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A huge chunk of ice about one-eighth the size of Manhattan has broken off of Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, NASA scientists report. A 2.7-square-mile (7-square-kilometer) section of the glacier broke up on July 6 and 7 and was spotted in NASA satellite images. Greenland's ice sheet, which is 2 miles (3.2 km) thick and covers an area about the size of Mexico, has been losing ice mass at an accelerating rate over the last decade. The ice sheet discharges much of its ice through fast moving glaciers that flow into the sea, with large chunks breaking off into the ocean....

I'm looking for a website that sells cheap college textbooks or discount books that will help guide me in reading the earliest written histories of Iceland,Greenland,British Isles & Ireland. I know this is probably a humongous task to undertake but i'll only be reading them one @ a time . Most of the earliest written histories of these countries is in poetry form or "saga's" any help out here would be truly appreciated.I'm trying to design a reading program for myself starting with these countries as a structured pasttime. Thanks!

Climate Science: Noted scientists at a Chicago climate conference declare that global warming is not only dead, but that the planet faces a big chill for decades to come. What about those frozen wind turbines? It's not exactly Copenhagen or Kyoto, but the 700 scientists attending the fourth International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, had some chilling news of their own in the most liberal sense. "Global warming is over — at least for a few decades," Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told the gathering. "However, the bad news is that...

The ice is melting so fast in Greenland that the giant island is rising noticeably as the weight is lifted. In some spots, the land is rising 1 inch per year. A vast ice cap covers much of Greenland, in some places up to 1.2 miles (2 km) thick. The ice, in place for eons, presses down the land, making the elevation at any given point lower than it would be sans ice. Scientists have documented on Greenland and elsewhere that when longstanding ice melts away, the land rebounds. Even the European Alps are rising as glaciers melt. Now, scientists...

Reference Vinther, B.M., Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Clausen, H.B., Andersen, K.K., Dahl-Jensen, D. and Johnsen, S.J. 2010. Climatic signals in multiple highly resolved stable isotope records from Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 29: 522-538. Background The authors introduce the report of their new study by writing that "during the past 10 years studies of seasonal ice core δ18O records from the Greenland ice sheet have indicated, that in order to gain a firm understanding of the relationships between Greenland δ18O and climatic conditions in the North Atlantic region, it is important to have not only annually resolved, but seasonally resolved ice...

Looking like a creature from the Alien movies, this nightmarish "longhead dreamer" anglerfish (Chaenophryne longiceps) was until recently an alien species to Greenland waters

An Example Of Why A Global Average Temperature Anomaly Is Not An Effective Metric Of Climate Roy Spencer and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville have reported in their Global Temperature Report that February 2010 was the 2nd warmest February in 32 years (e.g. see Roy’s summary). Their spatial map of the anomalies, however, shows that most of the relative warmth was in a focused geographic area; seeThe global average is  based on the summation of large areas of positive and negative temperature anomalies.As I have reported before on my weblog; e.g. seeWhat is the Importance to Climate of Heterogeneous...

DNA analysis of human hair preserved in Greenland's permafrost has given clues as to what the owner looked like. A study, published in the journal Nature, says the individual's genome is the oldest to have been sequenced from a modern human. The researchers say the man, who lived 4,000 years ago, had brown eyes and thick dark hair, although he would have been prone to baldness. They say the genome also shows that his ancestors migrated from Siberia. The man has been named Inuk, which means "human" in the Greenlandic language.

September, 2009 satellite images released by NASA's Earth Observatory. This satellite image shows several small glaciers spilling into a mostly dry valley in western Greenland. The image was captured on August 29, 2009. The Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite acquired this natural-color image. This image shows most of the valley and the image below is a close-up of two glacier snouts. Image credit NASA / Earth Observatory. Image Information: Multiple glaciers frequently flow into straight valleys in Greenland. The valleys result from earlier glaciations that carved the bedrock. The smaller glaciers that flow into the valley may...

Junk Science: The EPA may be considering closing the watchdog office that exposed the flimsy evidence of man-caused warming. So much for the administration's promise to "restore science to its rightful place."Recently we commented on the plight of Dr. Allen Carlin, the EPA senior research analyst at the National Center for Environmental Economics who dared to say, in essence, that emperor Al Gore and his environmental sycophants at the Environmental Protection Agency wore no clothes. The EPA had been working on an "endangerment finding" that would say carbon dioxide, rather than being the basis for all life on earth, was...

Global Warming: If the rock stars who flew hundreds of thousands of miles in their jets to save the earth wanted to hug trees, they could have hugged the forest that once covered Greenland. We didn't see Sheryl Crow passing out single-sheet allotments of toilet paper to Live Earth concert-goers. But we did see perhaps the biggest-ever exercise in hypocrisy and futility as performers around the globe plugged in and amped up to save the earth from the climate impact of excessive energy consumption. John Rego, environmental director of Live Earth, insists the multi-continent charade, like the mansions of Gore,...

Climate Change: A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill? This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters' arguments.

Greenland, the world’s biggest island, made an important step towards its independence on June 21. The island, which is presumably populated by the Eskimos, has been a part of Denmark for over 300 years. The Parliament of Denmark passed the law to expand Greenland’s autonomy at the end of May. The law asserted the results of the referendum which took place in Greenland last year. About 75 percent of the island’s 63,000-strong population supported the idea to expand the self-administration on the island with 23 percent voting against it. The new status, which the island will obtain, will give the...

Greenland, with 58,000 people and only two traffic lights, both of them here in the capital, is now securing its place in the world. On Sunday, amid solemn ceremony and giddy celebration, it ushered in a new era of self-governance that sets the stage for eventual independence from Denmark, its ruler since 1721. The move, which allows Greenland to gradually take responsibility over areas like criminal justice and oil exploration, follows a referendum last year in which 76 percent of voters said they wanted self-rule. Many of the changes are deeply symbolic. Kalaallisut, a traditional Inuit dialect, is now the...

Scientists have discovered that a pod of North Atlantic right whales -- possibly an offshoot of Canada's critically endangered population -- has returned to waters off southern Greenland after 200 years, raising new hopes for the species but also concerns about a coming clash between nature and commerce at the doorstep of the unlocked Northwest Passage. Only about 400 individual right whales are known to migrate annually along the Atlantic coast between Nova Scotia and Florida, a tiny remnant of a once-robust species that was hunted almost to extinction by the early 20th century. They were named for being...

When your liberal friends talk about global warming, give them the one word answer that noone can explain: "Greenland." Why was the land that today is characterized as a huge icecap named Greenland? Eric the Red discovered Greenland in the 980 AD time frame. He called it Greenland because of the lush green fields and valleys. He saw in Greenland a tremendous potential for agriculture. His return trips would bring settlers who would number about 5000 and build 300-400 farms. What??????? Agriculture??? Farms??? Wait a minute, this country is nothing but a huge ice cap isn't it? Here is a...

Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. There are many stories of “Qalunaat,” white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit occupied lands in times of old. Much of the traditional life had changed by the 1840s when Hinrich Johannes Rink went to Greenland to study geology and later became the governor of Greenland. Johannes was soon drawn to a new interest in the Inuit language and folklore, which he viewed as national treasures. He published old stories collected in 1866 “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo” in which he included some early contact stories with the Qalunaat. In...

One of the world's most important remaining ice reserves on Earth remains deceptively cold. As the planet's poles thaw out, global sea level rise looms as one of the most dangerous side effects of global warming. Any excess chill may seem like good news for the planet. But a new study suggests that Greenland is lagging behind rest of the northern hemisphere's warming trend and that it's bound to catch up soon. Air temperatures have been rising steadily in the northern half of the planet since about 1975, when scientists think the effects of human-induced global warming began to dominate...

In reality, evolution has done nothing to help real science, and has actually hindered it in many ways...

Braving temperatures far below freezing, Greenland’s 39,000 eligible voters took part in a referendum yesterday offering a clear route to independence from distant Denmark. Eve-of-ballot polls suggested that Greenlanders would vote overwhelmingly “aap” (“yes”) for a package of measures to expand self-government, recognise their aspirations to eventual nationhood and make them the beneficiaries of their natural resources. The package, drawn up by Danish and Greenlandic parliamentarians, would allow Greenlanders to be treated as a separate people under international law, with the right to self-determination. It would make Greenlandic – not Danish – the official language, and give Greenland’s home-rule Government...