Grapes in england? not again please?

Question

the romans HATED it here, it was the armpit of europe, they IMPORTED their wine, as did the upper class britons before them, as it was too wet and cold to grow decent grapes.

"From the archaeological record we know......Foodstuffs traded included very large quantities of cereals as exports, and wine, olive oil, olives and garum as imports. "

http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/trac06/sessions/general3.html

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=spyCIqTzJu0C&pg=RA1-PA475&lpg=RA1-PA475&dq=roman+britain+wine+imports&source=web&ots=d86atPbCT3&sig=Sd0uxf2ZbXiZnHjJ2b-ToDBwY70&hl=en

the doomesday book lists 42 vineyards in England. today there are over 400!

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Arh19UA3u_YQCAZoyhZM6i5kBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20080131093308AA07c0s

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AizDJ6L0WxJnMAkwD3HYR6NkBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20080201141231AAFeLiQ

either its warmer now than in the mwp or this is not a good proxy for tempreature. which is it?

Answer 1

42 vineyards to 400 interesting however of no value.  More people, more demand, more grapes, therefore you need  more vineyards,  supply to keep up with demand.  I do not think that is about climate, at least when I attended college it was more about economics.

Answer 2

I had a cottage in Sussex that used to have fig trees another man I knew had a peach tree and made wine from it. The reason we have more vineyards now is that it is commercially viable and the population has grown out of all proportion, to what it was in Roman times. Global what!

Answer 3

during the MWP Greenland was green as all the snow and ice had melted. When it gets to that stage again, then we'll be as warm as the MWP.

The vikings sailed up to Greenland during the MWP as Greenland was habitable

Answer 4

what are you on about?  have you ever tried english wine or champagne even?  theyre nice

Answer 5

I love it!  I love it!  I love it!  I believe the correct answer is....the latter?

That's right about Greenland too.  I remember my 5th Grade  teacher telling the story about how they named Iceland and nobody wanted to go there, so they started going with names like Greenland and Vineland.  

I just read one from a guy who thinks the Carboniferous era was when the Carbon was originally removed from the atmosphere.  I admit it has the word Carbon in the name, but the atmosphere was already very similar to today, just with a little more oxygen.  The bulk of the CO2 wasn't removed by plants growing on land.  It was removed by algae and then converted to calcium carbonate by by shelled sea creatures.  The White Cliffs of Dover are a fine example.  True the process went on during the Carboniferous era, and all that followed, and more CO2 was removed, but until the sea did it's job the earth was still much too hot due to the Greenhouse Effect.

Are there any vinyards on those White Cliffs, my Dear?  I feel like I could use a drink.

Answer 6

What is the point you are trying to make?

Answer 7

How long will the global warming theologians remain in denial about the MWP? I suppose they feel the need to dismiss anything that does not conform to their dogma. The IPCC even committed what amounts to scientific fraud to air brush the MWP out of history with their infamous hockey stick graph.

There are historical records of vineyards in Northern England and agricultural communities on Greenland around the turn of the first millennium, there are none now, so that indicates that it was warmer then than now.

Answer 8

Whether grapes have always grown here or wine (good or bad) was made here is beside the point.  It is not proof of anything except the fashion for drinking wine, which will have periods of popularity and times of declining production due to a fall in demand.

The traditional drink of England has always been beer, or ale, which in many cases was (quite rightly) considered safer to drink than water.  (We still use microbes to process water fit to drink).  Wine was more popular with the upper classes, who would often prefer to import wine from Bordeaux.  

The Medieval Warming Period has nothing to do with the problems we face now.  All those who are trying to find excuses for their belief that Global Warming is not anthropogenic are uncomfortable with the knowledge that something must be done.  

Face it people!  It's happening, we are causing it, and all of us are going to have to change our lifestyles to stop it getting any worse.  

Besides, there is something else you should remember.  Everything we base our lifestyles on is dependant on oil and other FINITE resources.  We may as well adapt now, because we're going to have to do it sometime soon.  The stuff is already running out.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Answer 9

Grapes in England are not a valid proxy for global temperatures.  The biggest reason why is that at most, vineyards in England are a proxy for temperatures in England, not the planet as a whole. Then you have to to take into account the fact that viticulture practices have changed over time.

Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate concludes thusly:

"...one can conclude that those who are using the medieval English vineyards as a 'counter-proof' to the idea of present day global warming are just blowing smoke (or possibly drinking too much Californian). If they are a good proxy, then England is warmer now, and if they are not….well, why talk about them in this context at all?"