Green Myth-Busting: Greenland was Once Green
Greenland MYTH: When Eric the Red and his Viking buddies settled Greenland, it was a lush pastoral paradise fit for farming and raising animals.
Facts: As climate change skepticism has developed into a full-blown industry, a number of myths have filtered out about historical patterns of warming and cooling: just mention the “Little Ice Age” or the “Medieval Warm Period” to your favorite skeptic, and let ‘em go…
As a history buff, I always found today’s myth fascinating. As Coby Beck at Grist notes, Viking leader Eric the Red gave Greenland its name not because it was lush and green, but because he wanted folks back home to think it was:
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.)
The issue here, of course, really isn’t Greenland’s name; it’s the idea of a Medieval Warm Period that skeptics claim was comparable to the present day in terms of the average temperature (or even warmer!). By extension, ice melts on Greenland aren’t that big a deal: it’s happened before.
Coby has thoughts on the Medieval Warm Period, and points to information from NOAA. RealClimate, the blog for anyone interested in hardcore climate science, also presents a number of reasons why the perception skeptics have about the Medieval Warm Period are likely incorrect.
Greenland wasn’t green in the tenth century… and we don’t want it to become green this century…
September 21st, 2007 at 1:29 pm
‘motie,
I’ve just spotted your Sep 18 @3:43 am.
Uh?
Pliss speaka da Inglish!
Does it have any relevance to my Aug 23, immediately above?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Hi Themotie,
You wrote:
“I was actually aware of the climate problem before it became a mainstream issue, and certainly way, way before AR4 (of 2007). Just like the climate science pioneers were. What do you think drove THEM, Max? Way back when no politician with any wish to be elected to anything would even touch the issue? Why did these scientists say what they did?”
Do not know what motivated specific climate scientists to say what they did back when the AGW theory was still in its infancy and had not yet become the political/media circus it is today with billions of dollars at stake.
I suppose it was a combination of factors: some were genuinely concerned there could be a problem, some were wanting more funding for research work and some had ulterior motives or hidden agendas (i.e. “save the world by going back to a simpler life”, redistribution of wealth, etc.).
One of the pioneers at the time (Reid Bryson) does not believe AGW is a major threat. Another (James Hansen) does. The “90% consensus of scientists” often cited by the media (and by those scientists who are in consensus) is questionable and even if it were correct, it is meaningless.
The problem I see today is that the IPCC, which is a political body posing as the elitist climate “expert” of the world, makes claims of scientific objectivity while its SPM report, which is labeled “ The Physical Science Basis” is anything but objective. Claims are made based on erroneous or “cherry-picked” data, while ignoring available data that do not support the claims. All errors go in the same direction (=potential disaster). Predictions are made that are grossly exaggerated, based on model scenarios and story lines that are skewed to give alarming projections.
From these alarming projections come even more exaggerated disaster scenarios, fueled by an alarmist media that see this as an opportunity for more profits and politicians who see this as an opportunity for more power. Even James Hansen is becoming more shrill and now talking of a tipping point when runaway global warming will destroy our planet.
So I come to your statement: “I would argue that it’s rational to be fearful of something that is threatening the very fabric of society.”
You apparently believe in this threat and are therefore fearful (an emotion that makes it hard for you to think rationally about it). As a rational skeptic, I do not believe in it, because I can see many of the holes and exaggerations in the IPCC report upon which it is based.
I have also been around long enough to remember past anthropogenic “doomsday” predictions, which all evaporated into thin air, as I am convinced this one will as well.
And fortunately, I am not the only one out there that can remain rationally objective and non-fearful, despite the daily deluge of disaster stories being spread by the alarmists.
Regards,
Max
September 24th, 2007 at 9:57 am
‘motie, reur Sep 20 @7:36am
1) YOU QUOTED me “you either misunderstood what Andrew Lacis said, or, are attempting yet another diversion. He refers to temperature DIFFERENCE because the greater it is, the greater is the heat transfer.” AND THEN YOU SAID He does, does he? When all the rest of the sentence talk about radiation and absorption? And temperature _difference_ have no effect on _radiative_ heat transfer, apart from what I stated. UNQUOTE
I repeat: FACT, repeat, FACT, in case you have not got it yet:- FACT: Heat transfer rate via the three direct processes of conduction, convection, AND radiation, which in the Earth’s atmosphere all act mutually in consort, (not individually), each of them increase in heat transfer RATE with increasing T difference between the source and the sink. The sink is by definition at a lower potential. (= a lower T, and can be compared with the potential differences, or PD’s in other forms of energy, such as for example hydraulic energy height difference etc.) I’m very puzzled why YOU, claiming to have a degree in physics will not accept the second law of thermodynamics and its equivalents in energy. So, I might try your rather frequent and rather unnecessary habit of making analogies. (SORRY) OK, if you go camping and try to keep some cans of beer cold in an insulating container, in which you may place some ice, do you agree that the hotter it is outside, the more rapidly does the ice melt etc? Are you claiming that “thermal radiation” (EMR) has nothing to do with this effect? Your denial of these well known and easily demonstrated physical laws is somewhat head-shaking! (founding of your unshakeable dogma?)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2) YOU QUOTED me: “Wrong again; some sources are even still publishing it today”
Well that statement in isolation does not mean much on its own, and here is the context to which that abbreviated quote probably applies:
“His [Andrew Lacis, a colleague of the infamous alarmist James Hansen], comments cut across the long-standing mainstream climatologist’s hypothesis that the greenhouse effect is caused by EMR back-radiation, or that cold air and clouds heat the warmer ground below.”
YOU RESPONDED: No-one has ever claimed this. Go back and actually read the aug 27 link. UNQUOTE.
I RESPONDED: Wrong again; some sources are even still publishing it today and (rather depressingly) it is still on-going in “education” in some universities! [e.g. at Leeds] You said elsewhere that you have great faith in Wikipedia….OK, go look at the entry titled Earth’s Energy Balance, and look at the funny circulating arrows in the diagram. It is also duplicated in different style in the latest IPCC report. (fig 1.1 ? WG1, I think from memory).
Some years ago, in the McGraw-Hill scientific and Britannica encyclopedias, and variously elsewhere, it was popular in energy balance diagrams to use angry jagged red arrows from the cold air above viciously zapping the surface with naughty EMR. (which is not HEAT). Also, a famous learned professor said something like in one of those encyclopedias: when cirrus (ice) clouds appear, it takes only a few minutes for them to heat the surface.
It is such “experts”, whom IMPRINT the gullible with their message of AGW doom!
To the upper three lines/paragraphs YOU RESPONDED:
Okay. I should have been clearer. No scientist in a scientific context claim this. It does not surprise me that it is claimed in popular scientific texts. But you can’t really hold popular scientific generalizations against front-line AGW theory, can you?
Putting aside the rest of your twaddle, (capisce?…waffle, ramble, crap, obfuscation, whatever casual lexeme you choose), did you not comprehend that it has been Wikipedia, McGraw-Hill and Britannica that have ALL TOTALLY contradicted your obfuscation above?
That is to say that they have all presented diagrams of EMR zapping the Earth’s surface from the colder air above…..just plain silly!
That will do for now…….BobFJ
September 24th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Hi Max,reur Sep 23.
Nicely put!
You might be interested in a parallel thread I have with Themotie @
http://reasic.com/2007/03/15/800-year-co2-lag-explained/
Regards BobFJ
September 26th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Bob,
“They may have black skins you selfish bigot …”
People losing an argument tend to become agitated, but really, Bob, try to get a hold of yourself. I have a whole branch of my family that have spent their entire lives in Africa helping people, so I think I have a clue. I might also point out that I spend money on a school for destitute children in Colombia, I’m a member of Amnesty, I buy fair trade goods whenever I can to support farmers in the third world, and I don’t try to bargain my way to rock bottom prices when I’m abroad, but try to spend what I can to support the local community. What do you do? I might also counter with asking why you could not find it in yourself to do two good deeds at the same time? I have no trouble contemplating both helping suffering people in Africa and otherwhere (in the US for example …) AND fighting global warming. Why can’t you?
“when the total effects of water in its 3 different phases are properly understood and considered …”
So I take it you have understanding and made considerations that are beyond the ken of science?
I’ll get back to your conspiracy theories and the arm-waving argument you use to support them with when you have actually gotten around to answering my questions. I have a feeling this will never happen, though.
September 26th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Bob,
“are you aware that the many thousand followers of the IPCC and its dogma, are employed by virtue of huge funding for so-called “AGW research”?”
Can you at least admit that you theory regarding this has all the trappings of a classic conspiracy theory?
September 26th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Bob,
Based on what? If I in my drug haze may ask such a thing …
September 27th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Bob,
1) Just quoting the 2nd law does not make you right. The FACT is temperature difference does not have nearly the importance you make it out to have re radiative transfer in this context! You are simply demonstrating your ignorance yet again. Temperature have so little effect on radiative heat transfer in this context that it is negligible. It does, however, affect other types of heat transfer. But what you seem unable to grasp is that “the greenhouse effect” acts on only a tiny part of the Earths energy budget. But that is enough to wreak havoc.
2) “That is to say that they have all presented diagrams of EMR zapping the Earth’s surface from the colder air above…..just plain silly!”
I’m really beginning to think you’re thick … Yes, they have. Yes, it is silly. From a strictly scientific point of view. If you regard is as an accurate representation of front line science. As you apparently do. Don’t you read what I write? Or don’t you simply understand? But I will try to spell it out to you.
When science writers, scientists, what have you, want to explain complicated things to an unscientific audience (John & Jane, mom & pop, politicians etc), they use simplifications and generalizations. Okay? These simplifications and generalizations are more often than not not correct from a strictly scientific viewpoint. Okay? This “EMR zapping the Earth’s surface from the colder air above” is an example of this. Okay? The fact that you don’t seem to understand this is somewhat disturbing.
If you read the wikipedia, or popular science, or even science courses at universities, you will read that the Moon revolves around the Earth. Well it doesn’t. Both revolve around their common center of gravity.
If you don’t have enough of a science background, this simplification does not matter. If you have enough of a science background, you understand it is a simplification, and it is not problem. This does not mean that astronomers have an imperfect understanding re how the Earth and Moon move. Do you understand this? I really, really want you to answer this. Do you really understand this? This is why you have to have enough understanding of science, to know when you are reading a simplification or a generalization and not what scientists really think is true.
September 27th, 2007 at 12:20 am
I give up. You apparently don’t even understand what you yourself are writing. How can I then presume to make you understand anything?
September 27th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Max,
“The “90% consensus of scientists” … is meaningless.”
I’d very much like to see you elaborate on this.
“the IPCC, which is a political body”
Same here. What do you mean by a political body? I’d also like to see an example of a scientific body that isn’t “political” by this definition that I hope you are going to provide.
Are you aware that there is a considerable body of scientists that think the IPCC are too soft? That the IPCC scenarios are not “alarmist” enough?
“As a rational skeptic …”
This is the fun part, always. As with every other self appointed “skeptic” I’ve run across, your “skepticism” flies out the door when it comes to anti-IPCC arguments. Then anything goes. If you spent even a small amount of the time you spend on chasing IPCC will-o-the-wisps checking contrarian arguments this would be a non-issue. Honestly, how much time do you spend trying to falsify contrarian arguments?
And I’m sorry if fear makes you unable to reason rationally. This does not apply to everybody. If I see a car bearing down on me and I’m in the middle of the street, I’d jump. From what I gather you would assume fear would make that decision unrational, and you would … what? … stay put?