why does greenland have so much ice and snow when it was once green?

Question

hence the name,, is it going back to the way it once was,green,, what does this say about global warming

Answer 1

bunch of morons. don't respond to questions to which you don't know the answer. when the vikings settled in greenland, it was absolutely green, thats how they were able to live there 1100 years ago. when it froze over decades later, they were forced to abandon the island. all of europe was much warmer 1100 years ago. they even had vinyards in england. they produced great wine. that ended 1000 years ago

Answer 2

It wasn't ever really that green unless you're talking super hot eras in the earths history, Say during the dinosaurs era. the planet had a lot of CO2 which allowed a lot of heat to be stored. then whatever wiped out the dinosaurs came along (likely the Yucatan meteor) and shrouded the earth in dust and smoke, cooling the surface. Greenland being far north is most easilly suseptible to colder temperatures. Tectonic plate movement could also have something to do with it. Greenland was named by the vikings "green" land in an attempt to draw settlers there. just as Iceland was names do try to deture settlers...

Answer 3

Global warming is an unproven theory!

How did a glacier-covered island get the name Greenland? In Norse legends written in the 12th century and later, it is told that Eric the Red explored the southeast and southwest coasts of Greenland in A.D. 983-986 and gave the country its name because people would be more likely to go there if it had an attractive name. Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than it is now. There were many islands teeming with birds off its western coast; the sea was excellent for fishing; and the coast of Greenland itself had many fjords where anchorage was good. At the head of the fjords there were enormous meadows full of grass, willows, junipers, birch, and wild berries. Thus Greenland actually deserved its name. Another attraction of Greenland was that Iceland and northwestern Europe, including England, had a grievous year of famine in 976, and people were hungry for food as well as land.

Answer 4

IN BRIEF
The name Greenland was attributed to the country by the Viking Eric The Red as a propoganda measure designed to attract settlers. When it was so named in 984 there was just one small area in the southwest of the country that was free of ice. Today almost the entire coastal region is ice free and in places the ices has retreated 200km inland.

IN MORE DETAIL
It's sometimes assumed that the naming of the country Greenland derives from a time when it was a green land free of ice. In fact, the naming of the land was a piece of Viking propaganda designed to attract new settlers.

The Norwegian Eirik Raude, better known as 'Eric the Red' had been exiled from his native country because of his murderous ways, after taking up residence in Iceland he was again exiled for the same reasons. Setting sail in 982 he 'discovered' Greenland* and after rounding the southern ice pack he landed and established a settlement. Three years later, when his period of exile had expired, he returned to Iceland in search of a population for his new settlement. To entice people he told them of green lands and a warmer climate, he christened the new land Greenland because "people would be attracted to go there if it had a favourable name". The plan worked and Erik returned to Greenland with the intrepid emigrants.

Alas, they were to be disappointed, their new home failed to live up to Erik's promises and instead of a lush green land they found a barren wilderness of ice where crops could only be grown in two locations and at certain times of the year when the ice melted. They has become the victims of Viking propaganda.

You can read the full story and more in Eric The Red's biography which you can download in full, for free, prom the Gurenberg Project - http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17946


*The discovery of Greenland is often attributed to Eric the Red but it had been sighted about a century earlier by a fellow Norseman Gunnbjörn Ulfsson and shortly after was first settled by another Norseman Snaebjörn Galti.

Answer 5

Greenland was name so by the Vikings in hopes to lure more settlers to conquer this new land.

Has nothing to do with global warming. That would be going in reverse. A revisit of the ice age. Becuz Its basicly covered in ice & was never green.

Answer 6

Greenland was never green. Iceland was and is. The pioneers set sail from Europe and got lost. They found Greenland was a huge pice of ice, but were embarrassed, so they went back and said it was a beautiful place full of grass and trees and place and flowers- hence Greenland.

Answer 7

No--Greenland has had an icecap for hundreds of thousands --possibly millions of years. This is the first time in all that period we've seen melting of the Greenland icecap on this scale.

The name comes from the ancient Vikings. At the time they were undertaking their great sea voyages, one of the places they discovered was Greenland. They gave the island that name because its southern coast is ice free and was covered with vegitation. But the icecap that covers most of the island was theer then.

Answer 8

Most of what the other people are saying about Greenland and Iceland is true. The oxymoronic names were used to deceive would be settlers.

That being said, it's also true that Greenland was once much "greener" and had settlements.

Warm regards,
Douglas

Answer 9

Greenland has a weird name, but it was never GREEN, Greenland has the second biggest glacier, aside from the Antarctic.

Answer 10

I thought I heard that Greenland was named Greenland to throw the Vikings off...