Greenland’s Warming Paradox

Written by John O'Sullivan on March 15, 2025. Posted in Current News

For decades, we’ve been bombarded with catastrophic predictions from climate scientists, politicians, and activists.

The message has been consistent: even slight warming from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will trigger catastrophic melting of the Greenland ice sheet, drowning coastal cities and plunging the world into chaos.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), viewed by many as the gold standard of climate authority, consistently portrays Greenland as one of Earth’s most vulnerable regions to warming. We’re told repeatedly that Greenland’s ice loss directly and rapidly translates into catastrophic global sea-level rise.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth, one that climate alarmists conveniently overlook: Greenland has been dramatically warmer in the past, and yet sea levels were significantly lower than today. How can this possibly be true if our entire understanding of warming and sea-level rise is supposedly settled science?

The Holocene Contradiction

The Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM), around 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, provides a powerful historical reality check. During this period, Greenland was a staggering 4–8.5°C warmer than today, according to a comprehensive study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a journal I have also published in.

Yet, shockingly, global sea levels during this significantly warmer period were lower than today’s levels… a fact clearly demonstrated by Holocene sea-level reconstructions.

How can this be? If Greenland’s ice sheet truly responds dramatically to modest temperature increases, then temperatures 4-8.5°C warmer should have submerged substantial portions of coastal regions worldwide. Instead, the exact opposite happened: sea levels stabilized and remained relatively lower, even as temperatures surged.

A Smoking Gun Against Climate Alarmism?

The implications of this evidence go beyond mere scientific curiosity, they directly challenge the political and economic narratives driving climate policy. For decades, policymakers and climate activists have insisted that anthropogenic GHG emissions are the central driver of catastrophic warming.

Yet, the fact that significantly higher temperatures prevailed globally at pre-industrial CO₂ levels during the Holocene and that sea levels were stable or even lower, raises a critical question: Is the role of anthropogenic GHGs in modern warming as dominant as we’ve been told?

This isn’t just a minor scientific anomaly, it’s potentially a foundational flaw in climate alarmism. If the Greenland ice sheet survived much warmer temperatures without catastrophic sea-level rise, it suggests that current climate models, which forecast drastic sea-level increases even under moderate warming scenarios, may be fundamentally flawed.

Settled Science? Really?

We are constantly reminded by politicians, activists, and even some scientists that climate science is “settled.” Yet here is indisputable evidence that it’s anything but. When confronted with this contradiction, the scientific community remains disturbingly silent, allowing the media and policymakers to perpetuate narratives of doom.

This silence isn’t scientific rigor… it’s scientific negligence. The historical data from Greenland and the Holocene era demand an open, transparent debate. They require us to revisit the underlying assumptions that drive current climate models, rather than blindly accepting catastrophic predictions rooted in a shaky understanding of climate dynamics.

Confronting the Truth

The evidence is clear: our prevailing climate narrative, which insists that Greenland’s modest warming will lead to catastrophic flooding, simply does not align with Earth’s climate history. The Holocene Thermal Maximum shows that not only has Greenland been substantially warmer before, but those warmer conditions did not translate into significantly higher sea levels.

We must confront the uncomfortable truth: the link between Greenland warming and catastrophic sea-level rise has been exaggerated, distorted, or at the very least, misunderstood. It’s time for climate science, and the scientists who shape it, to acknowledge these contradictions openly.

Conclusion: The End of Settled Science

The contradictions presented by Greenland’s temperature history and Holocene sea-level data aren’t just intriguing, they might just be the smoking gun that blows the lid off climate alarmism. It’s time for scientists, policymakers, and the public to honestly reassess what we know and, more importantly, what we don’t know.

Because if Greenland was substantially warmer in the past without triggering catastrophic sea-level rise, perhaps continued warming won’t produce the dire consequences we’re constantly warned about. Perhaps the science, after all, is far from settled.

If the climate community values scientific integrity over political convenience, it’s time to speak out. If they don’t, we’re left wondering: Is this really about science at all?

Or is it about something else entirely?

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