World Weather, Climate, and Society Projects |
Nuuk, Greenland Zach Manke, Jeanette Richelson, Jonah Waxman W e made this Greenland website to give everyone a taste of the history, climate, and culture of the largest island in the world, which holds the lion’s share of the Northern hemisphere’s ice! Historically, Greenland has been directly influenced by its climate change, experiencing the most recent cooling trend in the late 19 th century, commonly known as the “Little Ice Age.” Humans, ecosystem, and plant and animal biodiversity have adapted incredibly well to the cold and windy weather of Greenland. From agriculture to infrastructure, this island is certainly a climate based existence. Currently, the country suffers from regional air pollution from a warming Northern Hemisphere, heated by fossil fueled CO2 emissions. However, a cooling in Greenland could be a sign of another Ice Age, brought about by changing solar cycles. Authors include Jonah Waxman, Zach Manke, and Jeanette Richelson We would like to thank Gerrit Lansing for putting our work into website format! We would most like to thank our Professor, James Fleming, for sharing with us his knowledge on weather, climate, and society! Summary of Observations A Climate-Based Existence Anyone who can locate Greenland on a world map knows that the world’s largest island is not a sunny tropical paradise. Greenland is a place of climactic extremes, lying mostly within the Arctic Circle, where dog sleds are preferable to cars for out-of-town transportation. Residents of Greenland can by no means ignore the weather. Climate has played a leading role in Greenland’s history and even today plays a large part in any Greenlander’s existence. It is responsible not only for the state of their economy, but also for the limits that exist on their infrastructure today. In short, Greenland is a society that has been forced to accommodate its climate and which has a great deal at stake regarding the peculiarities of the same. European colonization of Greenland has over the past thousand years has been inconsistent, and the wellbeing of its residents has been directly linked to the climate. The Old Norse Greenlanders, who arrived around AD 950, came during a period of unusual warmth(Lamb, 175). Having the luxury of living in a Greenland that was actually green, the Norse raised crops and livestock in ground that today is permanently frozen. The mistake the Norse settlers made was to assume that Greenland’s climate, which had been suitable for their way of life for more than two centuries, would remain so, and ultimately it was a shift in climate that resulted in their demise. Starting about half way through the 13 th century, a cooling trend developed, and by 1369, regular communication between Greenland and the rest of Europe ceased due to ice sheets encroaching on the shipping routes that took vessels past Greenland (Lamb, 187). It was around this time that the more northern of the two Norse settlements was wiped out by either disease or conflict (Lamb, 187). The larger and more southerly settlement survived until around 1500, although the decline of this settlement is evident from the fact that the average stature of an adult male settler dropped from five feet ten inches during the early period of the settlement to five feet five inches during the later years (Lamb, 187). This was likely due to cooler weather progressively limiting what was agriculturally viable. Today, Greenlanders are still very vulnerable to their climate, although the vulnerability is not one of personal survival, but of economic wellbeing. Greenland’s economy relies primarily on fishing and tourism(CIA factbook), two industries which could be devastated by a cooling trend. Were ice sheets again to clog sea routes to and from Greenland, the fishing industry would be devastated, as any commercial fishing operation relies on a large expanse of open water, as well as a means to return to port with its catch. Ice encroachment would also limit the ability of ships to import necessary commodities like food and heating oil, and could create a situation where living on Greenland would be not only prohibitively expensive but economically pointless. Greenland’s tourism industry relies on the natural beauty of the island, not a wide variety of indoor activities. Today it is already severely limited by a short season of around three months. This is the only period of the year during which Greenland can be explored in relative comfort. The rest of the year is so bitterly cold as to prevent any significant tourism (Lonely Planet). Again, if Greenland were to become significantly colder, it would probably have much the same tourism prospects as Antarctica. However, warming could also devastate Greenland’s second largest industry, as much of Greenland’s tourist appeal is that of a frigid northern frontier (Lonely Planet).
The use of dog sleds for overland transportation is legal within the Arctic Circle, and allows one to transit terrain that would be unsuitable for any car, though automobiles do remain useful for in-town transportation (Lonely Planet). Greenland’s national airline also overflies the ice into many of the country’s fourteen airports, though inclement weather frequently causes delays (Lonely Planet). Greenland’s telecommunications infrastructure also must cope with a climate that is inhospitable to building connective infrastructure. Because of this, and the relatively long distance between any two given settlements, most of Greenland’s telecommunication infrastructure is either satellite or microwave radio based (CIA Factbook). Weather and climate in general has a large effect on the daily existence of every person in the world. If it rains, a baseball game is cancelled. If it snows, a road trip becomes treacherous. A heat wave will drive people to air conditioning, while a cold snap pits weather against technology in starting one’s car in the morning. Weather can impact our ability to go about business as usual, but it can also dictate constitutes business as usual. In Greenland, business as usual is fishing and tourism, as the climate is warm enough to prevent the seas from freezing over but cool enough to maintain Greenland’s image as a frigid tourist destination. Greenland is an extreme case in that Greenlanders have been forced to adapt to a harsh climate that limits industrial potentials and the means for getting from place to place. However, climate has a great deal of control over all societies, and this control is often unacknowledged because the consequences of climate are so well known and accepted. The southern US has no alpine skiing because it has no snow. This affects what industry can come to a given area as well as what people can do with their spare time. Houses built on the shore are often built on stilts and cannot obtain flood insurance because of the possibility of a hurricane, leaving homeowners especially vulnerable to a catastrophic loss. Greenland is vulnerable to its climate, and continues to exist at its whim. Yet, this is true for all societies. New York City continues to be habitable only because ice caps contain the fresh water that would otherwise significantly raise the sea level. Greenland is a society that relies on a very delicate balance of weather factors to remain viable. The balance is maybe less precarious for many other parts of the world, but a change in the status quo of the climate always has the possibility to upset society on a biblical scale. Advanced as humans are as a species, we have not by any means developed to the point where we can force the climate to accommodate us. Works Cited Climate’s Effect on Clothing [1] Clothing from East Greenland: The Development of Polar Clothing http://www.rmv.nl/publicaties/2groenland/e/pub_bot.html Pollution and Culture in Greenland Greenland is contaminated with considerable amounts of pollution, caused by large-scale atmospheric circulations, especially in winter. The pollutants in the Arctic are primarily sulfur, which is highly acidic, in both gas and aerosol form. Most of these pollutants are from anthropogenic sources deriving mainly from industrialized areas in the Eurasian continent. In addition to threatening environmental stability, pollution is speeding the unraveling of traditional Inuit culture in Greenland. Climate change is affecting the entire world, yet Greenland is especially sensitive to slight fluctuations due to its dependency of the natives’ traditional lifestyles on the environment. Melting ice and permafrost restrict access to hunting grounds making a traditional way of life consisting of hunting seal and caribou more difficult.2 Every four years, the Inuit living in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia convene the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) to discuss issues of concern. The ICC lobbied successfully to ban a dozen organic pollutants, carried north by winds, that do not evaporate in the Arctic cold. These pollutants were infecting meat and berries, staples of the Inuit diet, as well as the breast milk of nursing mothers.3 There are many more problems facing the sustainability of Greenland, such as trans-boundary pollution and the fact that the Inuit are not an effective lobbying group due to differences in culture, dialect, and lack of communication. In November of 2004, a report by 250 scientists warned that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, which threatens to wipe out several species including polar bears, and melt summer ice around the North Pole by 2100.4 One of the reasons for the increased warming is that the dark water and ground in the arctic soak up more heat from the atmosphere than ice or snow. The levels of carbon dioxide today are about 379ppm and increasing, a comparable level to 55 million years ago when there was no ice on the planet due to the warmth of the atmosphere.5 If the Greenland ice cap melts, the sea level will rise six or seven meters. Although this is a worst-case scenario, it seems clear that steps must be taken to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in our atmosphere. Investigations of pollutants in Greenland during the past fifteen years show that the troposphere is burdened with high levels of trans-boundary pollution. The major anthropogenic contributors to this “Arctic haze” are central Europe, and northern Russia.6 The pollution is caused by approaching lows from the North Atlantic which are blocked by a Siberian high which injects southern air from major industrial centers into the arctic. This problem is exacerbated in winter due to the scarcity of precipitation and the stability of the anticyclone, which allows the pollutants to remain in the arctic atmosphere for a long period of time.7 The aerosol particles and sulfur compounds could lead to changing patterns of cloud formation and precipitation, as well as acidify the local ecosystem. In addition to chemical pollutants, the Arctic also suffers from radiation caused by fallout from Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986, the sinking of at least two Russian nuclear submarines during the past fifteen years, and leaking from many of the twenty-one thousand nuclear fuel assembly storage containers.8 A study conducted between 1991 and 2002 concluded that radiation levels had begun to decline in the Arctic, but it is taking a very long time due to the high levels of radiation absorption from tundra vegetation. Arctic natives, particularly the Inuit of Greenland, have among the highest levels of many toxic substances found in humans anywhere in the world.10 A new study released by the Russian Federation and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program concluded that concentrations of industrial chemicals and pesticides have contaminated the once pristine environment. During the 1990s, studies showed that natives had a 30 percent higher death rate from cancer than whites.11 The Inuit have limited access to imported foods, and rely instead upon a traditional diet which includes seals and other wild animals. Because pollutants, carried by winds and ocean currents, have drifted from urban areas south of Greenland, the natural food sources have accumulated high levels of toxic chemicals.12 This health threat affects low-income Inuit the most, since they rely more heavily on traditional sources of food because they cannot afford other goods. Children and infants bear the brunt of the social cost, since these chemicals are passed to fetuses and contaminate breast milk. Many of the chemicals, such as PCBs, mercury, DDT, and mirex, have already been banned in the United States and most European nations, but they are leaking into the ocean from outdated equipment and stockpiles. Once the contaminants reach the Arctic, they remain for decades.13 Greenland might be the most contaminated of all the Arctic regions because it is substantially closer to the pollutants’ sources. It is very difficult to know where to begin in resolving the nature of pollution and global warming. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as well as the specific pollutants carried to Greenland by ocean currents and wind threaten to disrupt the fragile ecosystem. Anthropogenic pollutants are changing the climate at a much faster rate over the past few decades than in any other time in history. Climate change is altering the way in which Greenlanders go about their daily lives; it affects their culture and threatens to change their traditions, possibly forever. Climate Change: A Greenland Perspective Climate change is the alteration of temperature and precipitation patterns over an extended period of time. Across the globe, scientists are identifying climate change in relation to the greenhouse gas emissions and solar cycles. While most researchers believe that the increase of atmospheric CO2 is effecting global warming, others are endorsing the concerns of another Ice Age, which is likely to occur due to orbital variations of the Earth. In his article, Abrupt Climate Change, Richard Alley titles one section, “Chilling Warmth,”15 which perfectly describes the angst of many people who foresee a deadly warming trend, and also the paradox of global warming causing another “Little Ice Age.” These competing discourses are extremely pertinent to the country of Greenland, which is at the forefront of the climatic change debate. Greenland and other Arctic countries continue to be at the head of the discussion on climate change, whether due to melting ice caps, or advancing glaciers. Our understanding of climate change across the world has been possible due to Greenland’s ice cores; proxy records, such as O18 dating, reveal atmospheric air temperatures at which the sheets of ice were formed.16 Oxygen in the ice cores can also reconstruct the history of precipitation. Greenland remains a critical story teller of cooling and warming trends, since the 1990s, when scientists first started to extract from the gigantic sheets of ice.17 Scientists who view increased CO2 emissions as directly related to a warming climate are radically concerned for the outcomes of warming oceans, rising sea levels, and higher precipitation levels. For example, in an article for National Geographic News, entitled, Greenland Melt May Swamp LA, Other Cities, Study Says, author, Stefan Lovgren, discusses the devastating effects of the melting of Greenland’s massive ice sheets. He cites a new study that states that the melting of Greenland’s ice cap could raise the oceans by twenty three feet (seven meters), which would submerge low-lying coastal regions and other cities located at sea level, stretching from Los Angeles to London.18 The rising sea levels and increased rainfall in the Arctic could bring about horrific floods and severe storms across the globe. The increase in the greenhouse gases from global warming, which the Kyoto Protocol is working to counteract, may cause an uprooting of ecosystems around the globe. In Greenland, the melting of ice caps would cause rising sea levels, a slowing of the thermohaline circulation, and a reduction of salinity; the nearby ocean current systems, which influence the sea’s temperature and salinity, would affect the distribution of organisms.19 Climate change is directly related to the conservation and preservation of species, genetic, and ecosystem biodiversity. Since the last ice age, in Greenland, in which mostly all of life became extinct, the plants, animals, and microorganisms have biologically adapted to the Arctic climatic zones. Another dramatic climate change could potentially cause a domino effect of extinction, habitat destruction, and habitat fragmentation. While some researchers talk of global warming, others tell a different tale that claims that climate change is determined by the Milankovitch cycles, which influence the amount of solar radiation striking the earth at different times across different latitudes. According to Laurence Hecht, in the 21 st Century Science and Technology Magazine, climatic cycles show that Ice Ages, periods of approximately 100,000 years, are disrupted by Interglacials, periods of 10,000 years.20 With the past 800,000 years illustrating this fact, Hecht declares the present day as roughly 15,000 years into the interglacial period.21 Change in climate occurs through the combination of three orbital transformations: variations in the orbital eccentricity, procession of the equinoxes, and the obliquity of the elliptic. Due to the Milankovitch cycles, these orbital changes can coalesce to reduce the solar insulation during the summer months. According to Hecht, a rapid cooling shift may take place in our lifetime, an event, in which high reflectivity of ice and snow could reduce local temperatures in the Arctic.22 Hecht describes the effects of past glacier periods: “The glaciers thicken and expand until they become continental ice sheets, one to two miles thick, creeping ever southward. Geological evidence shows that in the last Ice Age, the southern boundary of the continental ice sheet, known as a terminal moraine, stretched down the center of Long Island, through New York City, across New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Southern Illinois and Missouri, then up the Plains States through Montana and Washington State.”23 There are many scientists who believe, like Hecht, that an imminent ice age is the potential crisis, not global warming, and that the solar cycles, first introduced by Milankovitch in the 20 th century, are the determining factors of climate change, not CO2. The decrease in the temperature from little solar emission may cause glaciers to advance in the Arctic, creating a faster thermohaline circulation, little evaporation, and higher salinity. A climate change in Greenland may cause drier climate in Africa and India, disrupting a season of high monsoons that are needed for crop production.24 As a result of advancing glaciers in the Arctic, parts of Asia may suffer from widespread famine. Clearly, climate change has powerful consequences on the earth’s population. There is dispute over whether Greenland is currently cooling, or warming, and there exists a discrepancy between Greenland and the rest of the Arctic Circle. Some scientists believe that Greenland does not seem to be following the Northern Hemisphere trend of increased CO2-induced global warming; the country is reflecting a cooling trend within the past half century that may be counteracting the melting of many mountain glaciers around the world and balancing the high sea levels.25 This presumption of a cooling pattern in Greenland is supported by studies that show an increase in the annual number of snow days and the enhanced buildup of snow on the ice sheet.26 According to a BBC news report by Jonathon Amos, in 2003, Greenland was significantly cooler than it was forty years ago, predominately in south-western coastal Greenland.27 Scientists identify regional climate change over a long period of time, which is consistent with the meteorological data collected, in Greenland, which shows a temperature drop of 1.29 C since 1985.28 In a journal review at the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, it has been stated that “the part that holds the lion’s share of the hemisphere’s ice has been cooling for the past half-century.”29 What may be occurring in Greenland goes against the concerns of the IPCC, which views the Northern Hemisphere as a strong contributor of CO2-induced global warming.30 Since Greenland’s climate does not need to support many fossil fueled vehicles, it rarely suffers from the local pollution; however, Greenland endures regional air pollution, receiving toxic chemicals from outside the Arctic; wind and water currents are transferred from long-range transport, and Greenland is affected by coal burning industries in South-east Asia.31 The studied cooling pattern in Greenland also diverges from the climatic change occurring in the rest of the Arctic Circle. In fact, some scientists believe that the warming in the Arctic is exceeding the global rate, which will have a devastating effect on the natural habitats, specifically that of the polar bears.32 Articles differ in their calculations of atmospheric air temperature, but in contrast to Amos’ belief that Arctic temperatures in Greenland have decreased by 1.29 degrees Celsius, since 1985, Peter Spotts of The Christian Science Monitor, documents a seven degrees Fahrenheit increase in Alaska, western Canada, and Russia over a fifty year period.33 From the research that I have conducted, I have realized how integral Greenland is in the dialogue on global warming and abrupt cooling; furthermore, I recognize that climate change needs to be of global concern, not only to scientists, but to the government and all citizens; every regional climate change in the Northern Hemisphere directly influences temperature and precipitation in the Southern Hemisphere. We are all connected, and it is imperative that humans intervene and become aware of how their environmental choices may affect biodiversity around the world.
Conclusion In the beginning of our Weather, Climate, & Society course, we did some preliminary research on the history of Greenland. The following are our Think Pieces on Greenland! During The Little Ice Age, how did the changing environment affect the Vikings in Greenland? A culture usually permits humans to adapt very quickly to changing environments; however, in Greenland, around the 14th century, the Vikings of the Norse settlements were unable to adjust to the extreme climatic cooling, which was occurring throughout Europe. The Vikings are a model example of how influential climate can be on a population of individuals and their surrounding ecosystem. During the Little Ice Age, cooling in the environment altered the distribution of plant and animal species, as well as the way in which humans interacted with their environmental habitat. During the LIA, a period of several hundred years of severe winters in the Northern Hemisphere, the Vikings were driven to extinction, because they lacked nourishment, and they were unable to withstand the novel cold weather. Not only did dramatic cooling affect agriculture through cooler summer temperatures and shifts in rainfall, but the extreme climate change resulted in differences in appearance. According to Lamb, early Vikings were 5’7”, but by the 13 th century, the average height was under 5’.36 Before the Viking population disappeared, individuals were extremely diseased, dwarflike, and crippled. 37 It is very probable that volcanic eruptions were one of the causes of the Little Ice Age, which is very fascinating to me. Before this class, I would have immediately thought that volcanic eruptions would warm the atmosphere, since the eruption emits heat through larva. However, I realize now that the ash and other small particles of matter, which are circulated throughout the stratosphere, can successfully reduce the solar radiation collected at the earth’s surface. The dusting of the atmosphere, which acts as a sun blocking device, is properly named the Parasol Effect.38 In addition, sulfur compounds emitted from the eruptions condense into tiny sulfuric acid droplets that may be suspended in clouds for years.39 Volcanic activity decreased the amount of energy absorbed in the atmosphere, which, subsequently, caused a cooling effect. Archaeologists are excavating Vikings sites, and they are finding human remains and plant roots submerged in the frozen soil in the icecore. Archeologists are discovering the presence of corn pollen and grain, which implies that individuals cultivated these crops before the LIA; furthermore, no one as attempted to plant grain again until this century due to climate changes.40 If the Vikings had lived through an ice age during the 21 st century, they might have been able to sustain their farming communities of corn and grain, because in the age of biotechnology, it is possible to produce a variety of seeds tolerant to extreme cold and wetness. If the Vikings could have saved their crops, then they could have maintained their health and had strength to endure the harsh conditions. Medieval Settlement of Greenland The tendency of Earch’s climate, contrary to the ravings or environmental alarmists who contend that the industrial revolution has initiated the first rapid, dramatic climate change the earth has seen, tends toward the unpredictable. Indeed, any attempt made to ascribe some sense of permanency to the climate in a particular location can lead to disaster several generations down the road. Climate has a very real bearing on humanity, given that we are relatively uninsulated creatures who rely on our environments to provide us with the means to construct shelter and the means to subsist. It was this sense of climactic permanency, then, that caused early arrivals on the shores of Greenland to assume that that particular piece of land, which at the time had fairly temperate weather, would support human settlement indefinitely. In fact, the Norse settlements of Vesterbygd (West Settlement) and Osterbygd (East Settlement), which were established around AD 950, seem to have sprung up during a period of unusual warmth. In fact, anecdotal evidence indicates that humans could swim a distance of up to two miles off of Greenland’s shores, which would put sea temperatures at 10 Celsius, or 4 degrees warmer than the warmest recorded temperatures of those waters in recent history. (Lamb, 175). These Norse settlements, however, found themselves in decline with the smaller East settlement dying out entirely in 1350, and the larger West settlement managing to survive only until about 1500, with their decline being indicated by the average stature of settlers decreasing by several inches. Also during this period, shipping routes were shifted farther south as ice began to block the routes that passed by these settlements. Encroaching glaciers also severely curtailed and eventually forced the abandonment of all grain growing. Volcanic eruptions doubtlessly also proved to be a bane to settlers. The increasingly cold springs and summers resulted in little hay, causing livestock to perish by the thousands. Trade restrictions imposed by the Danish-Norwegian crown certainly may have had an effect on the decline of Norse settlements in Ireland. However, economic hardship aside, a human culture that is incompatible with the prevailing climate ultimately must either adapt or fail. An agrarian society relies on soil that is not permafrost, trees for the construction of shelters, and a warm enough climate to allow the cultivation of grains for human consumption and grasses for animal consumption. By contrast, the Eskimo society that existed on Greenland before the Norsk settlement, and who managed to survive after the Norsk settlements had died out had a lifestyle that was more nomadic and relied on animals that had been able to survive variations in the Arctic climate for subsistence, as opposed to crops and animals best suited for warmer areas. While it is a common mistake to confuse unusual weather over a short time period with a change in the climate, it is a devastating mistake to assume that simply because the climate has shown certain characteristics over the past couple hundred years that the climate will not dramatically change in the future. References |
Colby College | Science Technology & Society Department website design by Gerrit Lansing |
Transportation and communications infrastructure are necessary to any modern society but are always vulnerable to the weather, as anyone who has ever lost phone service in a storm can attest. Greenland presents a unique challenge with a small population widely scattered among dozens of towns and settlements. Road building is an especially thankless enterprise due to a climate and geography that work together to destroy highways, and because of this there are no roads linking settlements. Greenlander’s solution to this overland transportation problem actually predates the automobile. This picture shows a person on a Greenland Dogsled. 
