Ayacucho, had fallen by 1100, in part due to a severe drought that afflicted the Andes for a century or more. In the ensuing turmoil, local chiefs across the Peruvian highlands battled over scarce water and led raiders into neighboring villages in search of food. Hordes of refugees fled to frigid, windswept hideouts above 13,000 feet.
But in the fertile, well-watered valley around Cusco, Inca farmers stood their ground. Instead of splintering apart and warring among themselves, Inca villages united into a small state capable of mounting an organized defense. And between 1150 and 1300, the Inca around Cusco began to capitalize on a major warming trend in the Andes.
As temperatures climbed, Inca farmers moved up the slopes by 800 to 1,000 feet, building tiers of agricultural terraces, irrigating their fields, and reaping record corn harvests. “These surpluses,” says Alex Chepstow-Lusty, a paleoecologist at the French Institute for Andean Studies in Lima who has been studying the region’s ancient climate, allowed the Inca to “free up many people for other roles, whether building roads or maintaining a large army.” In time Inca rulers could call up more conscripts and supply a larger army than any neighboring chief.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/inca-empire/pringle-text
h/t to reader Ivan
Wow. Amazed that National Geographic would dare publish something like that!
Looks like Ol’ Doc Mann is trying to hide the increase by mushing it down by proxy.
If you look at the cover photo for this story, in the caption the Nat Geo editors are determined to spread disinformation even on this.
It’s subtle.
A picture of Machu Picchu in all it’s pre-abandonment glory, is captioned “…circa A.D. 1500” even though the text clearly says “Dates are based on Inca oral history, Spanish chronicles, and conjecture.”
They’re trying to decouple the rise and fall of the Inca from the MWP by playing fast and loose with dates. Dates they themselves have conjured, based on conjecture.
Ergo, South America is in Europe.
I thought everyone knew the story behind Machu Picchu already…
Of course the MWP was gobal, there’s no other reason from Machu Picchu if it wasn’t.
It’s amazing how much common knowledge has been lost due to the misinformation campaign of the alarmists.
Not only did warming arrive around 1100 but it only lasted 400 yrs.
“But new evidence from a soil sample taken at a dry lake bed in Marcacocha, high in Peru’s Andes, indicates that a 400-year period of natural warming that started in 1100 AD also may have played a crucial role in the growth of the Inca.”
Not only a MWP but a LIA as well.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=19862091
“However, a second major glacial advance at the beginning of the 17th century overlapped the earlier stage for most glaciers. Hence, this second glacial stage, dated from AD 1630±27, is considered as the LIA maximum glacial advance in the Cordillera Blanca. During the 17th-18th centuries, at least three glacial advances were recorded synchronously for the different glaciers (AD 1670±24, 1730±21, and 1760±19). “
And surprise, surprise we see that since then the glaciers have retreated at the same rate as the 20thC.
“From the LIA maximum extent to the beginning of the 20th century, the 24 glaciers have retreated a distance of about 1000 m, corresponding to a reduction of 30% in their length. This rate is comparable to that observed during the 20th century. “
More evidence here of the LIA in Ecuador, Venezuela and Columbia as well as Peru.
http://www-lgge.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr/personnels/rabatel_antoine/Publi/Jomelli2009Palaeo3.pdf
“Palaeoclimatic hypotheses, based on glaciological
models run in different countries, suggest a cool and humid period in the 16–18th centuries followed by a
colder and drier period in the 19th century. The reduction of glaciers observed from the middle of the 19th
century is due to increasingly warmer conditions than before.”
Evidence suggests that temps were between 1C and 3C cooler in the 17thC.
In Venezuela, results indicate for the period 1250–1820 that mean air
temperatures were 3.2±1.4 °C cooler and precipitation was about 22% higher than at present. In Ecuador,temperatures of between 0.8° and 1.1 °C lower than today, and between 25% and 35% higher accumulationthan today, appear to have occurred in the 18th century, followed by a short drier but colder period at the
beginning of the 19th century. In Bolivia, the MGE could be a consequence of a decrease in temperature of 1.1to 1.2 °C, and a 20 to 30% increase in accumulation or an increase in cloudiness of about 1–2/10.
The photo of the retreating glacier on page 270 (figure 1) is very informative showing most of the retreat took place in the 19thC.
Not just South America but around the world.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g15qv13t1v12np00/
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/291/5508/1497
How did this get past their censors???
Now read the article on Pg. 100 about the “Acid Sea,” and how the CO2 is going to make the ocean deader than the Dead Sea!
The Acid Sea fixates on undersea volcanoes burbling co2. They find it shocking news that fish can’t live there, while at the same time fail to mention there are land based volcanic mounds that are apoxic due to co2 burbling out, which animals avoid – nothing to do with ph numbers.
The one instance of a so called harm caused by “ocean acidification” is presented as an aside in a caption for the title picture.
“A Pacific oyster releases its cloudy sperm at Oregon’s Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery. In some coastal waters acidification is already severe; here it has cut production in half by stunting oyster larvae.” – caption .
Sounds bad, but here is the key. A Pacific oyster is a specific breed of oyster. It’s not even native to the Oregon area, but rather is imported from Japan.
The native oyster, the Olympic oyster, and indeed all the native fauna are unaffected by these supposedly severely acidic coastal waters. A fact found via The Olympian , a local paper.
The title is: The Acid Sea
The subtitle is:
The carbon dioxide we pump into the air is seeping into the oceans and slowly acidifying them. One hundred years from now, will oysters, mussels, and coral reefs survive?
After reading the title/subtitle and then the article, the average Junior-high school/High-school student is going to take away “We are killing our Ocean.”
Only a skeptic will take your viewpoint.