Watching the gargantuan chunks of ice break off the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and thunder into an Arctic fjord is a spectacular sight. To Greenland's Inuit population, it is also deeply worrisome.
ILULISSAT, Greenland — Watching the gargantuan chunks of ice break off the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and thunder into an Arctic fjord is a spectacular sight.
To Greenland's Inuit population, it is also deeply worrisome. The frequency and size of the crumbling blocks are a powerful reminder that the ice sheet covering the world's largest island is thinning, which scientists say is one of the most glaring examples of global warming.
"In the past we could walk on the ice in the fjord between the icebergs for a six-month period during the winter, drill holes and fish," said Joern Kristensen, a local fisherman. "We can only do that for a month or two now. It has become more difficult to drive dogs sleds because the ice between the icebergs isn't solid anymore."
In 2002-2003, a 10-kilometer (six-mile) stretch of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier broke off and drifted silently out of the fjord near Ilulissat, Greenland's third largest town, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.
Although Greenland is the prime example, scientists say the effects of climate change are noticeable throughout the Arctic region, from the northward spread of spruce beetles in Canada to melting permafrost in Alaska and northern Russia.
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Indigenous people who for centuries have adapted their lives to the cold, fear that the changes, however small and gradual, could have a profound impact.
"We can see a trend that the fall is getting longer and wetter," said Lars-Anders Baer, a political leader for Sweden's indigenous Sami, a once-nomadic people with a long tradition of reindeer herding.
"If the climate gets warmer, it is probably bad for the reindeer. New species (of plants) come in and suffocate other plants that are the main food for the reindeer," he said.
Rising temperatures are also a concern in the Yamalo-Nenets region in Western Siberia, said Alexandr Navyukhov, 49. He is an ethnic nenet, a group that mostly lives off hunting, fishing and deer breeding.
"We now have breams in our river, which we didn't have in the past because that fish is typical for warmer regions," he said. "On the one hand it may look like good news, but breams are predatory fish that prey upon fish eggs, often of rare kinds of fish."
Melting permafrost has damaged hundreds of buildings, railway lines, airport runways and gas pipelines in Russia, according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a report commissioned by the Arctic Council and released in 2004.
Research has also shown that populations of turbot, Atlantic cod and snow crab are no longer found in some parts of the Bering Sea, an important fishing zone between Alaska and Russia, and that flooding along the Lena River, one of Siberia's biggest, has increased with warming temperatures.
In Greenland, Anthon Utuaq, a 68-year-old retired hunter, said he is worried a warmer climate will make it more difficult for his son to continue the family trade.
"Maybe it will be difficult for him to find the seals," Utuaq said, resting on a bench in the east coast town of Kulusuk. "They will head north to colder places if it gets warmer."
Arctic sea ice has decreased by approximately 8 percent, or nearly 1 million square kilometers (386,1000 square miles) over the past 30 years.
In Sisimiut, Greenland's second-largest town, lakes have doubled in size in the last decade.
"Greenland was perceived as this huge solid place that would never melt," said Robert Corell of the American Meteorological Society. "The evidence is now so strong that the scientific community is convinced that global warming is the cause."
Climate change has been a hotly discussed issue for decades, but efforts to fight it have moved slowly. There is not even unanimity on how much of the problem is a result of human activity, notably the burning of fossil fuels, and how much of it can be attributed to natural processes.
"We know that temperatures have gone up and it's partly caused by man. But let's hold our horses because it's not everywhere that the ice is melting. In the Antarctic, only 1 percent is melting," said Bjoern Lomborg, a Danish researcher who claims the threat of global warming has been exaggerated.
What is clear is that the average ocean temperature off Greenland's west coast has risen in recent years -- from 3.5 C (38.3 F) to 4.8 C (40.6 F) and glaciers have begun to retreat, said Carl Egede Boeggild, a glaciologist with Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, a government agency.
The Sermilik glacier in southern Greenland has retreated 11 kilometers (6.84 miles), and the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier near Ilulissat also is moving at a faster pace, said Henrik Hoejmark Thomsen of the geological survey.
In 1967, satellite imagery measured it moving at 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) per year. In 2003, it was twice that -- 13 kilometers (8.1 miles) per year.
"What exactly happened, we don't know but it appears to be the effect of climate change," said Hoejmark Thomsen.
Last month, U.S. scientists issued a report saying the rate of ice melting in the Arctic is increasing and within a century could lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a million years.
With warmer temperatures, some bacteria, plants and animals could disappear, while others will grow and thrive. Polar bears and other animals that depend on sea ice to breed and forage are at risk, scientists say. There are fears that polar bears and some seal species could face extinction in just decades because of global warming.
The thinning of the sea ice presents a danger to both humans and polar bears, said Peter Ewins, director of Arctic conservations for the World Wildlife Fund Canada.
"The polar bears need to be there to catch enough seals to see them through the summer in open warm water systems. Equally, the Inuit need to be out there on the ice catching seals and are less and less able to do that because the ice is more unstable, thinner," he said.
When NASA started taking satellite images of the Arctic region in the late 1970s and computer technology improved, scientists noted alarming patterns and theorized they were caused by the emission of so-called greenhouse gases, emitted by industries and internal combustion engines, that create a heat-trapping layer in the atmosphere.
Inuit leaders, like Sheila Watt-Cloutier whose efforts won her the 2005 Sophie environment prize in Norway earlier this year, are trying to draw attention to the impact of climate change and pollution on the traditional lifestyles of the Arctic's indigenous people.
"When I was a child, the weather used to be more stable, it worries me to see and hear all this," Greenland Premier Hans Enoksen said on the sidelines of an environmental officials' meeting in Ilulissat last month. The meeting ended with statements of concern, sincere calls for measure to address the problem -- and no action.
The Kyoto Protocol that took effect in February aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. But the 140 nations that have signed the pact don't include the United States, which produces one-quarter of the gases.
U.S. President George W. Bush's administration says participating in the pact would severely damage the U.S. economy. Many scientists say that position undermines the whole planet and they point to Greenland as the leading edge of what the globe could suffer.
"Greenland is the canary in a mine shaft alerting us," said Corell, the American meteorologist. "In the U.S., global warming is a tomorrow issue. ... For us working here, it hits you like a ton of bricks when you see it."
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AP writers Maria Danilova and Jim Heintz in Moscow, Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, and Beth Duff-Brown in Toronto contributed to this report.
Source: Associated Press
