Editor, Gazette-Journal:

In a letter to the editor a few weeks ago, Tim Sadler of Cobbs Creek mentioned the fact that Greenland was once green. The purpose of this letter is to concur with that, and add a few specifics. The various temperature changes I mention have been verified by climatologists using ice core sample and oxygen isotopes taken along the west coast of Greenland facing the Davis Straits that separate Greenland from Canada.

The years 650-950 AD are known as the Dark Ages Cool Period and the Earth’s temperature was much cooler than today. Around 950 AD, however, the Earth started to warm and by around 1200 AD the temperatures were warmer than they are today. There was consequently no ice in the Davis Straits and the Vikings had established two colonies on the Davis Straits and were trading with Iceland and Europe by sea. At the same time, historical records in Europe show that the warming had enabled Northern Europe to grow much more food than was previously the n...