Did Scientists Predict in 1922 that Global Warming Would Make Coastal Cities Uninhabitable?

In a video promoted by both Heartland and Climate Realism that has been circulating on social media, YouTube and blogs for since at least 2022, two people (the top person is Stanley Goldenberg, and the bottom person is Dr. Richard Keen) discuss an AMS Monthly Weather Review report describing the warming of the Arctic Ocean. After reading some language from the report describing large and dramatic climatic changes in recent years he says, "it goes on and on" and then quotes it saying, "Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coast cities uninhabitable." Then comes the big reveal - this report was written in 1922. So dire predictions stemming from climate alarmism have been around for over a century. Who knew? The short answer to that question is, apparently nobody in 1922.
It turns out that these two people were not reading from an AMS Monthly Weather Review report. They were in fact reading from a Washington Post Article that summarized portions of that report. Contrarians have been discussing this article since 2007 or so, according to RealClimate, and an AFP fact check tracked down the WaPo article, and guess what? The dire prediction that most coastal cities would become uninhabitable is completely missing from the news article.  And of course, without that concluding sentence, it's just a news article with observations of climate changes in one region of the Arctic Ocean. The language here may be a little sensational, but there's nothing that qualifies as alarmism, and there are no predictions here whatsoever.
WaPo Article Found by AFP

Well, maybe these two had tracked down the original AMS monthly weather report and found such a dire prediction there. But it turns out we can find that report here. The monthly report does not contain anything resembling the dire prediction that these two people claim to have read from it. In fact, the report says quite the opposite: "The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time."

So it turns out these two people just fabricated that this dire prediction was in anything printed in 1922. The fabricated sentence appears to have been circulated in contrarian emails about the 1922 article dating back to around 2010 (according to RealClimate). Nobody in 1922 associated with the AMS report or the WaPo article predicted that "within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coast cities uninhabitable." In fact, the AMS viewed the dramatic changes as "favorable ice conditions" that could continue for some time. It's true they documented the disappearance of white fish, but they were replaced with herring: "with the disappearance of white fish and seal has come other life in these waters. This year herring in great shoals were found along the west coast of Spitzbergen, all the way from the fry to the veritable great herring." RealClimate posted a graph showing the rapid decline in sea ice leading up to 1922 compared to recent decades, and it was not comparable to declines since about 1960 or so.
So it appears that despite assurances that "this is real, this is not urban legend... this has really happened, it was really reported," contrarian groups like Heartland and Climate Realism have been promoting fabricated lies about what was written in 1922. Heartland even put this video short onto YouTube with the title, "Did you know? In 1922, scientists warned the Arctic was melting and cities would soon be underwater!" They literally gave the video short a title that changed the fabricated prediction that cities would be "uninhabitable" within a few years to "soon be under water."

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