Greenland is the world’s largest island, part of the Kingdom of Denmark (along with the Faroe Islands), though part of the North American continental plate, at the boundary between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. It was settled before 1300 CE by Inuit migrating from the west, and from CE 986 on by colonists largely from Norway and Iceland (and the sagas of the Icelanders are some of the most fascinating reading you will ever do—please, treat yourself to a copy and enjoy!). It ranges in latitude between 59° and 83° N, has an area of 2,166,086 sq km/836,330 sq mi, and a population of slightly over 56,000, of which nearly 90% are Inuit and roughly 7.5% are of Danish descent.
Political map, polar projection.
81% (1,755,637 sq km/677,854 sq mi) of the island is covered with ice. The narrow coastal zones free of the ice cap are classified as arctic tundra, though due to the proximity of the North Atlantic current (the northern extension of the current which begins as the Gulf Stream), the climate is relatively mild for its latitude, averaging -9°C/16°F at Nuuk, the capital. Temperatures on the ice cap average well below freezing.
The ice cap is up to 3 km/1.9 mi thick, with enough mass that projections, were all ice to melt, show a shallow inland sea, a depression most likely due to the island’s subsidence beneath the weight of the ice (similar to the projected archipelago of western Antarctica, some of which at least would rebound on removal of the overlying ice). Ice melt has accelerated in recent years, with many evidence streams, including satellite altimetry, measurement of glacial borders, and measurements of melt water flow rate, all agreeing that ice is being lost, as much as 250 billion tons per year in the last decade. Enough ice has melted from Greenland since 1992 to raise the global ocean level by 1.06 cm.
Nuuk, capital city.
Tomorrow: glacier monitoring in Greenland.
Be brave, and be well.
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