Epic 11-foot-tall sea level rise drove Vikings out of Greenland

The Vikings are remembered as fierce fighters, however even these mighty warriors had been no match for local weather change. Scientists lately discovered that ice sheet development and sea stage rise led to huge coastal flooding that inundated Norse farms and in the end drove the Vikings out of Greenland within the fifteenth century.

The Vikings first established a foothold in southern Greenland round A.D. 985 with the arrival of Erik Thorvaldsson, also called “Erik the Purple,” a Norwegian-born explorer who sailed to Greenland after being exiled from Iceland. Different Viking settlers quickly adopted, forming communities in Eystribyggð (Japanese Settlement) and Vestribyggð (Western Settlement) that thrived for hundreds of years. (On the time of the Vikings’ arrival, Greenland was already inhabited by folks of the Dorset Tradition, an Indigenous group that preceded the arrival of the Inuit folks within the Arctic, in line with the College of California Riverside (opens in new tab)).