Is The Greenland Ice Cap Melting?

From Grassfire.org:

Central to the claims of those who say global warming is an imminent threat to our world, is the idea that the Greenland ice cap is melting and will cause a devastating rise in the sea level. Half of Florida will be under water, for example.


But is it true? Is the Greenland ice cap melting in an unusual way and does it pose a threat? Steve Elliot of Grassfire.org recently interviewed a key Congressional staffer who took part in an official fact finding trip to Greenland last month.

Click on the player to listen to Steve's interview:

For those of you with bandwidth problems, let me summarize...

An interview with Mark Morano, Communications Director for Senator Inhofe's staff on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Mark took a trip recently to Greenland on a fact-finding tour with 10 U.S. Senators and their staffs. They were accompanied by a U.N. scientist and a Danish government official approved by the Democratic majority. They were shown a typical summer melt of the glaciers in Greenland, and that would have been the end of the trip. The scientists said how bad it was, and if all of Greenland melted, half of Florida would be underwater.

According to Mark, these are just "wild speculations" not endorsed by the peer reviewed scientific community. Mark was armed with the latest scientific peer reviews and challenged the U.N. scientist and Danish official. According to Mark, nothing unusual is going on in Greenland. Mark explained that one recent study used a 2-year set of sampling data which showed "alarming melting" and then that data was extrapolated to show disastrous predictions. But, according to Mark, that recent melting trend has already reversed itself and the ice cap in central Greenland is in fact growing.

Mark said that Greenland started melting in the 1880s, long before major CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Factoid: 80% of human-caused CO2 emissions came after 1940. However, in the second half of the 20th century, Greenland's average temperatures were actually lower than the first half of the century. Greenland's temperatures were higher in the 1920s-1940s than they are today. According to a study that came out this year, Greenland's ice sheet is far more stable than anyone thought. Greenland's ice sheet has survived previous warm periods, including the Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures were higher than they are today.

Mark got the U.N. scientist to admit that Greenland is currently within natural climate variability. Greenland's current melting is not contributing to sea level rise. Antarctica's ice cap is in fact increasing which compensates for Arctic and Greenland melting. Computer models are often inaccurate. The U.N. scientist in charge of global warming research came out in June of this year and said that current global warming models do not account for half of the variables and are not very reliable. The U.N. and New York Times have both reported that nothing which is occurring on the earth today is outside of natural climate variability, including droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc.

According to Mark (paraphrased), "Al Gore is correct when he says that if Greenland melts sea level will rise 20 feet, but that's like saying that if a family goes on vacation and their car crosses the white line in front of an oncoming truck that everyone will die. It may be a true statement, but what is the liklihood of it actually happening? Not very likely at all."