qThe Little Ice age cooling was simply the culmination of a slow orbital-scale cooling.
q If this is true, the
medieval optimum warm
interval may have been just an insignificant
blip during an ongoing cooling
trend.
qThe Little Ice Age was the most recent in a series of distinct millennial oscillations.
q If this is true, the
medieval optimum and
preceding centuries may represent
the warm extreme of a millennial
oscillation, with a shift toward the
cool extreme during the Little Ice
Age.
q