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Roughly 1,000 years ago, Europe enjoyed several centuries of balmier average temperatures. Dubbed¹ the "Medieval Warm Period," it was the last time before the present that agriculture could flourish in Greenland. This era also provided fodder² for countless³ misunderstandings about the nature of present day global warming.

New research shows that the MWP, as it is affectionately known in acronym-happy science circles, as well as the "Little Ice Age" that almost immediately followed it were likely the result of fluctuations⁴ in the sun's strength and the frequency of volcanic⁵ eruptions⁶, among other natural causes.

Cores drilled from ancient ice sheets as well as of the coral reef and lake sediment⁷ varieties show that at the same time as Europe enjoyed average temperatures as warm as today, the tropical Pacific was unusually cold. This suggests that natural cycles forced these climate anomalies.

Unfortunately, neither the sun nor other natural cycles can entirely⁸ explain the recent warming trend that has brought agriculture back to coastal⁹ Greenland. To date, the only explanation that matches those observations are a concurrent¹⁰ rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. 

CO2 and its peers are now responsible for trapping an extra three watts¹¹ per square meter of planet. And if that continues, the MWP will end up looking like an ice age.