Mark Twain once said, "Get your facts first, then distort them as much as you please." By contrast, he also exclaimed, "How empty is theory in the presence of fact!" This pretty well covers the recent controversy over the altered global temperature data from Dr. Jones at East Anglia University in Great Britain.
What are the facts? Well for starters, scientists at the Smithsonian Institution tell us that during what is known as the Medieval Optimum, the Vikings were growing grapes in Greenland. An agronomist at Virginia Tech suggest that if you are planning to start a vineyard, the roots of the vines cannot be exposed to temperatures below 25oF or the vine will die. Even though there were no thermometers at the time of Eric the Red, this gives us a benchmark for reference. There are no vineyards in Greenland today because it is too cold. In fact, the Smithsonian reports that there is evidence which supports the theory that the Viking colonies later collapsed as a result of a dramatically cooling climate. Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment