Sunday, December 01, 2013

No, Greenland Wasn't Green

Reconstructed surface temperature anomalies for the Medieval Warm Period (950-1250) compared to a 1961-1990 reference period. (Credit: Mann et al., 2009) Click to enlarge.
This is an update to the basic rebuttal to the myth Greenland was green.

Greenland is a large area situated east of Canada, between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.  About 80% of the island is covered by the Greenland ice sheet.  During the 980s, Scandinavian and Icelandic exporers established two or three settlements on the south-west coast of Greenland.  So what were the conditions in Greeland like 1,000 years ago?:

  1. The Greenland ice sheet already covered large sections of Greenland when Europeans established communities there 1,000 years ago.
  2. Warming was not global during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly; average global temperatures were lower than today.
  3. Natural factors behind regional warming in medieval Greenland are probably not responsible for today's global warming.
No, Greenland Wasn't Green

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