"When I was a schoolboy we were taught that the England of 1215 was a degree or so warmer than today. And vineyards were sown as far north as the Isle of Ely... a stones throw from where the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit stands today, the Climategate guys, so I will take global warming seriously when they tear down the Climate Research Unit, and sow a vineyard making an amusing little Chateauneuf du Phil Jones."
But now, as in 1215, Scotland is five degrees north of East Anglia, and several degrees cooler than England. So if as Mark says:
"the England of 1215 was a degree or so warmer than today. And vineyards were sown as far north as the Isle of Ely..."the present production of wine in Scotland if anything demonstrates that British climate must now be "a degree or so warmer than...1215." Here's another swig of Mark's strange brew :
'It’s an elitist thing... They’re the ones who actually deny science. They basically took a jackhammer to a thousand years of sane scientific observation of natural climate variability of the Medieval Warm Period when they were making wine in Greenland,' ( 22 April 2015 )Next, he'll be telling us Erik the Red sailed West in search of fresh mango juice.
Steyn's counterfactual tasting notes bode ill for his libel trial. Grapes never grew in medieval Greenland, but global warming in the Industrial Revolution's wake has lately pushed British winemaking north through Northumberland, and on, Heaven help us, into Scotland!
Oblivious to Steyn's untrue tale of Viking winemakers in walrus country, the Scots have established vineyards closer to the Arctic Circle than the Isle of Ely.
Mark may want to see the Climatic Research Unit torn down because it overlooks Winbirri Vineyards. It really wouldn't do for his libel jury to sample the dead-ripe 2013 vintage that testifies to the rise in degree-days that has added 56 amusing little wines to the Cote du Jones line, including the eponymous Isle's Elysian Fields, whose label notes:
" There is documentary evidence that the monks at the Abbey and later the Cathedral at Ely cultivated vines right through the Middle Ages "To the dismay of deniers touting the erstwhile "pause" in warming Viscount Monckton claims, 2003 saw Burgundy's earliest harvest since record keeping began, in 1370!
Chandon's 2003 Corton Charlemagne was picked on August 15, the grapes having already ripened to the heady limit of fermentation- the wine was bottled at 14.5% alcohol!
Like many ersatz climate skeptics, Steyn has his history backwards; the medieval warm period simply wasn't warm enough to grow wheat, let alone grapes, in Iceland or Greenland, witness how clerics there were forced to celebrate mass with items as alien to The Last Supper as oatcakes, ale and fermented crowberry juice.
Canon Lawyers can testify that on hearing of this heretical malpractice in 1237, Pope Gregory IX told Archbishop Sigurd of Norway to order Greenland and Iceland's clergy to import the real deal in sacramentals--panis de frumento et vini de uvis from warmer climes, a description met by today's brae wine frae north o' the Doon.
Before invoking Viking navigation as a Medieval thermometer proxy, Mark should have recalled that the king of Portugal born in 1394 went down in history as Henry the Navigator because the Age of Exploration he kickstarted with a 1436 voyage barreled on all the way through the Little Ice Age!
Like many ersatz climate skeptics, Steyn has his history backwards; the medieval warm period simply wasn't warm enough to grow wheat, let alone grapes, in Iceland or Greenland, witness how clerics there were forced to celebrate mass with items as alien to The Last Supper as oatcakes, ale and fermented crowberry juice.
Canon Lawyers can testify that on hearing of this heretical malpractice in 1237, Pope Gregory IX told Archbishop Sigurd of Norway to order Greenland and Iceland's clergy to import the real deal in sacramentals--panis de frumento et vini de uvis from warmer climes, a description met by today's brae wine frae north o' the Doon.
Before invoking Viking navigation as a Medieval thermometer proxy, Mark should have recalled that the king of Portugal born in 1394 went down in history as Henry the Navigator because the Age of Exploration he kickstarted with a 1436 voyage barreled on all the way through the Little Ice Age!
While it's naughty of Mark to ignore Little Ice Age winemaking in Nova Scotia, I can't fault Matt Ridley leaving his Northumbrian coal-lands vineless. Coalfield plantings in Kentucky produce haggis-friendly wines with a scary witch hazel nose and terrifying hydrogen sulfide finish. But for all the ginger he puts into it, Mark Steyn's fortified hogwash merely strengthens the case for The Medieval Cooler Than Now Period.
UPDATE:
While Mark will at last have his day in court, it does not seem to be vintage year for the defense:
A decade after his 2014 speech, grapes are growing farther north than ever, with wine flowing from vineyards in Norway's Telemark district ( 59° 24' North!) and Scotland's outermost Hebrides:
While Mark will at last have his day in court, it does not seem to be vintage year for the defense:
A decade after his 2014 speech, grapes are growing farther north than ever, with wine flowing from vineyards in Norway's Telemark district ( 59° 24' North!) and Scotland's outermost Hebrides:
