Medieval Warm Period

A graph of temperatures over the past two thousand years. The so-called Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were regional phenomena, and were not experienced worldwide.

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Medieval Climate Optimum was a time of unusually warm climate in the North Atlantic region. It was not a planet-wide phenomena. It lasted from about the tenth century to about the fourteenth century. In discussions of global warming this period is often mentioned.

Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly because this term emphasizes that effects other than temperature were important.

Related pages

• Little Ice Age

Further reading

• M.K. Hughes and H.F. Diaz, "Was there a 'Medieval Warm Period?", Climatic Change 26: 109-142, March 1994

Other websites

• The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period Archived 2003-02-16 at the Wayback Machine