Talk:Roman Warm Period

Recreated
I see that I have recreated a page that has been thrice deleted in the past. However my links are new and please don't delete this page and redirect it back to the Medieval Warm Period without discussion at least as it is clearly a different subject. I am not sure which categories to add this page to.  Smokey TheCat  04:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I confess that I have completely forgotten how to use HotCat.  Smokey TheCat  22:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Revision needed
I believe this article needs revision by somebody with relevant expertise - at least some of the linked peer-reviewed articles do not appear at first glance to be particularly relevant, and many of the other links are not to reputable sources. 58.175.113.40 (talk) 23:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Beginning to sort out the wheat from the chaff
I've removed one or two references that didn't check out, and added a qualifier--the evidence is regional rather than global. I'm in some doubt as to reference 1, which appears to be a conflation of two separate references, neither of which is much use on paleoclimatology. --TS 23:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Good start, I've commented out some references to very dubious sources: if there's any real backing, editors can check for peer reviewed papers or other reliable publications. The wine growing issue was discussed at RealClimate, and a more specific comment on Roman era wine growing appears in so I've used that source together with  which notes current grape production in Northamptonshire and further north in England. dave souza, talk 09:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Why is an article entitled "Roman Warm Period" being transformed into an article about modern wine production? Kauffner (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Why does this article state that "Olive presses have been found at Sagalassos in Anatolia, although it is now too cold to grow olives in this area."? The only function of these proxies is as a comparison with modern agriculture, if wine production has any relevance as a proxy it shows that it's been warm enough to grow grapes in England both in Roman times and recently, with the early Medieval period also featuring wine production. . . dave souza, talk 15:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It comes directly from a relevant source. You are using sources that have nothing to do with this period. The flimsiest pretext is being used to remove anything relevant. If the Cambridge histories and Science magazine are not up to snuff as sources, than nothing is. Oh, and it, "has been interpreted as suggesting"? Thanks for the personal commentary. Kauffner (talk) 17:25, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What is this relevant source for the vineyards? Brown et al. establish the likely existence of a British Roman vineyard, but don't seem to say anything about climate change or about a "Roman Warm Period", perhaps we shouldn't be using that source. notes that "It is generally agreed that the Romans introduced the vine to Britain. It has also been inferred that the climate in Britain at that time was warmer." It goes on to say that  "At the end of the first century AD, however,  the writer Tacitus declared that our climate was “objectionable”, and not at all suitable for growing vines, which could suggest that someone had at least tried to establish vines, even if they had been unsuccessful." Perhaps we should also mention that point. Note that "warmer" is in the context of comparison to Pre Roman Britain. . . dave souza, talk 17:56, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Why is there no "Minoan Warm Period" wikipedia page ?? The "Minoan Warm Period" is known to have occured around 1000 BC Minoan Warm Period 3000 years ago Roman Warm Period 2000 years ago Mideval Warm Period 1000 years ago Modern Warm period, like now. P.S. RealClimate you must be joking — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.35.137.69 (talk) 20:01, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well I guess you are free to make one. TimOsborn (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Though I'm at the Climatic Research Unit this isn't really a time period that I have much knowledge about, so I don't know how best to improve this article. But improvement it sure needs!  It starts by saying 250 BC to 400 AD.  Wow, 650 years.  With 650 years to play with, I'm sure it should be possible to find various individual records that should some peak somewhere within that long period, and hey presto we have some more evidence of a warm period.  Of course that makes little sense -- we can probably find some minima in the records between 250 BC and 400 AD too, does that mean it should be the Roman Cold Period?
 * Despite this great flexibility of a 650 year period (for which no source is given in the first sentence -- where does it come from?), it seems it still isn't long enough and we have to go outside this period to find evidence. Theophrastus 371-287 BC is not in range!  So why is that even mentioned?  Then there is more about 4th and 5th Centuries BC.  If that is not in the 250 BC to 400 AD putative RWP then why mention it?
 * Vineyards in Britain fits, but Roman conquest of Britain wasn't till AD, so offers no support for (or against) relative warmth in BC. Glaciers -- ok, but there is more recent work that should be considered.  Suzanne Weber et al. and/or Heinz Wanner et al. published something more recent I think.
 * Deep ocean sediment / Bianchi & McCave "concluded there was a Roman Warm Period that peaked around 150 AD". No they didn't.  They found a period that peaked around 100 AD with bigger sediment grains in the ocean sediments SW of Iceland.  They inferred that this was due to a stronger flow of Iceland-Scotland overflow water at this time.  They then referred to the work of others that this "coincided" with warmth in Europe that occurred about 100 years earlier, and this other work was the Rothlisberger 1986 work that is already used as a source in the current wiki page.  So Bianchi & McCave isn't a further source for warmth in Europe, it is relying on the same source.
 * The whole thing is, frankly, a mess. The reason is that much original research needs to be done (Christiansen and Ljungqvist recently published something relevant) to assess the evidence for or against warmth during this period, where it was warm, when it was warm, what season it was warm, etc.  WP isn't the place to do that of course.  Absent such research this page should not mislead -- nothing should be overstated and warmth outside the putative RWP period isn't relevant. TimOsborn (talk) 00:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't hesitate to dive in and start to correct the page. Or totally re-write it William M. Connolley (talk) 08:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Daily Mail misrepresents Esper et al.
Have removed this: Temperatures were approximately 1 degree Celsius warmer than today, according to a study of tree ring data.ref name=Esper>"No wonder the Romans could go out in togas during winter", Daily Mail (London), July 12, 2012 Jan Esper, David C. Frank, Mauri Timonen, Eduardo Zorita, Rob J. S. Wilson, Jürg Luterbacher, Steffen Holzkämper, Nils Fischer, Sebastian Wagner, Daniel Nievergelt, Anne Verstege & Ulf Büntgen, "Orbital forcing of tree-ring data", Nature Climate Change 2, 862–866 (2012) The Romans would have had to have been in Northern Scandinavia, and it's doubtful if temps there are that warm even today. Better source. . . dave souza, talk 09:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I see you put the coatrack about modern grape growing back in. Modern and ancient growing techniques are of course different, so we need a source that compares the two before we can assume this type of comparison is relevant. We are encouraged to use secondary sources since they of course show whether a scientific paper is in fact notable. Kauffner (talk) 12:05, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, stop whining. At least you're not attempting to defend your absurd use of the DM William M. Connolley (talk) 12:25, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Can someone remove this personal attack? Kauffner (talk) 12:58, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Kauffner, your remark about "coatrack" is whining at best: the issue is properly sourced in the article and you're simply ignoring modern scholarship on the subject. As for the DM, it's the last source anyone should use to evaluate a scientific paper. Both it and you get it wrong. . dave souza, talk 13:12, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If it wasn't filled with ill-mannered and ill-informed remarks, perhaps we could use the talk page to discuss the article. Kauffner (talk) 01:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Relevant studies
I've added formatted references (suitable for harvard referencing) to relevant studies, basically reconstructions covering the period. Ljungqvist Compared to other Reconstructions at SkepSci makes the comparison with Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) showing a divergence of findings about the period, partly due to the different areas covered: the warming may have been mostly extratropical. AR4 is also included, the preceding section indicates that warming was earlier and regional, with nothing special known in the Roman era. . dave souza, talk 07:44, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Mishmash historical citations
The historical references in this article are like gonzo journalism, and often entirely à propos of nothing. For example, the leading statement about Greece, which I've now read several times in an effort to understand how it relates to the topic, implies that the Roman Warm Period never happened. (I.e., that the climate in Greece during this period was the same as it is now.) Is it possible that someone stripped out a few necessary lines there?

The scientific data offered under Proxies (a term I don't understand in this context) is useful and on-point, but the rest of the article reads like a stack of shuffled index cards. Could someone familiar with this thesis impose a parseable narrative on it? Laodah 01:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah, someone who cares should try to do better. I suspect this is part of the Great Climate Wars in which the *cough* "skeptics" try to show that it was warm in the past; that will account for the mish-mash of stuff, and the Greece section is those who know better pointing out that it wasn't William M. Connolley (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The entire article reads like someone with schizophrenia wrote it. I came here to learn what the „roman warm period“ is. I am not the wiser after reading it, it seems like most of the text seems to passive aggressively imply that there is no such thing as the title implies. Please can someone at least summarize what the hypothesis implied here is, how it came to be and what the criticism of it might be? 217.95.154.203 (talk) 21:08, 3 January 2023 (UTC)