The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes From a Climate-Changed Planet by Heidi Cullen

Author:Heidi Cullen [Cullen, Heidi]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Severe storms, Global environmental change - Forecasting, Mathematics, Climatic changes - Forecasting, Global Warming & Climate Change, Nature, Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, Global environmental change, Weather forecasting, Climatic changes, Natural History: General, Science, Earth Sciences, Forecasting, Earth Sciences - Meteorology & Climatology, Life Sciences, Meteorology & Climatology, Climate Changes, General, Weather, Global warming - Forecasting
ISBN: 9780061726880
Google: F-k3mQEACAAJ
Amazon: B0058M5I4I
Publisher: Open Library
Published: 2010-08-02T22:00:00+00:00

In any case, Erik the Red must

have been a good pitchman, because

in 985 he led a fleet of twenty-five

Viking longships to settle two new

colonies on Greenland. During the

next ten years, as the news of free

pastureland

traveled

back

to

Iceland, three more ships carrying

hopeful

settlers

set

sail

for

Greenland. And by the year 1000,

virtually all the land suitable for

farms in the Western and Eastern

settlements of Greenland had been

claimed. About 1,000 people lived

at the Western Settlement and 4,000

people at the Eastern Settlement,

which, despite its name, was

located about 300 miles to the

south. 1

Erik

the

Red

had

successfully

converted

5,000

Icelanders into Greenlanders, but he

certainly hadn’t led them to the

promised land.

Over time, Erik the Red’s

original white lie grew whiter.

Summers were becoming shorter

and cooler, and winters were

downright frigid—even by Viking

standards, which were quite harsh.

This limited the amount of time the

cattle, sheep, goats, and horses

could be kept outside to pasture and

increased the need for winter

fodder. As the temperature dropped,

the amount of sea ice increased. The

sea ice became a frozen barrier,

making it more and more difficult

for ships to pass. As a result, trade

and communication with Europe

and Scandinavia were choked off

and Greenland became increasingly

isolated.

The cooler climate also brought

the Inuit down from the north and

into more regular contact with the

Norse colony. Their relationship

might have served as an impetus for

change, pushing the Viking settlers

to find new ways to deal with the

cold; but in fact it only brought

more

problems.

The

little

archaeological evidence that exists

suggests that there was violence

between the two groups. The

changing climate had ushered in a

period now known as the Little Ice

Age. And after 500 years of

settlement, the Viking colony,

unable to adapt to the cooler

conditions

and

unwilling

to

supplement Scandinavian tradition

with

Inuit

coping

strategies,

eventually collapsed. The last

written record of the Norse

Greenlanders

comes

from

a

marriage in the church of Hvalsey in

1408. The church still stands today.

In May 1721, Hans Egede, a

thirty-five-year-old

Lutheran

missionary, received permission

from Frederick IV of Denmark to

search for Erik the Red’s lost

colony. No word had come out of

Greenland for more than 300 years,

and Egede feared that the Viking

colony was lost or, perhaps worse,

that the colonists had lost their faith.

And so Egede and his wife set sail

from Bergen, Norway, and headed

for Greenland, where they intended

to set up a mission. Upon their

arrival, Egede found no Norse

survivors. He did, however, find

the Inuit. And so he started his

mission among them.

Egede, called the apostle of the

Eskimos, spent fifteen years in

Greenland. He studied the Inuit

language and tried his hand at

translating Christian texts, a task

that required the ability to adapt the

text in such a way that his teachings

would resonate with the Inuit

experience. For instance, the Inuit

did not eat bread—a fact that made

the Lord’s Prayer rather cryptic.

Egede made one small but critical

adjustment and wrote, “Give us this

day our daily harbor seal.” It seems

that Egede decided to leave the

concept of hell unaltered, despite

the cold climate. The Inuit learned

about a very hot place where

sinners were sent for eternity.

Today, new settlers are traveling

to Greenland in search of the

promised land. But they come in

corporate jets rather than Viking

longships, and this time the Inuit are

happy to see them. Greenland

figuratively and (as I will explain

later) literally is on the rise.

Gold and diamond prospectors

are heading to the southern part of

Greenland.

Alcoa,

the

U.S.

aluminum giant, is preparing to

build a smelter powered by

hydroelectric energy in Maniitsoq,

on Greenland’s west coast. In

addition to precious metals and

diamonds, Greenland also has oil

and natural gas.

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