The experience of the Vikings in Greenland may provide insights into climate change.

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Eric the Red, a Norse chieftain, was the discoverer and colonizer of Greenland.  Wikipedia claims that “Greenland has been inhabited at intervals over at least the last 4,500 years by circumpolar peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada.”

The Columbia Encyclopedia asserts that a feud resulting in manslaughter led to Eric the Red’s banishment from Iceland circa 981 A.D. for three years.  Wikipedia says that Eric the Red was exiled from Iceland with his father, Thorvald, who had committed manslaughter.

The Columbia Encyclopedia says that Eric the Red sailed circa 982 to search for land that was reputed to lie west of Iceland.  He discovered Greenland and spent three years with his Viking followers exploring the south and west coasts.  After his return to Iceland, he reportedly gave Greenland its attractive name to encourage settlers.

Eric the Red returned to Greenland circa 986 with about 500 people.  He established a farmstead, Brattahlid, near modern day Julianehaab and was a leader of the southern settlement at Osterbygd.

According to Wikipedia, “Interpretation of ice-core and clam-shell data suggests that between AD 800 and 1300 the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland had a relatively mild climate, several degrees Celsius warmer than usual in the North Atlantic with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel. The ice cores show that Greenland has had dramatic temperature shifts many times in the past 100,000 years.”

Although Eric the Red gave Greenland its attractive name to attract settlers, it is possible that the name was also inspired by the greenery that he saw on the southwest part of the island.  It is also possible that the relatively mild climate around the fjords of southern Greenland when Eric the Red lived there may not be dissimilar to the climate in this region today.  This would have been more than 770 years before the Industrial Age, which began around 1760 in Great Britain and later in other countries.  Thus, the relatively mild climate around the Norsemen’s settlements in Greenland would have had nothing to do with human activities, and would have instead been due to natural causes.