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There was no Iceless Greenland, Denialists!

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Master_Pedant
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30 Apr 2011, 2:43 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G80mIbF5yEg&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]

Coby Beck wrote:
First, Greenland is part of a single region. It can not be necessarily taken to represent a global climate shift. See the post on the Medieval Warm Period for a global perspective on this time period. Briefly, the available proxy evidence indicates that global warmth during this period was not particularly pronounced, though some regions may have experienced greater warming than others.

Second, a quick reality check shows that Greenland's ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old and covers over 80% of the island. The vast majority of land not under the ice sheet is rock and permafrost in the far north. How different could it have been just 1,000 years ago?

Below is a brief account of the Viking settlement, based on Jared Diamond's "Collapse".

Greenland was called Greenland by Erik the Red (was he red?), who was in exile and wanted to attract people to a new colony. He thought you should give a land a good name so people would want to go there! It likely was a bit warmer when he landed for the first time than it was when the last settlers starved due to a number of factors -- climate change, or at least some bad weather, a major one.

But it was never lush, and their existence was always harsh and meager, especially due to the Viking's disdain for other peoples and ways of living. They attempted to live a European lifestyle in an arctic climate, side by side with Inuit who easily outlasted them. They starved surrounded by oceans and yet never ate fish! (Note: this was not a typical European behavior, and is a bit of a mystery to this day.)


http://www.grist.org/article/greenland-used-to-be-green

Why are "sceptical" Climate Change Denialists so gullible when it comes to statements by de facto real estate promoters?


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Last edited by Master_Pedant on 30 Apr 2011, 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ruveyn
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30 Apr 2011, 2:47 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G80mIbF5yEg&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]

Coby Beck wrote:
First, Greenland is part of a single region. It can not be necessarily taken to represent a global climate shift. See the post on the Medieval Warm Period for a global perspective on this time period. Briefly, the available proxy evidence indicates that global warmth during this period was not particularly pronounced, though some regions may have experienced greater warming than others.

Second, a quick reality check shows that Greenland's ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old and covers over 80% of the island. The vast majority of land not under the ice sheet is rock and permafrost in the far north. How different could it have been just 1,000 years ago?

Below is a brief account of the Viking settlement, based on Jared Diamond's "Collapse".

Greenland was called Greenland by Erik the Red (was he red?), who was in exile and wanted to attract people to a new colony. He thought you should give a land a good name so people would want to go there! It likely was a bit warmer when he landed for the first time than it was when the last settlers starved due to a number of factors -- climate change, or at least some bad weather, a major one.

But it was never lush, and their existence was always harsh and meager, especially due to the Viking's disdain for other peoples and ways of living. They attempted to live a European lifestyle in an arctic climate, side by side with Inuit who easily outlasted them. They starved surrounded by oceans and yet never ate fish! (Note: this was not a typical European behavior, and is a bit of a mystery to this day.)


http://www.grist.org/article/greenland-used-to-be-green


When the Danes first settled Greenland the fringes of that continent were covered with forests and pastures indicating that around 1200 or so Greenland was much warmer than it is now. Eventually the climate got much colder and the settlers in Greenland perished. The Inuit that lived their, the so-called Skrealings adapted to the cold and they did not perish.

ruveyn



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30 Apr 2011, 3:45 pm

Denialists is a word now? Gack.

Well, speaking as a Dataist and Swinist [short for data centered and seeing Chomsky as a swine, both of which describe my political stances in Linguistics and science and academia generally, it is hard to believe that anybody with more than an Oprah watcher's level of critical and independent thought ever figured Greenland was icefree within human memory.

The last thing I saw / heard from a reasonably reputable source that was GW-Neutral [Bigdealist?] stressed both that settlement was possible and that warmer or nay living was not easy [my next number, Old Man River]/



Master_Pedant
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30 Apr 2011, 5:41 pm

ruveyn wrote:
When the Danes first settled Greenland the fringes of that continent were covered with forests and pastures indicating that around 1200 or so Greenland was much warmer than it is now. Eventually the climate got much colder and the settlers in Greenland perished. The Inuit that lived their, the so-called Skrealings adapted to the cold and they did not perish.

ruveyn


Uh, according to reputable sources (as opposed to colony propotionl literature) the last time forests covered Greenland was 400,000 years ago.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/n ... 7f&k=43139


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30 Apr 2011, 5:50 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
When the Danes first settled Greenland the fringes of that continent were covered with forests and pastures indicating that around 1200 or so Greenland was much warmer than it is now. Eventually the climate got much colder and the settlers in Greenland perished. The Inuit that lived their, the so-called Skrealings adapted to the cold and they did not perish.

ruveyn


Uh, according to reputable sources (as opposed to colony propotionl literature) the last time forests covered Greenland was 400,000 years ago.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/n ... 7f&k=43139


I have also heard this. Its been a while since I read into Greenland history but I also recall reading that the settlers there had to scavenge driftwood for their shelter as there was an obvious lack of trees


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30 Apr 2011, 5:55 pm

i lived there, never saw a single tree stump or natural piece of wood that wasnt washed ashore.
the southern part of greenland is actually very lush(relative to the mental image some may have) even today, lot of sheep farming going on.


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ruveyn
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30 Apr 2011, 7:20 pm

[quote="Vigilans"

I have also heard this. Its been a while since I read into Greenland history but I also recall reading that the settlers there had to scavenge driftwood for their shelter as there was an obvious lack of trees[/quote]

But grass grew on the fringes of the continent. The Danes settled, brought their cattle and they farmed there indicating it was much warmer than it is now.

ruveyn



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30 Apr 2011, 10:35 pm

ruveyn wrote:
But grass grew on the fringes of the continent. The Danes settled, brought their cattle and they farmed there indicating it was much warmer than it is now.

ruveyn


It was a brief, regionally limited, warming period where some marginal lands on the Coasts of Greenland was made farm worthy. There's farms in Southern Greenland right now, by the way.


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30 Apr 2011, 10:49 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncIO4SRBic[/youtube]


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ruveyn
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01 May 2011, 9:10 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
But grass grew on the fringes of the continent. The Danes settled, brought their cattle and they farmed there indicating it was much warmer than it is now.

ruveyn


It was a brief, regionally limited, warming period where some marginal lands on the Coasts of Greenland was made farm worthy. There's farms in Southern Greenland right now, by the way.


See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_W ... l_research

The climate is always changing.

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01 May 2011, 9:52 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G80mIbF5yEg&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]

Coby Beck wrote:
First, Greenland is part of a single region. It can not be necessarily taken to represent a global climate shift. See the post on the Medieval Warm Period for a global perspective on this time period. Briefly, the available proxy evidence indicates that global warmth during this period was not particularly pronounced, though some regions may have experienced greater warming than others.

Second, a quick reality check shows that Greenland's ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old and covers over 80% of the island. The vast majority of land not under the ice sheet is rock and permafrost in the far north. How different could it have been just 1,000 years ago?

Below is a brief account of the Viking settlement, based on Jared Diamond's "Collapse".

Greenland was called Greenland by Erik the Red (was he red?), who was in exile and wanted to attract people to a new colony. He thought you should give a land a good name so people would want to go there! It likely was a bit warmer when he landed for the first time than it was when the last settlers starved due to a number of factors -- climate change, or at least some bad weather, a major one.

But it was never lush, and their existence was always harsh and meager, especially due to the Viking's disdain for other peoples and ways of living. They attempted to live a European lifestyle in an arctic climate, side by side with Inuit who easily outlasted them. They starved surrounded by oceans and yet never ate fish! (Note: this was not a typical European behavior, and is a bit of a mystery to this day.)


http://www.grist.org/article/greenland-used-to-be-green

Why are "sceptical" Climate Change Denialists so gullible when it comes to statements by de facto real estate promoters?


Core Issues topic

Here is other evidence for climate change in greenland from the PBS site:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/ ... ss&emc=rssThe ice just might be (sadly) greener over there.


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01 May 2011, 9:53 am

Quote:
Denialists is a word now? Gack
.

It's fantastic, isn't it. The underlying connotations of Holocaust denial is particularly clever, it really loads the language in favour of the proponents of a theory.

If Darwinists never found the need to resort to such blatent insinuation, then the Greens certainly shouldn't resort to such base tactics.


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01 May 2011, 10:25 am

There are denialists. There are also skeptics, though they are few and far between.

Denialists are the creationists of the debate. They frequently lie and don't seem very concerned about getting caught.



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01 May 2011, 10:44 am

Extreme De-Icing topic

A PBS Nova.National Geographic video of deglacieration, as documented by James Balog:

Climate change and receding glaciers.<<<Link http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/extreme-ice.html


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01 May 2011, 11:06 am

ryan93 wrote:
Quote:
Denialists is a word now? Gack
.

It's fantastic, isn't it. The underlying connotations of Holocaust denial is particularly clever, it really loads the language in favour of the proponents of a theory.


It's more about bigotry and a pseudo-religious type belief than a proper scientific debate.



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01 May 2011, 11:10 am

Tequila wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
Quote:
Denialists is a word now? Gack
.

It's fantastic, isn't it. The underlying connotations of Holocaust denial is particularly clever, it really loads the language in favour of the proponents of a theory.


It's more about bigotry and a pseudo-religious type belief than a proper scientific debate.


The word "denial" implies they have some sort of transcendental proof. Was Einstein at any point a Newton Denier?

There is quite a bit of evidence for Global Warming, but I've yet to be convinced it is anthropogenic.


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