For some in Greenland these days, the grass is looking greener.
Article in National Geographic:
Global Warming Good for Greenland?
Rapid thawing brought on by global warming on the world’s largest island has opened up new opportunities for agriculture, commercial fishing, mining, and oil exploration. The island’s native people, though, may not be on the “winning” side of warming.
Meanwhile, Worlclimatereport.com draws on peer reviewed science to write an article entitled:
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This is going to be a fun thread to keep watch on because Greenland still has not reached its climate state from the Norse days.
And for that matter the English are also not able to grow wines in places where the could during the MWP and during Roman times.
Strange, isn’t it, just imagine a fellow who fell into an icy lake, developed hypothermia, (a human equivalent of an ice age), and then warmed up back to his previous, pre-ice state.
Apparently this warming, which is really no different to the earth warming from the last ice age.
This is bad?
Cold is bad.
Is Warm. Is Good!
Louis, do you ever get that drowning sensation?
It would take several thousand years to melt Greenland’s ice. The current warm period won’t last that long, and still hasn’t reached the ‘Viking Maximum.’
Global warming will be bad for Greenland.
Sure, it will bring back the good old days of the Medieval Optimum, or better–but will crush the “AGW Tourism Industry.”
If you live in Greenland, you put the smart money on pushing AGW. You get millionaire tourists to look at your glaciers, but the benefits of a nicer climate!
Greenlanders win both ways. They ain’t no dummies!
Louis – “This is going to be a fun thread to keep watch on because Greenland still has not reached its climate state from the Norse days.”
How do you know this – there were no thermometers then? You would not be relying on proxy measurements would you?
“Cold is bad.
Is Warm. Is Good!”
So we will put you in 50° heat in the middle of the Gibson Desert and see how good warm is.
Paul – “It would take several thousand years to melt Greenland’s ice. The current warm period won’t last that long, and still hasn’t reached the ‘Viking Maximum.”
If it would take several thousand years for the ice to melt how was Greenland a tropical paradise when the Norse were there as some people seem to think. I have debated with people that think Greenland was ice free in the MWP but here you are saying that the ice will take thousands of years to melt.
BTW how do you know the ice will take thousands of years to melt – what happens if it slides off into the sea?
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/greenland_slide.html
If you actually look at all the proxy studies then recent warming is in excess of any historical maximums.
Which proxy studies would those be then?
The legend of the Northwest passage originates from the MWP, and it’s not open enough yet:
Ships to shun Northwest Passage
OTTAWA (Reuters) – While there has been much talk that Arctic trade routes will open up as northern ice melts, shipping companies and experts say using the fabled Northwest Passage through Canada’s Arctic archipelago would be too difficult, too dangerous and totally impractical
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071003/lf_nm/arctic_passage_dc
Here you are Ender – I know how you like models:
Elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a High CO2 Climate
J. K. RIDLEY et al
ABSTRACT
Projections of future global sea level depend on reliable estimates of changes in the size of polar ice sheets. Calculating this directly from global general circulation models (GCMs) is unreliable because thecoarse resolution of 100 km or more is unable to capture narrow ablation zones, and ice dynamics is not usually taken into account in GCMs. To overcome these problems a high-resolution (20 km) dynamic ice sheet model has been coupled to the third Hadley Centre Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere GCM (HadCM3).
A novel feature is the use of two-way coupling, so that climate changes in the GCM drive ice mass changes in the ice sheet model that, in turn, can alter the future climate through changes in orography, surface albedo, and freshwater input to the model ocean. At the start of the main experiment the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was increased to 4 times the preindustrial level and held constant for 3000 yr.
By the end of this period the Greenland ice sheet is almost completely ablated and has made a direct
contribution of approximately 7 m to global average sea level, causing a peak rate of sea level rise of 5 mm yr1 early in the simulation. The effect of ice sheet depletion on global and regional climate has been examined and it was found that apart from the sea level rise, the long-term effect on global climate is small.
However, there are some significant regional climate changes that appear to have reduced the rate at which the ice sheet ablates.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE 1 SEPTEMBER 2005
I forget which Paul it was – bit confusing, but weren’t you saying models are no good and the bigger picture more complex stuff? If you believe what you say (and it was you that said it – apologies if not) there is no point bringing it into the equation. You just come across as incoherent.
Model posted for the delectation of true believers in modelled climate catastrophe.
Models can be useful diagnostic tools, but can’t be relied on for prediction of the future.