File:Definitions MCA.svg

Summary[edit]

This image is intended to illustrate the vague and heterogeneous usage of the terms "Medieval Warm Period" / "Medieval Climate Anomaly" and "Little Ice Age (LIA)". The heterogeneous usage has been pointed out e.g. by Raymond S Bradley, Heinz Wanner and Henry F. Diaz The Medieval Quiet Period. In: The Holocene. 2016.

The definitions of IPCC AR5, WG I, Glossary was chosen as a reference; core periods as defined in IPCC AR5 are marked with vertical dashed lines. The papers of Lamb (1965), Stine (1994) were selected because they are often cited as coining the terms MWP, MCA resp. (see Henry F. Diaz et al.: Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Climate in Medieval Times Revisited. In: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. November 2011, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-10-05003.1 )

Other papers were selected by searching google scholar on May 27th, 2016, for "medieval warm period little ice age" and flipping through the first 50 hits. Within these hits, papers were selected that a) reported on original research (no reviews, general discussions) and classified their findings as being or falling into a MWP/MCA, LIA, and that b) could illustrate the heterogeinity of the usage of these terms.

The concept of a MWP/MCA is colored red, LIA blue. Blurred colors are used if the beginning or termination of an interval is only vaguely defined. If the paper reported results on a period before a "MWP"/ "MCA", this interval is shown too. If the findings are roughly comparable to those of the "MWP/MCA" or "LIA", it is colored correspondingly, "red" or "blue". If the period preceding a "MWP/MCA" has been labeled, e.g. as falling into a "Dark Cold Ages" period, this is mentioned under the colored bar.

Sources:

• Driese (2004): Steven G. Driese et al.: Possible Late Holocene equatorial palaeoclimate record based upon soils spanning the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, Loboi Plain, Kenya. In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 2004, DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2004.07.009
• Goose (2004): H. Goose et al.: A late medieval warm period in the Southern Ocean as a delayed response to external forcing?. In: Geophysical Research Letters. 2004, DOI: 10.1029/2003GL019140
• Haug (2001): Gerald H. Haug et al.: Southward Migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone Through the Holocene. In: Science. 2001, DOI: 10.1126/science.1059725
• Lamb (1965): Hubert Lamb: The Medieval Warm Epoch and its Sequel. In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 1965, DOI: 10.1016/0031-0182(65)90004-0
• Liu (1998): Kam-biu Liu und Lonnie G. Thompson: A pollen record of Holocene climatic changes from the Dunde ice cap, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. In: Geology. 1998, DOI: 10.1130/0091-7613(1998)026<0135:APROHC>2.3.CO;2
• Morellón (2011): Mario Morellón et al.: Climate changes and human activities recorded in the sediments of Lake Estanya (NE Spain) during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. In: Journal of Paleolimnology. 2011, DOI: 10.1007/s10933-009-9346-3
• Russell (2007): J.M. Russell und T.C. Johnson: Little Ice Age drought in equatorial Africa: Intertropical Convergence Zone migrations and El Niño–Southern Oscillation variability. In: Geology. 2007, DOI: 10.1130/G23125A.1
• Stine (1994): Scott Stine: Extreme and persistent drought in California and Patagonia during mediaeval time. In: Nature. 1994. DOI: 10.1038/369546a0
• Zhang (2009): Pingzhong Zhang et al.: A Test of Climate, Sun, and Culture Relationships from an 1810-Year Chinese Cave Record. In: Science. 2008, DOI: 10.1126/science.1163965.

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