On Oct 8, 11:54*pm, Mike Tommasi > wrote:
> Martin Field wrote:
> > Fromhttp://www.stratsplace.com/martin/noshtalgia_afgani.html
>
> > The 'Little Optimum' - Mediaeval global warming - Leafing through the
> > fascinating book, The Year 1000, I came across the following snippet, 'The
> > Normans' Domesday survey of 1086 listed no less than 38 vineyards in
> > England... the years 950 to 1300 were marked by noticeably warmer
> > temperatures than we experience today... Meteorologists describe this
> > mediaeval warm epoch as the 'Little Optimum'... [when] London enjoyed the
> > climate of the Loire Valley...' By Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger,
> > paperback, published by Abacus, London, 2000.
>
> I know it is considered uncool to write like this, but I cannot help
> using my own eyes and reporting. Scorching summers did happen before
> 2003, but we do tend to remember only the last one... :-)
>
> Since that year here in Provence I have noticed a singular change, not
> so much in temperature but in precipitation.
>
> The Bandol area used to have an average rainfall of 500-600mm per year,
> mostly concentrated in the winter months in a dozen violent storms, with
> hardly a few drops from may to early september. Temperature-wise in the
> last 5 years if anything it has been particularly cold. Sea temperature
> on our coast has not risen past 22°C in the last 2 years, by mid August
> it normally is up to 24-26°C. This year was strange, with clouds and
> some rain in the months of may-june that have obviously delayed the
> growth of grapes, and a very cool summer, as cool as 2007. Winter
> temperatures have cooled, when I first moved here in 1988 it was common
> to have lunch outside almost every day right up to Xmas, it is now much
> cooler. Last week morning temperatures were around 11°C, unheard of in
> october. I record the date when I "turn the heating on", it happens
> earlier every year. This is coastal data, for places like
> Aix-en-Provence subtract 4-6 degrees in winter, add 4-6 degrees in summer....
>
> Of course, a decade's observation is meaningless in the context of earth
> weather. But I do want to point out that the media will immediately cry
> "global warming" at the slightest hot flash of our planet, but it is
> decidedly politically incorrect to say anything about the cold snaps.
>
> Now I know that the changes that are happening happen over a very long
> time, and involve minute shifts of fractions of a degree which are
> probably not perceptible. * But meaningless local weather abnormalities
> are quickly used by stupid journalists as "proof" of global warming.
> This does a serious misservice to weather science.
Volcanos have put huge amounts of dust in the upper atmosphere in a
few years, which was responsible for the year without a summer - 1816.
You may read details about this at
http://www.dandantheweatherman.com/B...rnosummer.html
.. I will quote just a bit from this.
"The period 1812-1817 was one of exceptional volcanic activity, and
the sheer volume of volcanic dust pumped into the atmosphere by these
volcanic eruptions caused a general, temporary cooling in the earth’s
climate around this time.
This temporary climatic cooling peaked during the summer of 1816 was
the peak of this cooling and the reason the peak fell in the summer of
1816 is almost certainly due to the eruption of the Tamboro volcano
east of Java in April 1815 (believed to be one of the most explosive
eruptions of the last 10,000 years). At the time sunspots were blamed
for the unseasonable weather (Laskin 1996). Anyway, this eruption put
more than 150 million tonnes of dust in the atmosphere which gradually
spread around the globe acting as a veil reflecting incoming solar
radiation back into space and cooling the earth (temporarily) which in
turn caused a change in the world’s, and in particular the northern
hemisphere’s, weather patterns."
I do have a bottle of wine from 1816 from Spain. It is Gran Muscat
Vintage Malaga 1816, Compania Mata.It came from auction, and the tax
stamps on the bottle are of the type found on many bottles shipped to
the US before WW II. I often have thought that the date may not be
correct, but then if one is going to fake a vintage date, why in the
world would they choose 1816?