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To: Publius6961
wiki:

The name "Greenland" comes from Scandinavian settlers. In the Icelandic sagas, it is said that Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland for murder. He, along with his extended family and thralls, set out in ships to find the land that was rumoured to be to the northwest. After settling there, he named the land Grænland ("Greenland"), possibly in order to attract more people to settle there.[1] Greenland was also called Gruntland ("Ground-land") and Engronelant (or Engroneland) on early maps. Whether "Green" is an erroneous transcription of Grunt ("Ground"), which refers to shallow bays, or vice versa, is not known. It should also be noted, however, that the southern portion of Greenland (not covered by glacier) is indeed very green in the summer, and was likely even greener in Erik's time because of the Medieval Warm Period.
17 posted on 07/05/2007 5:48:09 PM PDT by BJClinton (Thompson/DeLay 2008)
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To: BJClinton
It should also be noted, however, that the southern portion of Greenland (not covered by glacier) is indeed very green in the summer, and was likely even greener in Erik's time because of the Medieval Warm Period.

Lots of sites give some Greenland history. One site is the American Heritage dictionary:

"WORD HISTORY How did a glacier-covered island get the name Greenland? In Norse legends written in the 12th century and later, it is told that Eric the Red explored the southeast and southwest coasts of Greenland in A.D. 983-986 and gave the country its name because people would be more likely to go there if it had an attractive name. Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than it is now. There were many islands teeming with birds off its western coast; the sea was excellent for fishing; and the coast of Greenland itself had many fjords where anchorage was good. At the head of the fjords there were enormous meadows full of grass, willows, junipers, birch, and wild berries. Thus Greenland actually deserved its name. Another attraction of Greenland was that Iceland and northwestern Europe, including England, had a grievous year of famine in 976, and people were hungry for food as well as land."

Another site covers the fact that Greenland settlements of Europeans were abandoned about 1400, during the Little Ice Age. It is still colder in Greenland now than when Eric the Red was there.

From the Smithsonian Institute,

http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/environment.html

"Studies of environmental conditions, climate, and their interactions have produced important new information relevant to Norse extinction in Greenland. Most revealing is the detailed evidence of climatic changes that occurred in the northwestern Atlantic beginning in the early 1300s. Changes in atmospheric temperature are recorded in such diverse materials as glacier ice derived from snow falling on the Greenland Ice Cap, fossil vegetation and pollen deposited annually in lake sediments, chemical signatures in isotopic composition of sea sediments, animal and human bones, and even the species of insect pests that accompanied Vikings and their animals as they settled new lands. These indicators clearly suggest that the climate was cooling in the 14th century, and that the Greenlandic environment had been depleted of its "natural capital"--its previously untapped grasslands and animal resources-over 500 years of farming practices in this delicate arctic climate."

Other references discuss written directions for how to reach Greenland. Around 1200 the directions started to mention avoiding the icebergs, a caution that was missing from earlier instructions. The record, both written and from core samples, shows that Greenland has been warmer in the last 1000 years than it is now. The alarms about global warming aren't supported by Greenland's history.

"Global warming" is a study in political opinion manipulation, not science.

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19 posted on 07/05/2007 6:07:38 PM PDT by Cracker Jack (If it weren't for the democrats, republicans would be the worst thing in Washington.)
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