[HN Gopher] Melting ice reveals a Viking-era pass in Norway's mo...
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Melting ice reveals a Viking-era pass in Norway's mountains
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 128 points
Date : 2020-04-16 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| SeanFerree wrote:
| Very cool!
| evandev wrote:
| A lot more information about the search and find along with
| pictures at:
| https://secretsoftheice.com/news/2020/04/16/mountain-pass/
| rnabel wrote:
| That was some of the best accessible scientific writing I
| recently came across - thanks for sharing! What an exciting
| time to work in that field.
|
| Their article on the Otzi discovery [0] is also well worth a
| read.
|
| [0] https://secretsoftheice.com/news/2018/07/04/otzi/
| pi-rat wrote:
| They're finding tons of old stuff here in Norway these days, even
| random people hiking in the mountain stumble over 1250 year old
| viking swords[1], spears, arrows. Skis from the year 700 AD..
| etc..
|
| Lots of it gets documented by the Secrets of the Ice project[2].
|
| [1]:
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/25/3f/1b253f39890eaac465f6...
| [2]: https://secretsoftheice.com
| GuiA wrote:
| Are more people going to more remote locations, I wonder? Or
| are people reporting their findings more now because of the
| internet?
| varjag wrote:
| The Internet has been ubiquitous for a couple decades, and
| most of Norway _is_ "remote location" where trekking been
| always popular. So, no.
| pi-rat wrote:
| This article from national geographics[1] explains it well I
| think. Objects were lost in the snow by travellers crossing
| the mountains up to 2000 years ago, over time they got
| covered in stationary ice (glaciers move and crush items).
|
| Now these stationary ice pockets (and glaciers) are slowly
| melting, leaving well preserved lost items from the old days
| in its place.
|
| [1]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/04/lost-
| viki...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Global warming is melting away the glaciers.
| irrational wrote:
| I'm looking forward to seeing what Greenland and Antarctica look
| like without ice.
| vkou wrote:
| I'm not. I'm really, really not.
| yters wrote:
| I thought now it is the warmest it has ever been since human
| civilization began.
| paypalcust83 wrote:
| MWP was about +1 C more, while the PETM was about +15 C more
| than global average temperature as of now.
| yters wrote:
| AFAIK, humankind flourished during the medieval ages (minus
| plagues and modern medicine and war). But, at least nothing
| obviously climate related. I wonder why we would have more
| trouble nowadays with even more advantages.
| jbattle wrote:
| A) the lower bounds of climate change is now +2degC. The
| MWP was maybe +1degC.
|
| B) (Possibly) I can't tell how long that change took to
| come into effect. One of the current concerns is how
| rapidly climate is changing.
|
| C) Evidence points that the MWP only affected areas around
| the North Atlantic. Current climate change is having impact
| globally (though not equally so everywhere)
|
| There were a ton of societal disruptions in the period of
| 950-1250. Vikings, Normal conquest of England, the
| Crusades. I'm not making an argument that any of those were
| caused by changing climate, but it definitely was a time of
| change with a heavy admixture of violence.
| soperj wrote:
| >One of the current concerns is how rapidly climate is
| changing.
|
| Isn't there also concerns about methane in permafrost
| also amplifying the warming? Wouldn't that dispel the
| notion that it hasn't changed this rapidly before?
| jbattle wrote:
| Yeah there are concerns about methane being released from
| melting permafrost. I can't find information about how
| old the permafrost is - but my understanding is tens of
| thousands of years old. I also can't tell if the methane
| itself is old, or if the methane just forms rapidly with
| all this newly thawed rotting vegetation.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2017/9/6/16062174/permafrost-melting
|
| There's evidence of times in the distant past where
| climate has changed very quickly, but all those predate
| history. There are some that even predate humanity.
| Here's an interesting one from ~12k years ago:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
| paypalcust83 wrote:
| 20 megatonnes/year is small potatoes compared to methane
| hydrates' 1-5 teratonnes storage that could go within a
| decade. There is at most 1.5 teratonnes of methane in
| arctic permafrost, but that will take much longer to
| release (50-100 years at a very conservative minimum) and
| it will degrade with a 7 year half-life.
| paypalcust83 wrote:
| Yes, the methane gun hypothesis. In modern times, there
| is an ever-growing risk of immense methane clathrates in
| the ESAS destabilizing and suddenly boiling off more than
| they already are. Methane has a GWP of ~1000x CO2
| immediately, but it tends to dissipate within ~60 years
| with a half-life of roughly 7 years.
|
| I would watch some videos on YouTube by Paul Beckwith and
| Natalia Shakhova about this topic. They are regular COP
| panel speakers. Natalia has been ringing scientific
| alarm-bells about methane hydrates since at least 2010,
| but not enough of the human family has listened yet.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulHBeckwith
|
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=natalia+shak
| hov...
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| [God of War intensifies]
| tomohawk wrote:
| It was warmer at that time than now.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sci...
|
| The medieval warm period coincides with the viking expansion and
| contraction.
|
| Edit: see response, below
| [deleted]
| chimprich wrote:
| I don't think much of that article. It appears to be from a
| climate heating-denialist book and has a number of errors.
|
| If you look at the Wikipedia page on the subject:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period ...it shows
| that the medieval warm period was not a global phenomenon.
|
| It also contains comical unchecked claims such as "During the
| Medieval Warm Period, wine grapes were grown as far north as
| England, where growing grapes is now not feasible". This is
| blatantly false, as there is a wine industry in England. With
| summers getting increasingly warm, recent decades have even
| seen the development of Welsh wines.
|
| Edit: actually it seems to be a selection of articles from
| different sources, but prominence is given to "Evidence-Based
| Climate Science", an obscure book, for some reason.
| JackFr wrote:
| Not to be pedantic but _Welsh_ wines are not exemplary of an
| _English_ wine industry.
|
| That being said, UK wine production is more of a curiosity
| than an industry. Domestic wine represents 1% of U.K. wine
| consumption, and they U.K. doesn't make the top 25 of wine
| producing nations.
| mc32 wrote:
| The claim wine grapes were cultivated in England during the
| MAs (without the aid of technology) is an old claim and
| predates the politicization of climate change.
| DanBC wrote:
| That's not a controversial claim.
|
| The controversial bit is that wine grapes cannot be grown
| in England today. They can grow and are grown today.
| simonh wrote:
| And back into the 1980s at least, to my personal
| knowledge. I've had a grape vine growing on the side of
| my shed here in South London for the last 7 years.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| Grape vines have been grown since forever in the UK. They
| do fine. They are all over london. What's not easily
| doable is getting ripe fruit off them (fruit, yes, little
| green bullets, ripe... much harder). I don't know how
| it's done commercially currantly[0].
|
| One planted in 1769 is still around. I assume it's under
| glass. Saw it when I was a kid
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace)
|
| [0] thank you, thank you
|
| Edit: a bit more on that ancient and huge vine
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-great-vine-east-
| mole...
| Zenst wrote:
| When it comes to wine, you just have to look at the Romans,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom
|
| another article from a wine grower in the UK has a nice
| history https://www.winegb.co.uk/visitors/background-
| info/history-of...
| INTPenis wrote:
| The medieval warm period was most definitely a climate
| phenomenon with global ramifications though. Seeing as the
| coast of England was completely different. The higher water
| levels allowed the vikings to bring their ships much further
| inland than would be possible today.
| adelHBN wrote:
| I believe that our climate is warming. I've seen it with my
| own eyes on trips to Alaska, Nova Scotia and Alberta. Having
| said that, Europe did go through a little ice age, the end of
| which opened up shipping routes for the Vikings. I also know
| from many sources that winemaking existed in Scandanavia
| before this little ice age, and now has returned to that
| region.
|
| This may be the case: global warming is happening everywhere,
| but it's more pronounced in the North. And melting icebergs
| and glaciers make for better PR than say one degree warmer
| temperatures in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
| tomohawk wrote:
| The medieval warm period is basic history.
|
| I just picked a random site that talked about it.
|
| As for the wine in England:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/14/dining/drinks.
| ..
|
| > Places, like England, that were historically unsuited for
| producing fine wine have been given the opportunity to join
| the global wine world, transforming local economies in the
| process.
| mattkrause wrote:
| As many college students can attest, there's plenty of wine
| which is not "fine wine".
| olivermarks wrote:
| never drink french red wine sold in bottled water style
| containers in France unless you have a very robust
| digestive system. I spent a couple of days in a fetal
| position after a bender on that stuff...
| vondur wrote:
| I believe the climate started getting colder and more variable
| in the 14th century, which unfortunately also coincides with
| the arrival of the Bubonic plague. Similar events also happened
| with the arrival of the bubonic plague during the reign of
| Justinian of the Roman Empire. It's probably responsible for
| bringing on what we think of the Middle Ages vs. the Late
| Antique. If anyone is interseted, there is a great podcast
| called "Tides Of History" The author goes into great detail
| about each period.
| glitcher wrote:
| Same story on National Geographic with a couple more photos of
| the area:
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/04/lost-viki...
| Thrymr wrote:
| And even more in the primary source, open access journal
| article: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.2 (linked from the
| National Geographic article but not the Scientific American one
| that I could find).
| Zenst wrote:
| Thank you, that is a way better article on all levels.
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