The notion of a medieval warm period is highly controversial. Many paleoclimatologists claim that well-documented evidence for the phenomenon appears across the North Atlantic region, while others maintain that the phenomenon was global, occurring all over the world. Still other scientists insist that their data do not show appreciable changes in average temperature anywhere over the course of the interval. Meanwhile, global warming skeptics have used the MWP to bolster their position in the debate over the nature and effects of climate change .

Medieval warm period (MWP) , also called medieval warm epoch or little climatic optimum , brief climatic interval that is hypothesized to have occurred from approximately 900 ce to 1300 (roughly coinciding with the Middle Ages in Europe ), in which relatively warm conditions are said to have prevailed in various parts of the world, though predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere from Greenland eastward through Europe and parts of Asia .

Level and extent of warming

Direct measurements of climate conditions collected by thermometers, barometers, rain gauges, and other equipment have been available since the 19th century. The climatic conditions of older periods, however, have to be “reconstructed” with the help of historical documents (which contain figures on food production, the length of growing seasons, and the duration of ice on bodies of water) and other indirect measures of climate (including “climate proxies” such as tree rings, ice cores, and sediment cores). Many such studies suggest that Europe’s Middle Ages did see several multiyear stretches of relatively pleasant conditions and reliable weather. There is little evidence that such conditions prevailed on a global scale, however. Indeed, some climate proxies point to several periods of extended drought during the MWP in some locations, such as the Sierra Nevada mountains of North America, parts of Australia, and the Asian steppe, whereas other areas, such as northern China, experienced a mix of heavy rainfall and drought.

Many studies show that the amount of warming occurring during the MWP varied by season and region. Some provide evidence of relatively warm temperatures (most pronounced during the summer months) in several regions, including the North Atlantic, northern Europe, China, and parts of North America, as well as the Andes, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Other studies maintain that the temperature conditions of certain regions, such as the Mediterranean, South America, and other locations in the Southern Hemisphere, were essentially no different from those of the present day.

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Only a few studies have attempted to assign a specific value to changes in average global temperatures during the MWP. In 1965 British climatologist Hubert Horace Lamb examined historical records of harvests and precipitation, along with early ice-core and tree-ring data, and concluded that the MWP was probably 1–2 °C (1.8–3.6 °F) warmer than early 20th-century conditions in Europe. Attempts to calculate global temperature changes during the MWP, even using modern instrumental and ice-core sampling techniques, have been inconclusive.

It is frequently pointed out that the MWP was a prosperous time in European history. The interval was concurrent with Norse explorations of the New World, the founding of Norse settlements in Iceland and Greenland, and increased agricultural productivity and crop diversity in northern Europe. Some paleoclimatologists and historians claim that the pleasant conditions of the MWP allowed the settlements in Iceland and Greenland to prosper and Norse explorers to venture to the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland to hunt and fish. They interpret records of bountiful harvests over much of Europe to mean that the region benefited from a series of extended summers and mild winters. As proof of warmer average temperatures in northern Europe, they cite the existence of wheat cultivation and vineyards at latitudes and elevations that were far higher than today.