Blessed relief ...

[blamebrampton]

The temperature did not climb above 30 today, the house has cooled of its own accord. Came home from work and napped for four hours, now for a shower and then off to sleep properly ;-)

May those of you freezing in the blighted North have a warm spell appear!

Comments

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Sleep well, dream of inuits. :)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Hee! If I did, I'd have a complicated dream about why the Viking settlement on Greenland faced extinction, which is the main thing I know about the inuit (NB, they were nice to the Vikings, but the Vikings were useless at adapting to the changing climate at the time ;-)

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

About what time was that? (Now, I want to read about it more.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Mid 1300s. There's a good article on it here: http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

The climate was very warm through much of the 1200s and the early 1300s, which meant that populations travelled further north than they had previously and agriculture was booming, as were the numbers of people alive. But in the early 1300s, the climate started to turn and unseasonable cold snaps became the norm. Crops failed, and the number of people alive in some parts of Europe became unsustainable, either starvation or a real lowering of health standards became the norm across most of Europe. Which meant that when the black death hit in 1347, it hit a population that was underfed, in ill health, and crowded into cities rather than spread out in the more agricultural society of the previous century.

All of this is why I go completely mental when people suggest that climate change isn't a big issue, by the way ;-)

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was an interesting read. :)