Posted on 07/19/2006 11:13:06 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 30 years -- more than double the global average, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. By the end of the century, the institute projects, temperatures could rise another 14 degrees.
The milder weather is promoting new life on the fringes of this barren, arctic land. Swans have been spotted recently for the first time, ducks aren't flying south for the winter anymore and poplar trees have suddenly begun flowering.
Greenland represents one of the largely unrecognized paradoxes of global warming. In former Vice President Al Gore's recent film "An Inconvenient Truth," the melting of Greenland's ice cap, along with a similar cap in the Antarctic, is portrayed as one of the greatest threats of global warming. If the layers of ice and snow holding billions of tons of water were to melt, scientists warn that global sea levels would rise by 40 feet, submerging lower Manhattan, the Netherlands and much of California.
But to many of the people who live here in Greenland, the warming trend is a boon, not a threat.
It is no small feat to get things living and growing in Greenland, an arctic and sub-arctic country at the northern tip of North America whose frigid landscape is often confused with Iceland, a smaller, greener European island nation to the southeast.
More than 80% of Greenland is covered in ice. Temperatures in the south regularly drop to 22 degrees below zero during the long, dark winters when the sun shines for as little as five hours a day. Intermittent frosts during the four-month growing season make it difficult for anything to thrive.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
They call it Greenland for a reason, when the first Norsemen explored that far west, sometime around 1000 AD, the land they came upon was green, or reasonably so ... thus Greenland, or their equivalent of Greenland. The Norsemen actually inhabited southern Greenland in fairly large settlements for a couple of centuries, using it as a jumping off point to explore further west to what is now Labrador and Newfoundland. There's evidence they may have traveled to Nova Scotia and parts of New England as well.
No, it won't. Floating ice displaces an amount of water equal to it's own mass, so if all sea ice melted the water level would stay the same, not decrease.
Actually, it may be a bit more complicated than that, since ice would melt into fresh water which is a bit less dense than the sea water the ice is displacing. So, melting sea ice would slightly reduce the density (and salinity) of the ocean and perhaps actually raise sea level a little bit. Changes in the overall ocean temperature would also affect sea level, as water density changes with temperature. Regardless, melting sea ice would not really cause sea levels to drop in any significant way.
As a possession of tiny (and lowlying) Denmark, here is a place for coastal folks to go.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gl.html
Greenland was warmer in the past, with trees. Lief Ericson and other Vikings were there for awhile. They went west to explore coastal Canada.
Wow. There are lots of goodies in that, especially their citations. I'd like a little more precise grammar in a couple of places (it's correct, just not difinitive), but the paper is quite interesting.
When I read a new article making a grand suggestion about global warming I readily assume it is responding silently to real science debunking it published earlier.
Not to argue, but that is not the way I understand it to be. I vaguly remember this from a science class so the details are sketchy, but this is realted to denisty and volume not just mass. Density is mass per unit volume...ice has a lower density which is why it floats...when it returns to water, the mass is the same and the density goes up which means the volume goes down. Volume is doing the displacement, so water level goes down, yes?
Yes, except that remember part of the volume of the ice is floating above the water surface. So, an ice sheet (with a density less than liquid water) floats, with part of it's body above water, and it displaces a volume of water that has a mass equal to the mass of the ice. When the ice melts into water its volume decreases (and density increases) - you now have a volume of water that is the same mass as the ice was. Since the ice berg was displacing this exact mass of water, the water level doesn't change.
You can demonstrate this on a small scale by floating an ice cube in a glass of water. Note that initially part of the ice cube is above the surface, but as the ice melts the water line in the glass stays the same...
Alas, then there later was global cooling, and the ocean levels dropped and there was a water shortage, but the only difference was that then, no liberal socialists existed to scream about it.
The natives wet to eating fish and seals while scarfing the odd polar bear, and then starved.
History puts modern environmentalist liberal socialist screaming meemies into the chicken little category.
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http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/end_of_vikings_greenland.html
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By the year 1300 more than 3,000 colonists lived on 300 farms scattered along the west coast of Greenland (Schaefer, 1997.) However, even as early as 1197, the climate had turned much less favorable and drift ice was beginning to appear along the vital trade routes (Lamb, 1995.) Cool weather caused poor harvests in an already fragile climate. Because of the poor harvests there was less food for the livestock which resulted in a decreased meat supply. These conditions made it even more vital that trade continued with Iceland and the rest of Europe.
Due to an increase in drift ice along Greenland's east coast, the sailing route had to be changed. Ships had to head farther south and then turn back to reach the settlements along the southwest coast. The longer distance and increased threat of ice caused fewer ships to visit Greenland (Bryson, 1977.) Ivar Bardsson, a Norwegian priest who lived in Greenland from 1341 to 1364, wrote: "From Snefelsness in Iceland, to Greenland, the shortest way: two days and three nights. Sailing due west. In…the sea there are reefs called Gunbiernershier. That was the old route, but now the ice is come from the north, so close to the reefs that none can sail by the old route without risking his life." (Ladurie, 1971.) In 1492, the Pope complained that no bishop had been able to visit Greenland for 80 years on account of the ice (Calder, 1974.) It is most likely that his Greenland congregation was already dead or had moved on by that time. Hermann (1954) notes that during the mid-1300's many Greenlanders had moved on to Markland (presently Newfoundland) in search of a more suitable environment, mainly due to a cooler climate and over-use of their natural resources.
The graves and ruins in Greenland show that the people did make an attempt at civilized living until the end but the cold and lack of proper nourishment took a heavy toll (Bryson, 1977.) The early Greenland Vikings stood 5'7" or taller but by about 1400, Lamb (1966) states that the average Greenlander was probably less than five feet tall. After World War I, Denmark sent a commission to Greenland which found the remains of the early settlements. In their last years, the Greenland Vikings were severely crippled, dwarflike, twisted, and diseased (Hermann, 1954.)
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"The milder weather is promoting new life on the fringes of this barren, arctic land. Swans have been spotted recently for the first time, ducks aren't flying south for the winter anymore and poplar trees have suddenly begun flowering. "
This means that the ducks are staying home which means lots of duck crap. That will pollute the water ways. It is said by some wise sage in greenpeace that minorities and children will be the hardest hit.
When will the Vikings return?
Actully, it was global COOLING from the little ice age that led to the Viking retreat from Vinland (modern day Newfoundland and Canada), and Greenland.
The ice clogging the fjords that the Vikings used to communicate with their brethren in Scandinavia was the last straw, leading to the abandonement of Greenland.
Ironically, the Inuit found the Little Ice Age to be quite enjoyable to their way of life, which is why they moved in as the Vikings moved out. Global warming doesn't kill the planet, just those who can't adapt. And for those who can, there is continued existence.
Care to explain? Read my tagline if you need to know why I am asking.
SZ
You're right - the 90% under/10% above proportion is true. However, the density of ice is lower than the density of water, so the same mass of H2O will take up a larger volume as ice than as liquid. Basically, any object that has a lower density than water will float in water, and that object, as it floats, will displace a a volume of water that has a mass equal to the mass of the object (Archimedes Principle, IIRC). So, a ship is displacing a chunk of water that has the same mass as the ship - because the ship is less dense than this chunk of water (much of the ship is hollow, after all), it floats partly above the sea surface.
Here's an example with the ice: Assume you have a large pool of water that is all liquid. You mark the water level on the side. Now, take one pound of that water and freeze it into ice - you get a pound of ice that has a lower density and a larger volume than when it was liquid. (In fact, this pound of ice is about 10% larger than the equivalent pound of water.) Put the ice back in the pool, and it floats, displacing a volume of water equivalent to one pound. The water level doesn't change at all - you took out a pound, then put back in an ice berg that displaces one pound's worth of water - but part of the ice floats above the surface because its density is lower.
What happens when the ice melts? As the ice turns into liquid its density decreases, but you still end up with one pound of water, which is the exact amount of water that the ice was displacing. Again, the water line remains the same.
On the global scale, imagine a million ton ice sheet - it's floating on the surface displacing a million tons worth of water. When this ice sheet melts, it adds a million tons of liquid water into the ocean, and sea level remains constant....
From my vantage point, here in California, I just gotta ask; What do you have against the Netherlands?
But, in about the year 900AD Europeans thrived by growing grain and vegetables on Greenland's southern shore. They disappeared when the climate got colder.
Not only that, but if Greenland was as warm as they say it was, then why is there no record of a subsequent rise of seawater which would have submerged nearby European coastal villages?
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