Greenland

Greenland’s Rock Flour

/ Organikos / Leave a comment

Guardian graphic. Source: Guardian research

Damian Carrington, Environment editor at the Guardian, shares these findings:

Eight-thousand-year-old marine deposits, exposed by the slow rise of Greenland after the last ice age. The cliffs are about 15 metres high. Photograph: Minik Rosing

Rock ‘flour’ from Greenland can capture significant CO2, study shows

Powder produced by ice sheets could be used to help tackle climate crisis when spread on farm fields

Rock “flour” produced by the grinding under Greenland’s glaciers can trap climate-heating carbon dioxide when spread on farm fields, research has shown for the first time.

Natural chemical reactions break down the rock powder and lead to CO2 from the air being fixed in new carbonate minerals. Continue reading →

Not So Happy Earth Day

/ Organikos / Leave a comment

Over the past three decades, the rate of ice loss from Greenland has increased sevenfold. Photograph by Kerem Yücel / AFP / Getty

On yet another Earth Day, whatever those two words mean together in tandem these days, a message from a reliable source:

It’s Earth Day—and the News Isn’t Good

New reports show that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than anticipated, and other disasters loom.

The Greenland ice sheet is, quite literally, a relic of the last ice age. It consists of snow that fell year after year, century after century, and never melted; at the very bottom, there are flakes that fell more than a hundred thousand years ago. Continue reading →

Brilliance Up North

/ Organikos / Leave a comment

Ilulissat’s icy fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is one of Greenland’s main tourist destinations even though its airport is currently too small to accommodate large jets. Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times

Setting limits at the outset, what a brilliant idea:

The Arctic island, renowned for its glaciers and fjords, is expanding airports and hotels to energize its economy, even as it tries to avoid the pitfalls of overtourism.

A sauna with a view of Nuuk and, at left, in the distance, the nearly 4,000-foot mountain Sermitsiaq. Inuk Travel

“The weather decides”: It could almost be the motto of Greenland. Visitors drawn to this North Atlantic island to see its powder blue glaciers, iceberg-clogged fjords and breathtakingly stark landscapes quickly learn to respect the elements, and they’re sometimes rewarded for it.

One cold December day, I was waiting for a delayed flight in Kangerlussuaq, a former U.S. military base just above the Arctic Circle, when a friendly Air Greenland pilot named Stale asked if I’d like to join him on a drive to the harbor to “pick up some musk ox heads.” The offer seemed very Greenlandic, so how could I refuse? Continue reading →

Greenland Ends Drilling For Oil

/ Organikos / Leave a comment

Icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland. Climate change is having a profound effect in Greenland with glaciers and the Greenland ice cap retreating. Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto / Getty Images

Thanks to Ecowatch for publishing this story by Andrea Germanos:

‘Future Belongs to Renewable Energy’: Greenland Ditches All Oil Drilling

Greenland announced Thursday a halt on new oil and gas exploration, citing climate and other environmental impacts.

“Great news!” responded the Center for International Environmental Law.

The government of Greenland, an autonomous Danish dependent territory, framed the move as necessary to transition away from fossil fuels. Continue reading →

Ice Melt, Harbinger Of Accelerated Melting

/ Crist Inman / Leave a comment
161024_r28885-690x448-1476393905

When water accumulates on the surface of an ice sheet, more sunlight gets absorbed, which results in more melt, in a cycle that builds on itself. This year’s melt season began so early that many scientists couldn’t believe the data they were seeing. PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL BELTRÁ

Elizabeth Kolbert has appeared in these pages about as frequently as any other individual we admire (McKibben, an activist and a writer, wins the race with a few more posts pointing his way), or any other topic (take your pick between libraries, entrepreneurial conservation or a few others that nudge past EK in the same race) we care deeply about. She is an activist through her writing, advocating on behalf of our better understanding of the challenges facing the next generations. Epochal challenges that we have some ability to influence the outcome of. So, when she delivers biblical proportions of reporting, we read every word and pass it on:

GREENLAND IS MELTING

The shrinking of the country’s ice sheet is triggering feedback loops that accelerate the global crisis. The floodgates may already be open.

By

Not long ago, I attended a memorial service on top of the Greenland ice sheet for a man I did not know. The service was an intimate affair, with only four people present. I worried that I might be regarded as an interloper and thought about stepping away. But I was clipped onto a rope, and, in any case, I wanted to be there. Continue reading →