Greenland feels global warming effect

Updated 13.22 Wed Jun 06 2007
Keywords: global warming, Greenland

Greenland's ice cap is melting, and faster than scientists had thought possible.

A new island in East Greenland is a clear sign of how the country is changing.

A new island in East Greenland was dubbed Warming Island by American explorer Dennis Schmitt when he discovered that it had emerged from under the retreating ice.

It was dubbed Warming Island by American explorer Dennis Schmitt when he discovered in 2005 that it had emerged from under the retreating ice.

If the ice cap melted entirely, oceans would rise by seven metres, flooding New York and London, and drowning island nations like the Maldives.

A total meltdown would take centuries but global warming, which climate experts blame mainly on human use of fossil fuels, is heating the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth.

Greenland, the world's largest island, is mostly covered by an ice cap of about 2.6 million cubic km that accounts for a tenth of all the fresh water in the world.

Over the last 30 years, its melt zone has expanded by 30 per cent, and now the cap loses 100 to 150 cubic km of ice every year - more than all the ice in the Alps.

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