Re: Sailing round Greenland?


"IE_Json" <inger_e.johansson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"D. Patterson" <proamer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:29:39 -0800, "D. Patterson"
<proamer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

--- snip ----

As for the claim that th Norse period in Greenland was warmer than
today,
please see figure 2 in http://tinyurl.com/vn7w7, it wasn't. The whole
MOG
31 report can be downloaded from http://www.dpc.dk/sw784.asp

As is so often the case, the tinyurl and pdf you provided as citations
fail
to load. Since you have failed to provide the name of the series for
the
volume and failed to indicate the particular text and/or images and
their
relevance to the discussion even if the volume could be found, your
citations are meaningless and valueless to the discussion. They
certaintly
contribute nothing whatsoever to any claim by you in regard to such
Norse
journeys being "impossible" to accomplish.

The sites cited do load but the PDF files are large and DU Meter tells
me the download rates are consistently slow.

The figure Erik Hammerstadt referred to is a diagram which shows that
the current temperature is approximately 0.15 degrees C more than in c
1200 AD.

The title of the figure describes it as

"The sequences of climatic and cultural events in Greenland
(climatic sequences adapted from Fredskild and Böcher 2001:61)."

I have not been able to discover the nature of "Fredskild and Böcher
2001" but I have been able to establish that F & B work primarily with
zoological remains. Apart from the question of the nature of the
adaptation of F & B's work, I would also question whether or not one
can safely rely on zoological proxies to establish the existence of
small temperature differences (0.15 degrees C) over a period of 8
centuries.

A search of the text of the PDF cited by Erik Hammerstadt shows that
the authors rely on figure 2 primarily for cultural aspects.

However, on (their) page 23 the authors say:

"When the Saqqaq people first arrived at Nipisat, it
was a smaller island, probably surrounded by a broader
sound than today due to isostatic factors (Fig. 196).
Nipisat was part of a pristine archipelago with numerous
breeding species of both mammals and birds, and
with a good vantage point over the sound. Even
though the postglacial climatic optimum had peaked
when humans settled on Nipisat, the climate was
milder than today (Fig. 2). In addition it has been suggested
that there was a more pronounced seasonality
2500 years ago, with a greater June insolation (P.
Mayewski pers. comm. 1999; O'Brien et al. 1995).
These factors may, to some extent, have influenced the
timing of arrival and departure of migrating species,
in addition to the breeding period. Nevertheless,
based on our knowledge of game animals from recent
and historical times, the species found at Nipisat must,
by and large, have had a seasonal occurrence in the
Nipisat area as depicted in Fig. 9."

Nipisat is in the Sisimut region which Google Earth tells me is at
approximately 77 degrees North latitude while any passage around the
north of Greenland will be at about 82 degrees north. I do not know
the temperature differences are between these two latitudes but I
suspect that, as you have already suggested, the formation of polynyas
will be the decisive factor. Polynyas depend on the upwelling of
subsurface ocean water and it has been shown that the chemical and
thermal parameters describing such flows can lag by a century or more
behind the original surface conditions which drive them. I don't think
there is any simple means by which we can reach a conclusion and we
will have to wait and see what happens.



Eric Stevens

Humans have been inhabiting and journeying back and forth across the
northern coastline of Greenland between Ellesmere Island and West
Greenland
in the West for nearly four thousand years, before and after the presence
of
the Norse colonies in Greenland. Consequently, speculating on the
questionable reliability of temperature proxies and fictitious computer
models is somewhat comparative to a moot counting of the number of angels
dancing on the head of a pin with respect to the question of whether or
not
it was or was not possible for the Norse to have made the same journey
being
made by more primitive cultures long before and long after they were in
Greenland. Basically, we know the Norse had physical access to the Musk
Ox
Way and traditional trails across Northern Greenland, if and when the
Norse
chose to explore those trails. The only question which remains is whether
or
not cultural, economic, religious, political, and or other factors not
related to cliamte and geography did or did not result in such journeys
being made by the Norse?

I think Eric S forgotten the information he forwarded to me many years ago
regarding the sailing which ended up in area we today call Ellesmere
island
and northward. The Norse who had to built house for shelter and the group
that resqued them. Not to mention the 10% of the valuables silver gold and
pearls that the Church in Gardar claimed for. The Norse were up there and
that has been known if not by all scholars at least by many Icelanders and
some here in Scandinavia for centuries. The time the problem with the ship
occured falls within the period that the ruins on Ruin Island where
Norwegian artifacts been found been dated to during later years.

Inger E





Inger, here is a report the reades may find interesting about such subjects.

Patricia D. Sutherland, Curator, Archaeological Survey of Canada, Canadian
Museum of Civilization Interactions in the Canadian Eastern
Arctic.Originally published in Martin Appelt, Joel Berglund and Hans
Christian Gullrv (eds.), Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic:
Proceedings from a Conference at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen,
November 30 to December 2, 1999, Copenhagen: The Danish National Museum &
Danish Polar Center, 2000, with revisions by the author.
http://www.civilization.ca/academ/articles/suth_01e.html


.

Relevant Pages

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