THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 60, March 25, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ICE CORES SHOW THE SUN, NOT HUMANS,
CONTROLLING THE EARTH'S CLIMATE
By Dennis T. Avery
THE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY EXPOUNDED BY ENVIRONMENTALISTS & PANIC-PRONE SCIENTISTS: THE THEORY HOLDING
THAT, IN THE CONTEMPORARY ERA, MAN-MADE GREENHOUSE GASES PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE EARTH'S
CLIMATE, HEATING UP THE PLANET, CAUSING POLAR ICE SHEETS TO MELT, & CREATING THE DANGER OF COASTAL
FLOODING & OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS IN BRITAIN, EUROPE, THE U.S.A., CANADA, & OTHER PLACES -- ICE CORE
HISTORIES TELL A DIFFERENT STORY, DISPROVING THE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY OF ENVIRONMENTALIST IDEOLOGUES &
OTHER CHARLATANS
FULL STORY:
Humans now control Earth’s climate, James Hansen of NASA told CBS’ “60 Minutes” last week. His evidence: the edges of
the Greenland ice sheet are melting rapidly. Hansen says the speed of this melting proves that man-made greenhouse gases
are responsible.
Sorry, Dr. Hansen, but the melting edges of the Greenland ice sheet don’t prove your point. Melting around the edges is
exactly what the Vikings saw on Greenland 1000 years ago when they named the island — for its green coastal meadows.
They moved in with their cattle, and thrived for 300 years, during what we now call the Medieval Warming.
The Vikings’ mistake was thinking that Greenland would stay warm, that the Earth’s climate was stable. Greenland was then
warmer than today, and the summers were longer. There was ample grass and hay for the Vikings’ dairy cows. The Norse
settlement grew to 3000 people.
Then Greenland’s climate suddenly got colder. The Little Ice Age had begun. Sea ice moved south, and the Vikings’ sailing
ships could no longer get through to trade wood for seal furs. Shorter summers produced less hay to feed the Viking cows
through longer, colder winters. The last written record found in the abandoned Viking colonies was dated 1408.
Our panic-prone scientists seem to have forgotten their own ice cores, drilled deep into the Greenland ice sheet in the 1980s.
These ice cores document a natural, sudden-but-moderate 1500-year global warming cycle. Oxygen isotopes in the ice layers
show 300 worldwide warmings over the past 500,000 years.
The ice cores tell us that variations in the sun are constantly warming and cooling our planet. The big Ice Ages come about
every 100,000 years. The warm interglacial periods like our own last about 10,000 to 12,000 years.
Through it all, however, runs the moderate, natural 1500-year climate cycle that raises temperatures about 2 degrees C above
the mean for 750 years or so — and then abruptly drops the temperatures 2 degrees C below the mean (at the latitude of
northern Europe).
Man’s climate impacts are puny compared to the million-degree heat of the sun. There’s no evidence that human-emitted CO2
has added much to the current temperatures. Our moderate warming to date — 0.8 degree C — virtually all occurred before
1940, and thus before much industrial development.
If you want to talk about sudden, ice cores from the Freemont Glacier in Wyoming show it went from Little Ice Age cold to
Modern Warming warm in the ten years between 1845 and 1855. Naturally.
Greenland today has 20,000 people, 50,000 sheep, and a sizeable fishing industry. But the climate cycle will turn in a few more
centuries. Then Greenland’s sheep will be in serious trouble and its fishermen will need icebreakers to reach the fishing
grounds. (There were no fish bones in the Norse colonies’ trash heaps).
As for melting ice from Greenland flooding London, remember that it didn’t happen during the Medieval Warming, so it’s
unlikely to happen in the Modern Warming. The melting of 100 cubic kilometers of Greenland ice would raise sea levels by
only 0.01 inch. Dr. Hansen should know that recent satellite research shows Greenland’s interior ice sheet has thickened 2
inches in the past 11 years, because warmer temperatures are evaporating more seawater to make more snow.
The Vikings can be forgiven for missing the 1500-year climate cycle. They didn’t have thermometers, written records, or the
ice core histories. NASA’s Dr. Hansen cannot be let off the hook so easily.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior analyst for the United States
Department of State. Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421. Email: cgfi@rica.net
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