A Wonder Of
The World Melting Away
By Caren Bohan
23 August, 2005
Reuters
The
Ilulissat glacier in Greenland, a UN heritage site considered one of
the wonders of the world, has shrunk by over 10 kilometers in just a
few years, in one of the most alarming examples of global warming in
the Arctic region.
"We are witnesses
to one of the most striking examples of climate change in the Arctic,"
US expert Robert Corell said during a recent helicopter flight over
the glacier.
The lower extremity
of the glacier "has receded by more than 10 kilometers (six miles)
in two or three years after having been relatively stable since the
1960s," he said.
Corell was in charge
of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a 1,400-page report written
by more than 250 scientists and published in November 2004 which sounded
alarm bells for the region.
The report warned
that less than a century from now, the Arctic ice could melt completely
during the summer, threatening many species and the lifestyle of the
indigenous Inuit population.
Corell, a senior
fellow with the American Meteorological Society in Washington D.C.,
took 22 environment ministers and other officials from around the world,
meeting in Ilulissat last week for a conference on global warming, on
a tour of the glacier to see the effects first-hand.
"We can't find
any more concrete example of Arctic warming, which is twice as fast
as in any other part of the world," Corell told AFP.
He said the glacier
shrank by seven kilometers (4.3 miles) in a 12-month period from 2002
to 2003.
"The glacier
front is calving (scientific term meaning to release) huge ice rocks
and moving 35 meters (yards) per day or around 13 kilometers (eight
miles) a year, and discharging icebergs in the sea," he said.
"When a glacier
recedes, it means that it is diminishing, which is an obvious sign of
global warming," Corell said.
The drastic effects
of climate change on the glacier have also been studied by Jason Box,
a professor with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University
in the United States.
He recently led
a research project on the glacier financed by US space agency NASA,
with logistical support from environmental group Greenpeace.
His team used a
small inflatable boat outfitted with special equipment to measure the
depth of the ice cap's lakes, and found that water production had increased
by 30 percent in just 17 years.
"We've observed
an increase in the melt rates in recent years, consistent with warming
observed at coastal weather stations," he said in a Greenpeace
video report from the area.
The environmental
group sent its vessel Arctic Sunrise to Greenland for two months this
summer to raise awareness about global warming, with the final days
of the campaign taking place in the Ilulissat fjord.
"More water
is moving through the Greenland ice sheet system and there appears to
be a link between more abundant melt water and the observed increase
in ice flow acceleration," Box said.
The volume of water
in the inland ice is important because it affects the speed with which
the icebergs travel to the sea, and thereby affects the water level
of the world's oceans.
"It's not a
tomorrow issue, but a today issue," Corell told the 22 ministers.
"There is no
time to lose. Urgent action must be taken to respond to this problem,"
Martina Krueger, the head of the Greenpeace expedition to Greenland
told AFP.
If global warming
continues the way experts fear it will, Greenland's ice cap could melt
within a few hundred years, raising the water level of the world's oceans
by six to seven meters (20 to 23 feet).
That would threaten
the lives of the more than 1.2 billion people who live within 30 kilometers
(20 miles) of ocean shorelines.
© 2005 Reuters