All that ice took water from the rest of the world. On the map, the sea level coloring of white indicates shallow water and very nicely corresponds with lands exposed back then because of lower sea levels. Notice that Florida was wider. A mail truck could probably drive from Washington through Cuba to Porta Rica to deliver welfare checks. Also imagine how many generations of people living in beachfront property were soon to complain about global warming taking their lands. France, England, Ireland were jointed with Norway. The North Sea and the Baltic Sea did not exist except as lakes. Nor did the Black Sea. The Black Sea area and the Caspian Sea were smaller freshwater lakes that rose and fell with cool-dry periods or warm-wet periods. The Black Sea was created about 5,600 BC when the rising Mediterranean spilled over the Bosporus. The dramatic event is recorded in the Flood myths of all ancient civilizations of that region because the Indo-European language originated is his area and spread both east and west. The Red Sea was much smaller, hence early man could move Out of Africa. The Persian Gulf did not exist,it was just the mouth of the Tigerous-Euphrate Creeks and did not impede early man's coastal journey Out of Africa to India. Indochina encompassed all of Indonesia almost to Australia. Only a straight separated Asia from the then larger contenent of New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania. Note that China, Korea, and Japan were one. Which explains a lot about language development in that region. The Sea of Japan was just a great lake of that region. The Sea of Okhotsk was a smaller inlet barely separating Russia from volcanic Kamchatka Peninsula, which in tern was connected to Alaska by a thousand miles wide, north to south, tundra then called Beringia, now known as the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
Reindeer peoples were pushed off Beringia when this thawed and one band continued east and then got smart and moved south between the two great ice sheets covering North America and prospered. So we are back where we started.
The world goes through cycles. The extreme alternatives are glacial ice covering half the world creating cold, dry conditions with land areas such that a person could walk from Spain to Ireland to Denmark to Alaska to Greenland, albeit on snow and ice covered land. The other alternative is warm, wet conditions where civilization prospers in bountiful conditions on slighly less land and with large lakes and seas.
This sort of makes it seem silly for a man to demand of the tribal chief that his coastal hut be rebuilt because it was destroyed by rising waters. As in history, the coastal peoples will have to relocate their villages further inland and the next generation must build their homes further inland again. And again ; until the snows come again, as they will eventually. Rather than giving people buckets with which to bale the rising waters out of New Orleans, we should be prepared for the peoples of Calcutta and Dhaka, hemmed to the lowland by the Himalayan Range, to be moved to a re-newly green Greenland. And, I hope the clever people of Holland are buying up land near Pella and Orange City. Those in Palm Beach should rebuild north of the skinny Orlando peninsula, because all south of there will become Gulf.
Conclusion: Global warming? Of course, and be glad of it. Man-made? Perhaps, in helping to speed up the inevitable cycle to the point where mother earth reacts with global cooling. If mankind disappeared today, the earth will still be warmer in one hundred years than it is today.
Definitions:MIT News Office
The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago -- and could be even worse than that.
Also recall, the answer is not carbor credits and punitive paper transactions, but to stop subsidized building on shorelines and to do other physical things like investing in solar power research so that people can afford to use it and will want to, not just trying to shame people into "green" behavior.
USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) -- 399 feet icebreaker is able to ram her way through ice up to 21 feet (6 m) thick and steam continuously through 6 feet (1.8 m) of ice at 3 knots. As of June 30, 2006, Polar Star has been placed in a caretaker status with a reduced crew of 34 for maintenance.
USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB-11) -- 399-foot Coast Guard icebreaker is capable of conducting a variety of missions and is designed to operate in both Polar Regions. The Polar Sea is capable of breaking up to 20 feet of ice. The Polar Sea was commissioned in 1978 and is a conventionally-powered heavy icebreaker with a crew of 143. First time the ship has operated north of the Arctic Circle in ten years was a three week patrol Nov-Dec'08.
USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) -- 420 feet comm. Aug 2000;. 76 crew plus 50 scientists. Designed to break 4.5 feet of ice continuously at three knots, maximum 8 feet. Newest, used for Antarctic science. All three (2) US heavy icebreakers are home ported in Seattle, Washington.
USCGC also has six light icebreakers for Great Lakes and harbors.
Three cruise ships came through the Northwest Passage last summer without advance notice of arrival. Barrow, Alaska, was genuinely surprised to have 400 German-speaking tourists descend on them with no notice.
Coast Guard has no capabilities north of the port of Nome to handle tourist ship sinking, tankers frozen in ice and splitting open, or tank farms eroding into the sea. In 2007 air patrols began with C-130 Hercules -- learned they had to heat their fuel tanks because jet fuel gelled. Pretty amiture.
National policy of how to balance reasonable development with protection of the environments is not a Coast Guard decision. Once a decision is made the Coast Guard's obligation is to provide maritime safety and security for that decision.
Arctic Slope is the name of the most northern region. It contains seven tribal villages coordinated with the Artic Slope Native Association with a population 5.453 in 2000. [One ward in Marshalltown.] All are in coastal villages except Atkasook.