UKC

Reading this morning about the Greenland ice cap breaking up faster than predicted causing sea levels to rise by 21ft over the next few decades because of global warming....

What I don't understand is this. When the Vikings discovered Greenland it was apparently just that. A 'green land' without the ice cap. I'm not aware that the coastline of this country greatly different than it is today.
For example, places like Formby and Whitby were Viking settlements and they lie at just above sea level.

I could be wrong about this but I'm suspicious of all these doomsday scenarios which papers like the Independent trot out nearly every day.

In reply to Jonno:

the Greenland name was given to try and lure people up there. It is quite green and nice on the southern coast line.
Iceland on the other hand, thats a mean cold place, you dont want to go there, you want to go to Greenland much nicer

In reply to mik:

Didn't the vikings abandon their settlements there? Has there been constant European inhabitation since the vikings? I didn't think so.

But my understanding is exactly the same on the name - it was purely dishonest advertising. So Jonno, either start worrying or go to the CATO institute website to find out why its all a big lie put about by socialists and commies trying to deny that the market is the answer to everything.

In reply to TobyA:

The vikings settled Greenland during the Early Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1200AD) when temperatures were a degree or two warmer than they are at present (even with global warming). They abandoned their settlements when the Little Ice Age began (started with a marked climatic deteriation in 1315 and reached its maximum about 1740).

In reply to Matt R Horn: Thanks Matt. That was what I was half remembering. Are you a viking expert or was that a swift google?

In reply to TobyA:

Rather a lot of them died without abandoning Greenland, actually, not least because of an antipathy to, and inability to learn from, the local Inuit/Netslik (sp?) tribes, who they regarded as heathens. Studies have revealed that the 'meat-flies' that normally inhabited the cold-stores became common in the living areas towards the end of Viking habitation, indicating a fairly rapid drop in temperature and the probable demise of realistic agriculture. The bones of many of their hunting dogs from this period show signs of butchery. Most of the dead were found in their beds.

In reply to TobyA: but even when the Vikings were there the 'green' (non iced) part of the country was pretty small - the icecap has been there since the last Ice Age (and obviously formed part of a larger ice mass during the Ice Age)

In reply to TobyA:

Im an archaeologist, so a bit of an expert on all past periods. Ive also just read Brian Fagin's book 'The Little Ice Age' - it discusses the collapse of the viking settlements in Greenland in some detail

In reply to Jonno:

Well, it's a fact that the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed in 2002 (think it was), allowing the inland glaciers to accelerate their flow. It had been stable for between 30 and 50 thousand years. The Western Ice Shelf also looks as though it may be collapsing. The WIS is seriously BIG, and would raise sea levels by something like 50 metres over the next century or 2.

In reply to Steve Parker:
something like 50 metres over the next century or 2.


DOH and im moving down from the hill next months, and i sold the kayak aswell. i better learn how to swim.

In reply to Steve Parker:
It is the EAST Antarctic Ice Sheet that's seriously big and could raise sea levels by 50m. http://www.environmenttimes.net/article.cfm?pageID=4
However, this ice sheet is currently stable and many global warming models suggest that it will get colder as a local effect of global warming (even if the other ice sheets like the WIS were to melt).