Changeable weather

[SueMay]

Interestingly with my husband and I being South Africans living in the UK we always find this to be a favourite and amusing topic for most people here. The majority of conversations started with someone you pass when out on a walk will start with some or other comment about the weather.

It made us wonder if warmer temperatures were something unusual so did a bit of searching on the internet. We found that warmer, as well as extreme cold, weather is nothing new. Apparently during the time of Robin Hood and Richard Lionheart it was warmer and the Mediaeval Domesday book lists 45 vineyards in Britain, as far north as York.

There is a short article written 19 years ago by the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/apr/04/sciencenews.research
And then this link
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/apr/04/sciencenews.research
which we found interesting.

 

[peter]

Both links are the same - I don't think that's what was intended.

Incidentally I'm always wary of such old articles - many scientific studies are contradicted by late research, often using new datasets or techniques. It's also worth bearing in mind that though they may have produced wine at vineyards in the north of England, you wouldn't necessarily have wanted to drink it - even in the Middle Ages wine was imported from France.

A final reminder - the higher temperatures in the Middle Ages may be comparable to what we are seeing today, but they were followed by cooler temperatures. Sadly that isn't going to happen in the 21st century - past and current CO2 emissions mean that it's going to get hotter and hotter for many years to come, even if we reach net-zero in the middle of the century.

 

[SueMay]

Thank you Peter, Yes it wasn't intended.

Here is the link
https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1500-to-1599-ad/

 

[peter]

Thanks - if anyone wants to go any further, this archived website (which is linked to from one the pages in my newsletter article) goes all the way back to 4000BC, though the information for the earliest years is understandably sparse.