceland Colonised between 870-930AD, probably 871 No native peoples or grazing animals Extensive vegetation and trees when the Vikings arrived: erosion soon became a problem Greenland Ice cores show warmer temperatures between 900-1200 AD. Farms prosperous in medieval times were engulfed by glaciers by 1700

6. Vikings in Greenland Erik the Red, Thorvaldsson About 985AD – in the middle of a period with less sea ice The settlers experienced above average temperatures for the first crucial years. Eastern Settlement on the south coast, abandoned by 1500 Some Eastern settlement graves are now in permanently frozen ground. Western settlement near current Nuuk, abandoned around 1350 Sea ice limited trade, fishing and the essential arrival of driftwood Why were settlements abandoned?? Hvalsey Church, Eastern Settlement

7. Vikings in North America “The country seemed to them so kind that no winter fodder would be needed for the livestock: There was never any frost all winter and the grass hardly withered at all” A description of Vinland from the Greenland Saga Leif Eriksson, Erik the Red’s son, arrived in 1000AD Vínland (wineland), Helluland (slab land), Skaeling land (wretch land) and Markland (forest land) Travel between Greenland and North America would only have been possible for 2 months of the year In years of heavy sea-ice, travel would have been perilous Conflicts with indigenous people probably led to the abandonment of the settlements after a few years

8. Hafgerdingar “sea hedges” Probably an Arctic superior mirage Occurs in anticyclonic conditions Temperature inversion with temperatures rising more than 0.11°C/m with height These make it possible to see Shetland from Norway, the Faeroes from Shetland, Iceland from the Faeroes, East Greenland from Iceland and Baffin Island from West Greenland