Greenland looks pretty white from space. What's the problem libs.?

Question

greenland was once "GREEN". why?

Answer 1

You ought to read some serious discussion of the Viking colonies in Greenland, and what conditions were like there. (I suggest Jared Diamond's book "Collapse.") In the history of human habitation there, Greenland was never ice-free. Viking colonization was confined to two very small regions, and life there was marginal for the Vikings, even during the Medieval Warm Period.

The image below might be too confusing, but what it shows is that most of the loss is at the edges, while the middle is gaining. So, although the net loss of ice is large, the spatial inhomogeneity of the melting is why it still appears "pretty white from space."

Answer 2

It is believed that early cartographers (map-makers) reversed the labeling on Iceland and Greenland. Greenland has been "greener" in the past but not much. It has also been whiter and still has kilometers-thick ice cover (glaciers and ice-pack).

Answer 3

The Norse explorers who sailed west in search of new territories to colonize and plunder came back home telling big tales. Not many people would have been interested in a land of rock and ice.

It would also have been hard for anyone at home to debunk their story before the name took hold - it would mean sailing there themselves and reporting it in a then nonexistent press.

Answer 4

Because the Panama Isthmus formed and forced water equatorial water towards the poles. As the warm water moved poleward it evaporated and the precipitation fell as snow...

Answer 5

Have you been to space?