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Science 23 February 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5508, pp. 1497 - 1499
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5508.1497
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Perspectives

PALEOCLIMATE:
Was the Medieval Warm Period Global?

Wallace S. Broecker

During the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1200 A.D.), the Vikings colonized Greenland. In his Perspective, Broecker discusses whether this warm period was global or regional in extent. He argues that it is the last in a long series of climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic, that it was likely global, and that the present warming should be attributed in part to such an oscillation, upon which the warming due to greenhouse gases is superimposed.

The author is at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA. E-mail: broecker{at}ldeo.columbia.edu

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