An up-close view of the effects of climate change
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Deep in Uummannaq fjord, on the central west coast of Greenland, the silence is palpable, singing in ears that strain for sound and find none. There are no trees to sigh in the wind, and usually no wind in this land of 3,000-foot cliffs.
The only sounds come from ice.
Huge white sculptures, bigger than a suburban house, birthed by a nearby glacier, have floated into the steep-sided fjord where our group of 10 kayakers has pitched tents on the arctic heath. Dramatic gunshots and thunder bounce off steep rock walls as gases trapped thousands of years ago expand with warmth and crack the icebergs.
Every few minutes, we look up to see a chunk of ice cascading into the sea, creating a wave that would be dangerous to a nearby kayaker. Air pockets in the broken, bergy bits tinkle and fizz, while the remaining berg sways slowly into its new equilibrium.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
We paddle our kayaks near as we dare. Dripping from the melting bergs sounds like rain.
Standing beside the largest glacier outside of Antarctica, the Ilulissat, a river of ice four miles wide, the sound of running water under the ice is soft but ominous. Ice is melting more quickly now and forming lakes on the ice cap. They drain through fissures to the bedrock, lubricating the faster flow of glaciers to the sea.
On the cover of its June 2010 issue, National Geographic called Greenland the "Ground Zero" of global warming. The acceleration of melting of the huge icecap has more than doubled from 2002 to 2009.
While National Geographic reports that some Greenlanders welcome the warming, the fishing town of Ummannaq (our base of operations), which ships thousands of tons of halibut per year, is dismayed that the ice is so thin that winter fishing from dog sleds is drastically curtailed.
Our kayaking trip, led by Steve Piragis of Ely, is an adventure. The weather is mostly sunny (24 hours per day of sun at more than 300 miles above the Arctic Circle), and in the 60s for highs, high 40s for lows.
Camping is pleasant in terrain much like that above the timberline in the Rockies: no trees, bright flowers, lichen and ground cover underfoot, lots of rocks. It must have been like this in Minnesota just after the glaciers retreated. We hike and kayak in a stark and magnificent landscape, with views of nearby glaciers launching icebergs on their journey to the sea.
As we paddle past the towering icebergs, their reflection mirrored by a calm sea, a clearly audible whooshing sound from miles away tells us that a fin whale, the second-largest being on the planet, is nearby. We are content that we have to use binoculars to get a good look.
Global warming is real in Greenland. You can hear it. You can see the shrinking glaciers, and the melt water atop the massive ice cap, and you know that as it melts the seas will rise, with disastrous consequence.
Drip, drip, drip.
---
Chuck Dayton left private law practice to work for the fledgling Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) and went on to form the first environmental law firm in the state. Now retired, Dayton still works on environmental issues.
He wrote this article for Conservation Minnesota, which describes its mission as "to turn our shared conservation values into state priorities and provide you with the information you need to make decisions for your family, community and future."
