A glaciologist is warning that the Greenland ice sheet is "retreating and thinning extensively" after a year of record-breaking high temperatures.
Dr Alun Hubbard on Aberystwyth University says its future is "grim" but disputes claims by other experts that it could collapse within 50 
years.
He maintains it would be at least 100 to 1,000 years before it "potentially passes any point of no return leading to any widespread collapse".
Dr Hubbard and his team have been analyzing the results of a summer-long expedition.
His team of 15 from Aberystwyth and Swansea universities spent five months on the ice sheet from the beginning of May.
The group camped about 70 miles (112km) up the sheet, and measured the thickness, speed, climate, and other vital statistics using radar, seismic and geophysical equipment.
They found rising temperatures had caused extensive melting in new upper parts of the ice sheet in this "very sensitive polar region of the 
planet".
Greenland climate in 2010 is marked by record-setting high air temperatures, ice loss by melting, and marine-terminating glacier area loss. Summer seasonal average (June-August) air temperatures around Greenland were 0.6 to 2.4°C above the 1971-2000 baseline and were highest in the west. A combination of a warm and dry 2009-2010 winter and the very warm summer resulted in the highest melt rate since at least 1958 and an area and duration of ice sheet melting that was above any previous year on record since at least 1978.
The largest recorded glacier area loss observed in Greenland occurred this summer at Petermann Glacier, where 290 
km2 of ice broke away. The rate of area loss in marine-terminating glaciers this year (419 km2) was 3.4 times that of the previous 8 years, when regular observations are available. There is now clear evidence that the ice area loss rate of the past decade (averaging 120 km2/year) is greater than loss rates pre-2000.
This has generated at least double the quantity of melt water, compared with 2009, which runs off the ice sheet into the Atlantic 
and Arctic oceans.
There are fears the melting of the entire sheet could raise sea levels globally by about 7m (20ft), and a study last year found it was losing its mass faster than in previous years.
Dr Hubbard said his expedition had proved enhanced melting was more than just replenishing the oceans, it was now "directly contributing to global sea-level rise".
He said global warming - at least local Greenland warming - was "worse than ever".
"This year was another record-breaking year marked by very warm temperatures across Greenland and the Arctic," he said.
"This warming enhanced and extended melting into new northern and upper parts of the ice sheet generating huge quantities - at least double that compared with the previous year - of melt water which runs off the ice sheet into the ocean."
Dr Hubbard has spent four years researching the effects of climate change on the country. He has also worked on other glaciers and spent five years working in Antarctica before the Greenland project started.
The team of scientists and students monitored the build up and drainage of a series of large melt lakes - up to five miles (8km) across - which form on the ice sheet surface during the summer and can drain rapidly to the bed through more than 1000m of ice.
He said the effect of this rapid drainage was to "lubricate and 
hydraulically lift up" the base of the ice sheet, "overcoming friction with underlying rock", thereby allowing the sheet to flow much faster.
"It's much like the ice is suddenly aquaplaning or slipping on a banana skin," he explained.
"What we observed using methods borrowed from earthquake 
monitoring, is that the ice sheet slides and accelerates massively when these lakes drain, but the effect is relatively short lived and that the flow does regulate as further melt water drains to the bed."
His work is part of a wider project involving researchers from Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.
Dr Hubbard and his team plan to return to the Greenland ice sheet 
next year to study the effect that reduced winter sea ice has on ice sheet flow and ice berg calving.
Funding for the research has come from the Natural Environment Research Council.
Source:
BBC News, "Greenland ice sheet future grim, says Aberystwyth study", accessed December 28, 2010
Three years after Russian divers thrust a rust-proof flag into the seabed below the North Pole, the country is again staking its claim on the Arctic region.
An international forum held in Moscow Wednesday aimed to "present the world community with a picture of the region's future as it is seen by the Russian experts," according to Sergei Shoigu, the President of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) who is also the country's Emergencies Minister.
The Arctic contains a vast wealth of untapped oil and natural gas, 
according to a report released in July 2010 by the U.S. Geological Survey.
It estimated that the amount of "undiscovered, technically recoverable" oil north of the Arctic Circle was more than double the amount that had been previously found in the Arctic. It added that the Arctic contained more than three times as much undiscovered gas as oil, most of which was in the Russian Arctic.
Russia has long sought to claim rights to the waters of the Arctic Ocean off Russia, including its much-publicized expedition to plant the Russian flag on the Arctic sea floor in August 2007.
On Wednesday, it announced plans to start work soon on a new atlas of the Arctic, a task Sergei Shoigu described as requiring "extensive, serious work."
He said it would include descriptions on potentially dangerous areas in the Arctic which may be of interest to companies working in the region.
Along with having the largest land mass in the Arctic, Russians account for half of the Arctic's population and the most populous towns above 
the Arctic Circle lie in Russia, according to the Russian Geographical Society.
"Russia is distinct from other Arctic nations in that a large share of its population actually lives in the Arctic region," Russian Presidential 
Advisor for Climate Alexander Bedritsky (left) told the Arctic Forum.
"Russia's Arctic sector, inhabited by 1.5 percent of the country's population, accounts for 11 percent of its GDP and 22 percent of its exports," Bedritsky said.
While Russia counts for the bulk of Arctic land, seven other states have land in Arctic territory: Canada, Denmark (Greenland), the United States (Alaska), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and 
Finland.
No single country owns the geographic North Pole or the Arctic Ocean, which covers around one third of the total area. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the eight states have jurisdiction over waters extending 12 nautical miles from their shore, and their exclusive economic zones stretch up to 200 nautical miles into the Arctic Ocean.
Russia is among a number of countries seeking to extend their jurisdiction by gathering scientific data to back their case for 
consideration by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Russia and Canada clashed as recently as last week over which country controls the Lomonosov Ridge (left), a mountain chain running underneath the Arctic.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian explorers had confirmed that the ridge was a continuation of Russia's continental shelf, despite Canada's claims otherwise.
"The decision should be based on scientific facts. The Commission will solve who is right," Lavrov (right) said, according to Russian news agency Itar-Tass News.
In August, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon (left) said establishing sovereignty in the Arctic 
was the country's "top foreign-policy priority."
"That is why we are making new and targeted investments, be they patrol ships, a new polar-class icebreaker, reinforcements to our Canadian Rangers, better monitoring of our airspace and seas and the list goes on," he said.
The melting of ice in the Arctic through climate change has opened up a region that was once inaccessible.
In mid-September, the U.S. National Ice and Snow Data Center at the 
University of Colorado reported that this summer the Arctic sea ice reached the third lowest level ever recorded.
"We are still looking at summers with an ice-free Arctic Ocean in perhaps 20 to 30 years," said Mark Serreze, University of Colorado geography professor and director of the NISDC.
Environmental group Greenpeace says Russia's decision to assemble 
international experts at a Moscow forum was a further attempt to stake its claim on the region's resources.
"The more people talk about it the better it is but I think the reality is that the gunfight has already started," said Charlie Kronick, the group's senior climate advisor.
He said rather than "chasing the last drop of oil" governments would do better to spend their time and money making greater efforts to curb energy demand.
"What we would say is 'don't even think about digging this stuff up -- it is crazy at the moment and the first thing we need to do is to reduce demand,'" he said.
He added: "However big the notional oil and gas reserves are up in the Arctic, we have already got more oil and gas than we can afford to burn if we don't want to cook the climate."
Source:
CNN, "Russia presents vision for Arctic wealth", accessed September 24, 2010
Protesters from environmental group Greenpeace boarded a drilling rig operated by UK oil explorer Cairn Energy on Monday to try to stall development of what the oil industry hopes will become a major new producing center.
Greenpeace said four expert climbers climbed aboard the Stena Don, a semi-submersible rig, which has been 
drilling the Alpha prospect in the Sigguk block, 175 km offshore Disko Island, West Greenland (right).
The Greenpeace activists suspended themselves in tents from the Stena Don rig 15m above the icy Arctic ocean said spokesman Ben Stewart, on Greenpeace ship the Esperanza.
The campaigners, who are protesting against the ''huge risks'' energy companies are taking with the environment by drilling for oil in deep Arctic water, say they have enough supplies to occupy the tents for several days.
Sim McKenna, from the US, who is one of the climbers, said: ''We've 
got to keep the energy companies out of the Arctic and kick our addiction to oil, that's why we're going to stop this rig from drilling for as long as we can.
''The BP Gulf oil disaster showed us it's time to go beyond oil."
Cairn has said Greenland could have billions of barrels of reserves but the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has raised fears about the risks of offshore drilling. Greenland's harsh climate and remoteness would make capping a leak and cleaning up spilled oil especially difficult should one occur.
Greenpeace's vessel Esperanza has been in the area for over a week planning activities to prevent Cairn from completing its objectives before the end of the narrow summer drilling season. The Esperanza set sail from London last month with a pledge to target what the environmental group described as one of the 10 most dangerous deep water drilling sites in the world.
Greenpeace said it wanted to highlight problems with oil that went "far beyond" the disaster at BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and pledged to confront the industry head-on over its "reckless" pursuit of oil.
The campaigners are concerned that a discovery of oil could prompt an oil rush by major companies in the Arctic, threatening the fragile environment of the region and providing a new source of a fossil fuel which contributes to climate change. In fact, Chervon and Exxon Mobil have already obtained exploration licenses.
The environmental group had targeted the Cairn exploration rig in the Arctic because the region "is really symbolic of the state of crisis the world is in", a spokeswoman for Greenpeace said.
"We're facing catastrophic climate change, yet the oil companies drill for the last drop of oil."
"It brings it all home to see tugs pulling icebergs away from the rig - it shows how far we've gone to keep our addiction to fossil fuels going." (Right)
The Greenpeace representative went on to say that the exploration of the virtually untouched region, where seals, 
humpback whales and sea lions could be seen, showed what was wrong with the oil industry and the world's addiction to oil.
She also said it highlighted the impact of fossil fuels on climate change, with Greenland glaciers melting and icebergs falling into the sea as a result of warming temperatures.
At the height of the BP oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, marine pollution experts warned the "nightmare" oil spill would be one that stemmed from drilling in the Arctic.
Marine scientists warned that, in an Arctic spill, oil would only evaporate and break down slowly and would affect the "albedo", or reflective (right), effect of the region which helps maintain its climate. This would speed up the melting of the polar ice.
Greenpeace activists board rig despite warship protection
Commandos from a Danish warship which has been trailing the 
Esperanza failed to stop campaigners from boarding the Stena Don rig, Greenpeace said.
"We caught them napping," Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said.
Greenland deputy police chief Nielsen said that police could have stopped the activists before they reached the rig, but chose not to 
intercept them because of the risks involved, both to the activists and police officers, in such cold waters.
He said the police were supported by the Danish navy but that maintaining law and order in the area was a police matter. Cairn declined comment.
Greenland police said that the activists remained suspended by their climbing gear below the rig in the late afternoon.
"Like any criminal, they can be expected to arrested and prosecuted," Morten Nielsen, deputy chief of police in Greenland, stated.
The Stena Don has been drilling the Alpha-1 well since late June. It was
expected to hit target depth in 55 days and Cairn investors are expecting to hear whether it has been successful in the coming weeks.
Edinburgh-based Cairn last week completed drilling of its nearby T8 prospect. Although the T8 well failed to hit oil, the company said the results proved the existence of a hydrocarbon formation.
The Stena Forth drill ship, which drilled the T8 prospect, is scheduled to commence drilling another prospect soon.
Greenpeace declined to say if it might try and disrupt that vessel's operations next.
Source:
Reuters, "Protesters board Cairn oil rig off Greenland", accessed September 2, 2010
The Telegraph, "Greenpeace claims to have shut down Greenland oil well", accessed September 2, 2010
When Cairn Energy, a British petrochemicals company, this week announced the first firm indication of worthwhile oil deposits off Greenland’s coast, inhabitants of Nuuk, the island’s gritty capital, greeted the news with their customary equanimity. “That’s nice,” said a housewife less interested in the implications of a possible oil bonanza than in negotiating her country’s sole pedestrian crossing in the sleeting rain.
Several hundred miles north in Baffin Bay, Greenpeace eco-warriors 
seeking to halt offshore oil exploration in the Arctic faced down a Danish warship. The government hotly contests Greenpeace’s claim that, because oil degrades far more slowly in freezing waters, a Mexican Gulf-style oil spill would mean calamity for the fragile environment. “Our safety standards are the highest in the world,” says Henrik Stendal, chief geologist at the Government Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum.
In recent months the bureau has run an extensive public-information program in Greenland, drawing full houses at meetings throughout the sprawling country. A plethora of newly enacted legislation is designed to avert offshore accidents and to prevent a small spill becoming a big catastrophe should something go wrong.
Most of Greenland’s 56,000 inhabitants seem persuaded. Despite the vulnerability of the country’s ice sheet to global warming, a recent Greenpeace meeting in Nuuk drew a paltry 45 people. Even this minimal interest in the environmentalists’ message could fall further as the implications of this week’s news start to sink in.
Greenland has been searching for the black stuff for decades. Five wells drilled in the 1970s turned out to be dry, as was a sixth in 2000. But this 
one looks like the game-changer. Cairn says it has found natural gas in thin sand layers in one of its test wells, indicating the presence of oil. Overall, it estimates that the acreage it is licensed to drill in holds 4 billion barrels of oil. Data from the United States Geological Survey suggest the seabed between Greenland and Canada holds a total of 17 billion barrels.
There may be further riches off the vast island’s eastern coast. According to some estimates the bedrock beneath the Greenland Sea could hold more oil than the North Sea, which has partially powered the British, Dutch and Norwegian economies for decades. This area will be opened for exploration in 2012.
Greenland’s exploration adventure does not stop there. Dozens of mining companies are trawling the narrow strip of land abutting its 44,087-kilometer coastline for diamonds, gold and rubies and possibly 
more exotic treasures.
Sniffing opportunity, even before the oil starts flowing and the rubies glisten, the world has started to arrive in Greenland. Australian and American accents are commonplace in Kangerlussuaq international airport. The restaurant at Nuuk’s only upmarket hotel has no difficulty attracting clients for its exclusive wagyu beef fillet.
It is impossible to estimate how much money this bounty could generate for Greenland’s cash-strapped government. But although the potential to transform the economy is obvious, there is no talk yet of using the proceeds to buy full independence from Denmark. 
Self-government became law only last year, and it will take decades to wean Greenland off its annual DKr3 billion ($500m) grant from Copenhagen—which accounts for over half of Greenland’s revenues.
As for the locals, having had their hopes raised and dashed so many times before, they are taking nothing for granted. “We won’t get rich overnight,” says Brian Juhl, a supermarket manager. “But perhaps in the future.”
Source:
The Economist, "Oil in Greenland: Black stuff in a green land", accessed August 26, 2010
Greenland has won back the right to hunt humpback whales for the first time in a quarter-century after it threatened to leave the world's top whaling body if other nations reject its ancestral traditions.
"We cannot wait any longer," Ane Hansen, Greenland's Minister for Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture, said just before the consensus vote by the 88 nations of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Morocco on Friday.
"Greenlanders are whale eaters but our subsistence needs have been cut 
down and cut down," Hansen said.
Greenland's Inuit hunted humpbacks for 4,000 years until Europeans killing the giant mammals for their oil pushed the animals to the brink of extinction in the last century.
The Inuit now hunt limited numbers of fin and bowhead whales for local consumption under controlled licenses. The government says the meat is sold in local open air markets and the proceeds distributed among the boat crews.
It says the revenue is vital to the population of the world's biggest island, 
which has few sources of income besides seafood exports and a subsidy from former colonizer Denmark and is blanketed in ice for most of the year.
Some IWC delegates said the argument that Greenlanders needs to hunt whales to survive was spurious as they enjoy one of the highest average household incomes in the world.
Whaling opponents say Greenland's whale hunt is big business, the meat sold in supermarkets for ten times the price in traditional markets and whale steaks served in luxury hotels.
"Greenland must withdraw its humpback quota request until it can demonstrate that all currently available whale meat is used to meet genuine subsistence needs," the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society said in a statement before the vote.
IWC scientists say that catching 9 humpback whales per year, as Greenland was allowed, would not affect a population that has recovered since a moratorium on commercial whaling began in 1986.
But some Latin American states objected to Greenland's request, saying their income from whale watching for tourists would suffer if fewer humpbacks return to their waters after their annual Arctic migration.
They also want pro-whaling nations to stop blocking a plan for a whaling-free zone in the south Atlantic.
Greenland's request went through thanks to a last-minute compromise proposal by the European Union to curb Greenland's quota for hunting fin whales.
Sources:
Reuters, "Greenland wins back right to kill humpback whales", accessed June 28, 2010
A glaciologist is warning that the Greenland ice sheet is "retreating and thinning extensively" after a year of record-breaking high temperatures.
years.
His team of 15 from Aberystwyth and Swansea universities spent five months on the ice sheet from the beginning of May.
planet".
km2 of ice broke away. The rate of area loss in marine-terminating glaciers this year (419 km2) was 3.4 times that of the previous 8 years, when regular observations are available. There is now clear evidence that the ice area loss rate of the past decade (averaging 120 km2/year) is greater than loss rates pre-2000.
and Arctic oceans.
He said global warming - at least local Greenland warming - was "worse than ever".
hydraulically lift up" the base of the ice sheet, "overcoming friction with underlying rock", thereby allowing the sheet to flow much faster.
monitoring, is that the ice sheet slides and accelerates massively when these lakes drain, but the effect is relatively short lived and that the flow does regulate as further melt water drains to the bed."
next year to study the effect that reduced winter sea ice has on ice sheet flow and ice berg calving.
