Walrus shortage led to medieval Norse collapse: study

Yahoo – AFP, January 6, 2020

Norse communities thrived for more than 400 years in the Arctic, hunting walruses
for their tusks, a valuable medieval commodity (AFP Photo/COREY ACCARDO)

Paris (AFP) - Greenland's medieval Norse society vanished from the Earth in the 15th Century after they hunted walrus populations to near extinction, researchers said Monday in a possible explanation for the mysterious disappearance.

Norse communities thrived for more than 400 years in the Arctic, hunting walruses for their tusks, a valuable medieval commodity.

But a mixture of overexploitation and economic pressure from a flood of elephant ivory into European markets in the 13th Century contributed to their downfall, according to a new study.

A team of researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Oslo and Trondheim examined pre-1400s walrus tusk artefacts from across Europe and found that almost all of them came from walruses hunted in seas only accessible to Greenland Norse communities.

They also found that later items were hunted from smaller animals -- likely females and infants -- signalling that stocks were rapidly dwindling.

"Norse Greenlanders needed to trade with Europe for iron and timber, and mainly had walrus products to export in exchange," said James Barrett, from the University of Cambridge's Department of Archaeology.

"Norse hunters were forced to venture deeper into the Arctic Circle for increasingly meagre ivory harvests."

As the walrus populations declined, so did the Norse communities.

Authors of the study, published in the Quarternary Science Reviews journal, said there were likely other factors that contributed to the eventual disappearance of Norse Greenlanders.

These include climate change as the northern hemisphere underwent a "Little Ice Age", and unsustainable farming techniques.

"If both the population and price of walrus started to tumble, it must have badly undermined the resilience of the settlements," said Bastiaan Star of the University of Oslo.

"Our study suggests the writing was on the wall."

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THE RELATIONSHIP TO GAIA - April 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

New Mini Ice Age

"The weather you have today, and all the alarming attributes of it, is a scenario of what was scheduled to happen on Earth anyway. I review again that the weather changes you are seeing prophesied by myself, 21 years ago, are not a surprise. The changes are not caused by the pollutants you put in the air. You call it global warming and that's a nice phrase, and perhaps that will get you to put less pollutants in the air – a very good thing. But what you are seeing in the weather shift today was not caused by Humans putting things into the air. It would have happened anyway in about 300 years."

"We've called this process the water cycle, since it's all about water, not about air. The water is the predominant attribute of Gaia and of the weather cycle you're seeing. More predominant is the temperature of it. The cycle is ice to water and water to ice, and has been repeated on this planet over and over and over. It is not new. It is not exceptional. It is not frightening. But it's a cycle that modern humanity has not seen before, and it's a long cycle that is beyond the life span of a Human Being. Therefore, it tends to be overlooked or not seen at all !"

"In the days of the Lemurians, the water level of the Pacific Ocean was almost 400 feet lower, and that's only 50,000 years ago. [Kryon invites science to check this out – the water level at that time.] That was a water cycle working, and the reason it was lower was due to so much of the water being stored as ice. Today you're going through another water cycle that will eventually lead to cooling. The last one was in the 1400s."

"Science sees that at about 1650. As mentioned, they are so slow there is no remembrance that a Human has of them except in past writings and in the rings of the trees. The time span of the changes is so great that environmental record keeping does not exist in the form that it does today. But you can still look at the rings of the trees and at the striations of the rocks and can generally figure out that a few hundred years ago, you had a mini-ice age. Now you're going to have another one."

20TH KRYON SUMMER LIGHT CONFERENCE, US (7), June 2-4, 2017 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version "The State of the Earth")

"....  A mini ice age is coming. "Kryon, isn't that doom for the planet?"  Many have seen the artist's rendering of major earth cities under ice and all of the other things that go very well with science fiction movies. That's simply a painting of someone's doom scenario, not reality based in the history of the cycle. If you want to know what a mini ice age is like, just flash back in history and study what took place in about 1650. That was a mini ice age. Due to the change in the Gulf Stream (the ocean), the river Thames froze in London. Dear ones, it was cold, but it did not doom the planet. That's a mini ice age.

That's what you're facing, and I'll say it again. If you live in a cold climate, heed this advice: It's going to get colder. Get off the grid! Within the next 15 years, find a way of producing electricity independently or in smaller groups. This can be done neighborhood-wide or separately in homes. You're going to need this, dear ones, because the grid as it exists right now all over the world is not prepared for this coming cold, and the grid will fail. That's not doom and gloom, that's just practical, commonly known information. Your electricity infrastructure is delicate, too delicate. Prepare for a cold spell that may last for a couple of decades. That's all it is. Technology is racing forward to allow this. Don't let your politics get in the way of your survival. ..."

"...  This is controversial. The planet can't just "change the water". It does it instead with a "reboot of life in the ocean" using the water cycle. Watch for evidence of this as it occurs, and then remember this channel. This weather cycle is to refresh the life in the ocean so that everyone on the planet will have needed food from the ocean. Gaia does this by itself, has done it before, and it does it for a reason - so it will not stagnate.

Dear ones, indeed, you have put compromising things into the air and the water, but it has not caused this cycle. We have said for a very long time, stop killing the environment! The reason? It's going to kill you, not Gaia. Gaia is spectacularly resilient and will survive anything you do. However, it is you who may not survive if you continue polluting. All this is starting to change with your awareness, and you're starting to see this and move with it. But Humans are not causing the current weather shift. This will be known eventually.

What is happening has happened before, and it's almost like a reboot for the oceans and it carries a lot of dichotomous events. You're going to see reports of a dying ocean, but at the same time you're going to see unusual reports of too many fish and other sea life in places that were supposed to have a decline. You're going to see the life cycle of the ocean itself start to change and reboot.

The chief player in this renewal is a place you would not expect: Antarctica. I want you to watch for magic in Antarctica. It has always been the core of the refreshing of microbes and other kinds of life in your oceans and it's especially active during these mini ice ages. The process will cause currents under the sea to be filled with new life, delivering it to both hemispheres almost like an under-sea conveyor belt. ..."

Arctic coastal powers back 'peaceful' dialogue over disputes

Yahoo – AFP, May 22, 2018

Greenland's ice sheets are melting due to global warming, opening up new shipping
routes and sparking a race for resources (AFP Photo/Steen Ulrik Johannessen)

Stockholm (AFP) - The five nations bordering the Arctic Ocean on Tuesday reaffirmed their commitment made in Greenland a decade ago to "peacefully" settle their differences over the resource-rich region threatened by climate change.

Ministers and senior officials from the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway gathered for a two-day meeting in western Greenland's coastal town of Ilulissat, where the initial declaration was signed on May 28, 2008.

The countries hope dialogue will resolve conflicts over the sovereignty of territories, strategic maritime passages, environmental protection and fishing.

Ten years after the signing of the Ilulissat Declaration, it is still in the coastal nations' interest "to maintain the Arctic as a low-tension region, where disputes are resolved peacefully," Danish foreign minister Anders Samuelsen said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

"In other parts of the world, the Arctic states are involved in critical conflicts on different sides," Samuelsen said, adding that cooperation had been maintained in the region.

"In the time of globalisation and global uncertainty, it is important to reaffirm the core values of this exceptional region; peace and prosperity for our peoples," his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt said.

The five nations are known as the "Arctic Five", while Sweden, Finland and Iceland, which are also attending to the summit, make up the "Arctic Council".

Greenland's ice sheets, the largest in the northern hemisphere, are melting due to global warming.

This has lead to a race for potential Arctic riches as it opens up new shipping routes and enables exploration of untapped resources, creating major concerns for environmentalists and the local population.

Last December, the Arctic Five and major fishing nations including China, Japan, South Korea and EU member states agreed to a moratorium on commercial fishing in Arctic waters before a fishery in the icy region was even feasible.

The decision was welcomed by Greenpeace.

Denmark claims potentially energy-rich Arctic waters

Interest in the Arctic is intensifying as global warming shrinks the polar ice, opening up possible resource development. That’s why Denmark plans to request formal recognition for an extended area of continental shelf.

Deutsche Welle, 15 Dec 2014

Denmark was set to lay claim to energy-rich but contested territory around the North Pole on Monday by submitting data to the UN which it says demonstrates the area is an extension of its continental shelf.

The Danish government said it would tell the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) that data collected since 2002 supports its claim to ownership over an area of about 895,000 square kilometers (346,000 square miles) beyond the current nautical borders of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.

"The objective of this huge project is to define the outer limits of our continental shelf and thereby ultimately of the Kingdom of Denmark," Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard said in a statement.

Potential overlap with Canada, Russia and the US

The melting of the ice cap offers
shorter shipping routes

Claims on a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from a country's borders must be supported by scientific and technical data. However, the remote region is hotly disputed by other countries.

Between 2007 and 2012, Danish scientists, with colleagues from Canada, Sweden and Russia, surveyed a 2,000 kilometer long (1,240 miles) underwater mountain range that runs north of Siberia. They concluded that the ridge is geologically attached to Greenland, a huge, sparsely populated island that is a semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Norway already lays claim to an area overlapping the one outlined in the Danish submission to the UN, and there is "potential overlap with Canada, the Russian Federation and the US," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Moscow has increased its military presence in the pristine but energy-rich Arctic region, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has made asserting sovereignty over an expansive Arctic archipelago and surrounding waters a key policy. In August 2007, Russia placed its flag on the seabed under the North Pole.

Part of North America, but also a part of Europe

Environmental activists concered over
the race to exploit gas and oil

Greenland geographically forms part of North America rather than Europe and is largely self-governed, but it remains part of former colonial master Denmark, which controls its foreign affairs and defense policy.

Environmental activist groups, including Greenpeace, expressed concern over an emerging race to exploit potential untapped natural gas and oil reserves in the Arctic as the burning of fossil fuel drives global warming.

According to a study by the US Geological Survey from 2008, the Arctic could hold 13 percent of the oil and 30 percent of the natural gas which is yet to be discovered. The melting of the ice cap also offers shorter shipping routes between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, which has attracted the interest of countries far from the Arctic region, including China.

jil/lw, ksb (AP, AFP, dpa)

Greenland gets whale hunting permit, Iceland's commercial program criticized

The International Whaling Commission has approved a hunting quota of 207 kills per year for aboriginal Greenlanders. Meanwhile, several countries have criticized Iceland for its commercial whaling program.

Deutsche Welle, 16 Sep 2014

Members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted in favor of Greenland's proposed whale hunting quota at a summit in Portoroz, Slovenia on Monday.

Valid from 2015 through 2018, the proposal will allow the country's aborigines to take 176 minke, 19 fin, 10 humpback and two bowhead whales per year. Critics of the quota argue that much of the meat meant for the local Inuit population would be sold off instead.

"More than 800 whales were condemned today just in the Greenland vote," Wendy Higgins of the Humane Society International (HIS) told the AFP news agency. The Animal Welfare Institute voiced concern that "the new IWC quota will give Greenland more whale meat than its native people need for nutritional subsistence and that the surplus will continue to be sold commercially, including to tourists."

The IWC's members are split on
whether whaling is acceptable

At the IWC's last gathering in 2012, a similar bid for a larger Greenland quota was voted down.

Joint letter blasts Iceland

Despite an international moratorium on commercial whale hunting, aboriginal communities in North America, Russia, Greenland and the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines receive special quotas permitting them to hunt whales for meat.

Iceland, one of the IWC's 88 members, rejects the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. The EU, US and several other countries on Monday formally called on the government in Reykjavik to reconsider its commercial program.

"We … wish to express our strong opposition to Iceland's continuing and increased commercial harvest of whales, particularly fin whales, and to its ongoing international trade in whale products," said the joint letter, submitted ahead of the summit's opening day.

"We are not convinced that Iceland's harvest and subsequent trade of fin whales meets any domestic market or need; it also undermines effective international cetacean conservation efforts."

Whale meat is a delicacy in many
countries, including Japan

Other signatories, besides the US and the 28 EU member states, included Australia, Brazil, Israel, Mexico and New Zealand.

Japan to resubmit 'research program'

Japan's plan for an expanded Antarctic Ocean whaling program, said to be for research purposes, is expected to feature heavily at the four-day meeting in Slovenia. In March, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the program was not scientific, saying it didn't produce much actual research or justify the numbers of whales harvested. Japan is expected to outline a new plan during the summit, likely to pledge a reduction in the number and types of whales it intends to hunt.

"The content of our new research program will not be so different from our past research activities, which were highly regarded by scientists," said Hideki Moronuki, a spokesman for the Japanese delegation. "The main purpose was always to achieve sustainable use of whale resources."

The delegation from New Zealand, one of the IWC's members that strongly opposes whaling, was planning a draft resolution designed to uphold the ICJ ruling on Japan to ensure that no "illegal permits for scientific whaling" would be issued.

msh/crh (AFP, AP, dpa)

Greenland ice melting at record speed

Satellite data shows ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are declining at record speed. The annual loss of ice has doubled in the case of Greenland and tripled in the West Antarctic compared to figures from 2009.

Deutsche Welle, 21 Aug 2014

Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven mapping elevation changes of Greenlandic and Antarctic glaciers have found ice sheets are melting at record pace. Per year, the ice sheets dump some 500 cubic kilometers (132,000 gallons) of ice into the oceans. The researchers say that compares to an ice sheet that's 600 meters (1970 feet) thick and covers an area as big as the German city of Hamburg - or the Southeast Asian nation of Singapore.

The research team headed by Veit Helm used around two years' worth of data from the ESA CryoSat-2 satellite to create digital elevation models of Greenland and Antarctica. The results were published in the online magazine of the European Geoscience Union (EGU) "The Cryosphere".

"The new elevation maps are snapshots of the current state of the ice sheets," Helm said. "The elevations are very accurate, to just a few meters in height, and cover close to 16 million square kilometers of the area of the ice sheets." Helm says this includes an additional 500,000 square kilometers that weren't covered in previous elevation models from altimetry.

Space technology shows declining ice mass

Helm and his team analyzed all data from the CryoSat-2 radar altimeter SIRAL in order to come up with these detailed maps. The satellite with this new radar equipment was launched in 2010. Satellite altimeters measure the height of an ice sheet by sending radar or laser pulses which are then reflected by the surface of the glaciers or surrounding areas of water and recorded by the satellite.

The researchers used other satellite data as well to document how elevation has changed between 2011 and 2014. Ice sheets gain mass through snowfall and lose it through melting and accelerating glaciers, which carry ice from the interior of the ice sheet to the ocean.

"We need to understand where and to which extent the ice thickness across the glaciers has changed. Only then can we analyze the drivers of these changes and find out how much ice sheets contribute to global sea level rise," lead author Helm said.

Rapid ice loss over a short period of time

The team used more than 200 million SIRAL data points for Antarctica and some 14 million data points for Greenland to create the elevation maps. The results show that Greenland alone is losing around 375 cubic kilometers of ice per year.

Compared to data which was collected in 2009, the loss of mass from the Greenland ice sheet has doubled. The rate of ice discharge from the West Antarctic ice sheet tripled during the same period.

85 percent of Greenland is covered with ice - melting ice sheets
contribute to rising sea levels

"If you combine the two, they are thinning at a rate of 500 cubic kilometers per year. That is the highest rate observed since altimetry satellite records began about 20 years ago," said glaciologist Angelika Humbert, who co-authored the AWI study.

The researchers detected the biggest elevation changes at the Jakobshavn Glacier in West Greenland and Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. This corresponds with other scientific research on both areas.

Whereas the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Peninsula, on the far west of the continent, are rapidly losing volume, East Antarctica is gaining volume. However, the scientists stress that this is happening at such a low rate that it does not compensate for the losses on the other side of the continent.

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“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

New Mini Ice Age

“… So now we've refreshed that which we have said before, a review. You are in the middle of a cycle that will bring cooling to the planet. It is not a heat cycle, but rather a cooling cycle. But it always starts with a short heat cycle. It has been here before. It will come again. It is a long cycle - one generation plus five years. That's how long it's going to last. It starts with the melting of the ice caps, which is far more than any of you have seen in your lifetime or those of your ancestors. It is a cycle whose repetition is thousands of years long, but one that has not yet been recorded to the books of Human record. But it's definitely been recorded in the cores of the ice and in the rings of the trees.

Thousands of years old, it is, and it happens in a cyclical way. It's about water. It starts with that which is the melting of the ice caps to a particular degree, which has a profound effect on the planet in all ways. You can't have that happen without seeing life change as well as Gaia change and you've seeing it already. What happens when you take that which is heavy on the poles [ice] and you melt it? It then becomes cold water added to that which is a very, very gentle and finite balance of temperature in the seas of the planet (1). The first thing that happens is a redistribution of the weight of water on the thin crust of the earth from ice at the poles to new water in the seas. The results become earthquakes and volcanoes, and you're seeing them, aren't you? You are having earthquakes in places that are not supposed to have earthquakes. Volcanoes are coming to life in a way that you've not seen before on a regular basis. There will be more. Expect them.

Is it too much to ask of a Human Being that if you live by a volcano that you know might erupt, maybe you ought to move? Yet there will be those who say, "It hasn't erupted in my lifetime or my parents' lifetime or my grandparents' lifetime; therefore, it won't." You may have a surprise, for all things are changing. That is what is happening to Gaia. ….“

Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise released from Russian port

DutchNews.nl, Friday 06 June 2014

The Arctic Sunrise docked

at Murmansk. (NOS/AFP)

Environmental organisation Greenpeace was told on Friday that its ship Arctic Sunrise, which operates under the Dutch flag, can leave the Russian port of Murmansk.

The ship was seized last September and the 30 members of its crew were arrested on piracy charges following a protest at a Russian drilling rig in Arctic waters.

The crew were released in December.

A Greenpeace spokesman told news broadcaster Nos that he did not know why the Russians had chosen this moment to announce the surprise news that the ship is free to sail.

It is unlikely the Arctic Sunrise will return to the Netherlands immediately. After eight months in port, Greenpeace says it will need a thorough check to assess any damage and ensure it is seaworthy.

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Vast water store beneath Greenland's ice

Google – AFP, Richard Ingham (AFP), 22 December 2013

This NASA Earth Observatory image released May 3, 2012 shows a photo captured 

during an IceBridge flight, of a glacier in eastern Greenland flowing through a long and

narrow valley? carved by the movement of ice (NASA/AFP/File)

Paris — A vast store of water equivalent in area to Ireland lies beneath Greenland's icesheet, and it may provide answers to one of the big riddles of climate change, scientists reported on Sunday.

In 2011, US scientists crossed the southern Greenland icesheet on an expedition to drill ice cores, a benchmark of annual snowfall.

They were stunned when they drilled into a layer of compressed snow called firn -- for instead of piercing an icy sponge at a depth of 10 metres (33 feet) as expected, they encountered liquid water and ice granules instead.

They carried out another drilling a few kilometres (miles) away, and got the same result when they reached the firn layer at 25 metres (81 feet).

Seeking an answer to the liquid mystery, a NASA plane with terrain-mapping radar was brought in to fly over the zone, as well as ground-penetrating radar towed by a snowmobile.

Radar returned bright reflections pointing to the presence of a vast reservoir of water beneath the ice.

Extending down Greenland's southeastern flank, the hidden water covers a whopping 70,000 square kilometres, or 27,000 square miles. It is found at depths beneath the ice that range from five to 50 metres (16 to 160 feet).

World's biggest snow cone?

The store is believed to hold melted snow from the previous summer, according to the paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

It works similarly to an aquifer below the ground, which is a spongey rock that holds water in its air spaces.

In this case, the air spaces in the firn are occupied by water, resulting in something akin to the crushed-ice soft drink called a snow cone.

"The surprising fact is the juice in this snow cone never freezes, even in the dark Greenland winter," said Rick Forster, a professor of geography at the University of Utah, who led the mission.

"Large amounts of snow fall on the surface later in the summer and quickly insulates the water from the sub-freezing air temperatures above, allowing the water to persist all year long."

The secret store appears to have been around for some time and was not initiated by man-made global warming, the scientists believe.

But, they add, it could provide insights into the fate of the icesheet, a key question in climate science.

A mighty slab of ice averaging 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) in thickness, Greenland is suffering unprecedented melt as global warming accelerates.

In 2012, the icesheet lost a record 250 cubic kilometres (60 cubic miles) in volume, making it the biggest single contributor to the rise in world sea levels, said Forster.

If the icesheet completely melted, it would drive up sea levels by around seven metres (21 feet).

This is a doomsday scenario that most scientists discount, but even the loss of a large fraction would still drown vulnerable coastal cities.

The discovery of a year-round sub-glacial reservoir sweeps away computer simulations that have tried to calculate this runoff.

The simulations usually have water flowing into rivers, lakes or sub-glacial streams that eventually run into the sea, or else runs into the ice sheet through crevasses and gets frozen.

The next step is to determine whether the reservoir helps or hinders the survival of Greenland's icesheet.

"It might conserve the meltwater flow and thus help slow down the effects of climate change," said Forster.

"But it may also have the opposite effect, providing lubrication to moving glaciers and exacerbating ice velocity and (iceberg) calving, increasing the mass of ice loss to the global ocean."