Curiously Polar

The history of Greenland is interwoven with change. Always dependent on weather and climate, Greenland seems not to offer much to its settlers. And yet, over the centuries, people have settled in the thin coastal strip of Greenland. Little is known about the settlement flows of the Inuit, which originated from North America. But scientists manage to put together the puzzle from many individual finds. Today we know about trade between Norse settlers and Inuit. We know that the Vikings at some point just disappeared from Greenland. And we know the colonization history of Greenland, which is closely linked to the colonial power of Denmark. But what impact does this have on the current Greenlandic Inuit culture and will it experience a similar fate as the earlier cultures and simply become extinct over time?

After tormenting Europe for weeks, this year's heatwave is melting Greenland’s ice sheet at an unprecedented rate. As air temperatures over the ice rise, over half of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet had softened to slush. The result of this brutal setup is a summer melt season so intense that it’s on track to tie or break the record for the most water loss ever recorded. End of July, scientists recorded temperatures above 0°C at Greenland’s summit at over 3.000m altitude. This is only the third time temperatures have been recorded above freezing, but the second time this summer. These unusually high temperatures are accelerating ice loss from Greenland's Ice Sheet, which covers 80% of the island. By end of July, the area of the Greenland ice sheet showing indications of melt hit a record 56.5 per cent. On August 1st, thanks to 22°C, 12 billions tons of ice melted in just 24 hours, some 217 billion tons melted in the month of July, accumulating to an estimated 248 billion tons that have been lost so far this year, just on track of 2012’s record loss of 250 billion tons. The problem of melting polar ice creates a nasty positive feedback loop that meddles with the planet’s ability to cool off. Since ice is reflective, it does a good job at bouncing solar radiation back into space. However, with less ice, more of this heat energy is soaked up by the Earth and becomes trapped in the atmosphere.

Not only increasing tourism, but also more extreme fishing trips are putting rescue workers and the local infrastructure in the Arctic more and more to the test. We talk to Irene Kastner, a local from Longyearbyen, about her experiences in local Search & Rescue teams and also talk about the trawler “Northguider”, who ran aground in Hinlopen Strait in December 2018.

As The New Yorker puts it: “Greenland sharks are among nature’s least elegant inventions. Lumpish, with stunted pectoral fins that they use for ponderously slow swimming in cold and dark Arctic waters, they have blunt snouts and gaping mouths that give them an unfortunate, dull-witted appearance.” And they can get incredibly old. Despite its poisonous meat, in Iceland Hákarl is even considered a local delicacy.

Thinking about the Arctic, we usually have ice in our minds. But fires have been part of the regular summer program in the Arctic tundra for years. However, this year puts everything in the shade. Along with record temperatures, there is a devastating picture of large-scale circumpolar fires around the globe. And while Western media describe unprecedented fires in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Scandinavia in particular, fires larger by far in Arctic Russia are hardly noticed. It took weeks for the Russian government to declare a state of emergency for the affected areas. The development can hardly be stopped now, since the greenhouse gases contained in the thawing soil of the tundra further fuel the fires and escape into the atmosphere, making more such mega blazes likely in the coming years through a so called positive feedback loop.

The Icelandic glacier Ok gained notoriety since a plaque on its foot indicates that the glacier has lost its status as such years ago. The badge is designed to raise awareness of the melting ice masses. The Zurich based glaciologist Jochem Braakhekke has created the project Recognice to bridge the gap of raising awareness of our beautiful cryosphere and the scientific community by inviting ordinary citizens to upload their vacation pictures of frozen water in any form into the database of recognice.org and share it with the scientists who can later use it for their research.

It seems that sea ice in the Barents Sea has been back to normal this winter. But appearances are deceptive. The southern extent of the sea ice towards Svalbard this summer indicates that multi-year ice has drifted from its regular northern position to much warmer southern latitudes around Svalbard were it has no chance to mature but eventually will melt quickly.

The Arctic is usually associated with eternal silence, permafrost, and infinite snow-covered flat expanses. In reality, its diverse landscape includes deserts, rivers, hills, mountains and even volcanos. Although relatively scarce, volcanos are truly unique. Research expeditions from various countries have uncovered much about these volcanic systems, but they hold many more secrets that are yet to be found. The most recent discovery dates back to the year 2008 and unveiled a previously uncharted underwater volcanic range near Svalbard.

The largest ship ever to fly an American flag, the SS Manhattan busted its way north in search of heavy ice for a commercial route to move the recently discovered North Slope oil away from Prudhoe Bay in superships even larger than the Manhattan.

With the continued melting of Arctic sea ice and the further opening of the Arctic Ocean to maritime traffic, cruise ship tourism is the latest economic sector forecasted to experience a boom in the region over the coming years. Cruise ship operators around the world are adding to their existing fleets of ice-capable expedition cruise ships.