Posted on 07/17/2012 9:19:49 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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David Ross says:
An ice island twice the size of Manhattan has broken off from Greenlands Petermann Glacier At 46 square miles (120 square km), this latest ice island is about half the size of the mega-calving that occurred from the same glacier two years ago.
For perspective, the, later mentioned, ice island that broke free from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, in (pre-CAGW) 1962, was 230-square-miles, so equivalent to 10 Manhattans, which is still 4 Manhattans more than the 2010 and 2012 ice islands combined.
But if we took that ice and put it in a Lake Michigan amount of whiskey and vermouth and had a maraschino cherry the size of a small moon wed have a Manhattan to beat them all :)
With all that ice I wonder why the ancient northerners named it “Greenland”...
Maybe we just haven’t been around long enough to understand things.
And......
Ok, the Norse, vikings, or whoever settled Greenland because they could start a settlement for expansion and farm. These people were there about 1000 years before it got to cold to stay.
Yea, I know it has nothing to do with the article but tonight I am irritated by anything even remotely tied to bogus global warming, which always ends with blaming man.
Enough, have a drink and go to bed!!!! its late.
Do you ever wonder why Iceland is green and Greenland is frozen,think about it.
They were lost or confused... or had visited Vinland too often.
I think I will!
Nite all!
:-)
“Iceland got its modern name from another visitor, the Norwegian Viking Flóki Vilgerðarson. The Landnámabók makes it clear that Flóki chose the uninviting name ísland (”ice land”) for the view of a distant fjord full of sea-ice that he glimpsed from a tall mountain. No doubt his choice was influenced by the fact that he was not at first taken with the land, and he bad-mouthed the place after his return to Norway. But eventually he changed his mind about it and moved there himself. The Landnámabók account is at odds with the common notion that Iceland was named for its glaciers, some of which are bigger than any in Europe.
You sometimes hear the story that Iceland was so named to discourage excessive immigration, but there seems to be no basis for this claim. Even if it’s true, it didn’t work very well. Between about 870 and 930, a period called the landnám, productive land in Iceland was free for the taking to all comers, and thousands of people immigrated from Norway, which was in political upheaval at the time. Landnám is usually translated “settlement,” but “land grab” is a more literal translation and comes closer to the point. Incidentally, the Irish priests disappeared around the beginning of the landnám, probably muttering to themselves, “There goes the neighborhood.”
Greenland got its name because its inhabitants sported blue-green skin from living near the sea. At least that’s what Adam of Bremen wrote (in Latin) in the eleventh century. As the old proverb says, “A fool, unless he knows Latin, is never a great fool.” I think it’s safe to say that Adam of Bremen was a great fool, at least on this point.
The real story behind the name is given in Erik the Red’s Saga, based on oral tradition and written down in the early thirteenth century in Iceland. After the Icelandic landnám was over, Erik the Red and his father Thorvald were forced to leave Norway because one or both of them was involved in killings (details are not given). After Thorvald died, Erik was involved in yet more killings, for which his punishment was three years’ vacation—er, I mean banishment from Iceland. (And you thought O. J. got off easy.)
He used the time to explore the rumored lands to the west. When his term of banishment expired, he returned to Icleand to invite his neighbors and friends to settle the new country with him. He purposely chose the pleasant name Grænland (”green land”) to attract settlers, but the choice wasn’t exactly misleading. Some parts of Greenland, especially the parts the Norse settled, really are green, as these pictures from the tourist board attest (www.greenland-guide.dk/outdoor_life_photo.htm). He may have been a killer, but at least he wasn’t a real-estate scam-artist. He didn’t have that much to gain by lying anyway, since he didn’t charge anyone for the land. As in Iceland a century before, the land was free for the taking. Natives had lived in the area in the past, but at the time of Erik’s voyage, only the northern part of Greenland was occupied by the Inuit (Eskimos).”
Here’s the source link:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1965/shouldnt-greenland-be-known-as-iceland-and-vice-versa
Hey, wait, svcw was just thinking what to do out loud.
Don’t you wish everyone obeyed you like that, svcw :)
Thanks! I was going to do some research on the two but was too lazy and then I saw your post just what I planned on searching for. Now, can you get me my slippers and pour me a drink. :) I could get used to this!
hahahha
I was actually taking to myself, but hey if people are that easily directed.....so be it.
;-)
Any relation to Mike ?
I do it myself but no one listens, I’m jealous. ;)
Ernest come back!! See, not a peep.
Mike who?
Mike Ward?
Mike Hunt?
Mike Ice?
Or Mike sleeping it off on the shelf?
Well, I guess this means the Petermann Glacier is not such a big deal anymore!
But how could that be? Was there 'global warming' in 1962, as well? /s
The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result of responding to globally LOCALLY changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere, he notes.
(fixed it)
Very good posting... your #10!
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