Climate Change Caused Viking Exit from Greenland: Study

So they got cold, did they? Surely they were made of sterner stuff, or so the histories would have us believe.

Seems the Vikings high-tailed it out of Greenland after the temperature dropped 7 degrees in a handful of generations way back in the 12th Century.

They were living there, and then they weren't. Similar patterns can be found in the 1300s and 1400s as well.

The Vikings arrived in 980, when things were hot all the way round, including on Greenland. The winters were harsh, of course, but the Vikings would have been used to that. Apparently, though, the winters (and the summers) got harsher still, and the result was a mass migration.

Now, the number of Vikings living on Greenland in the 12th Century was nowhere near the current population of New York or Paris, but the settlements were widespread enough to suggest more than a few people sprinkled here and there up and down the coast. So it seems strange that a little bit of cold would convince them to find greener pastures elsewhere.

We just don't know a whole lot about this time in history, mainly because the protagonists in our Little Ice Age story weren't all that good at writing things down and leaving them behind for future generations to find an decipher. We can guess, surely, but where does that get us?

The people doing the guessing — sorry, the educated speculating are from Brown University and have published a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study's findings will no doubt be discussed and dissected for years to come.

The study suggests, actually, that the shift in temperatures downward affected the land and its ability to grow crops and support livestock. Not having enough food is certainly more of a reason that Vikings would abandon their Greenland outposts. It also lets the Norsemen off the hook in terms of having to answer an uncomfortable question.