Did a Little Ice Age Caused The Vikings Disappearance On Greenland?
Did a little ice age on Greenland cause the disappearance of the Vikings people? Scientist from the United States and Britain seem to think so. An article on Yahoo!News by Reuters states that, “A cold snap in Greenland in the 12th century may help explain why Viking settlers vanished from the island,” the scientists said on Monday.
The article continues to say that, “Scientists have previously suspected that a cooling toward a "Little Ice Age" from the 1400s gradually shortened growing seasons and added to sea ice that hampered sailing links with Iceland or the Nordic nations.”
William D'Andrea of Brown University, the lead author of the study in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said that, "There is a definite cooling trend in the region right before the Norse disappear."
Based on other findings by the researchers, D'Andrea also said,"You have an interval when the summers are long and balmy and you build up the size of your farm, and then suddenly year after year, you go into this cooling trend, and the summers are getting shorter and colder and you can't make as much hay." This shift in temperatures to a colder and longer period of coldness could have hampered the Vikings ability to raise crops and hunt for food.
Today Greenland’s new inhabitants are again being threatened by unfavorable climate changes. This time it is the warming up of the region, which is melting the ice caps and also an increase in volcanic eruptions that spew hazardous ashes over large area of land.
Will this climatic and geographical change cause people to abandon Greenland again? What’s your thought about the situation? Leave me a post below. thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment