[LCCSS] For Icy Greenland, Global Warming Has a Bright Side

[David E. Bailey]

Feeling the Heat

For Icy Greenland, Global Warming Has a Bright Side
As Temperatures Inch Up, Melting Glaciers Bring New Life to a Frozen Land
But Could Polar Bears Vanish?

Wall Street Journal
By LAUREN ETTER
July 18, 2006; Page A1

QAQORTOQ, Greenland -- Stefan Magnusson lives at the foot of a giant, 
melting glacier. Some think he's living on the brink of a cataclysm. 
He believes he's on the cusp of creation.

The 49-year-old reindeer rancher says a warming trend in Greenland 
over the past decade has caused the glacier on his farm to retreat 
300 feet, revealing land that hasn't seen the light of day for 
hundreds of years, if not more. Where ice once gripped the earth, he 
says, his reindeer now graze on wild thyme amid the purple blooms of 
Niviarsiaq flowers.

The melting glacier near Mr. Magnusson's home is pouring more water 
into the river, which he hopes soon to harness for hydroelectricity. 
"We are seeing genesis by the edge of the glacier," he says.

Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 2.7 degrees 
Fahrenheit over the past 30 years -- more than double the global 
average, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. By the end 
of the century, the institute projects, temperatures could rise 
another 14 degrees.  The milder weather is promoting new life on the 
fringes of this barren, arctic land. Swans have been spotted recently 
for the first time, ducks aren't flying south for the winter anymore 
and poplar trees have suddenly begun flowering.

Greenland represents one of the largely unrecognized paradoxes of 
global warming. In former Vice President Al Gore's recent film "An 
Inconvenient Truth," the melting of Greenland's ice cap, along with a 
similar cap in the Antarctic, is portrayed as one of the greatest 
threats of global warming. If the layers of ice and snow holding 
billions of tons of water were to melt, scientists warn that global 
sea levels would rise by 40 feet, submerging lower Manhattan, the 
Netherlands and much of California.

But to many of the people who live here in Greenland, the warming 
trend is a boon, not a threat.
[Greenland]


It is no small feat to get things living and growing in Greenland, an 
arctic and sub-arctic country at the northern tip of North America 
whose frigid landscape is often confused with Iceland, a smaller, 
greener European island nation to the southeast.

More than 80% of Greenland is covered in ice. Temperatures in the 
south regularly drop to 22 degrees below zero during the long, dark 
winters when the sun shines for as little as five hours a day. 
Intermittent frosts during the four-month growing season make it 
difficult for anything to thrive.

Even small increases in temperature can make a big difference in the 
quality of life for many Greenlanders who scrabble out a living at 
the whims of the weather. Freezing temperatures are the biggest 
factor limiting plant growth in Greenland. If the average temperature 
warms just a degree or two, the number of freezing nights is reduced. 
Higher temperatures produce stronger, healthier plants and provide 
farmers larger crop yields.

Already, the temperature rise in Greenland has extended the growing 
season by two weeks since the 1970s -- no small matter since those 
two weeks come during the spring and summer when the sun shines for 
as long as 20 hours a day in southern Greenland. Warmer days allow 
farmers to take better advantage of the extended sunlight, which 
gives plants more energy and a better chance to survive and thrive. 
If temperatures rose enough to allow the growing season to begin in 
late April, rather than mid-May, Greenlandic farmers might be able to 
grow fruit, including strawberries or apples.

Improved crop production could help wean Greenland from its heavy 
dependence on expensive, imported produce: Greenlanders pay about 
$3.50 for a cucumber at a local grocery store, $5 for a head of 
lettuce and $7.50 for a pound of carrots. Since 1980, Greenland has 
seen farmland devoted to growing crops increase to about 2,500 acres 
from 620 acres.

For Mr. Magnusson and his reindeer ranch, the longer grazing seasons 
mean fatter animals for slaughter, since reindeer gain about half a 
pound per day during the spring and summer grazing season. More 
abundant grasslands have prompted one farmer to buy cows for a 
government-funded experiment in dairy farming. A longer growing 
season allows crop farmers to expand their home gardens into 
commercial enterprises. Fishermen have begun catching tons of 
warm-water cod, after that fish's long absence from the region.

"We have so many cold places in Greenland, and a lot of it is covered 
with ice," says Mr. Magnusson. "So we are grateful for those two 
extra degrees we get."

Other places are also seeing benefits from a warming trend. For every 
1.8 degrees of warming, Canada's wine-growing region can expand 120 
miles northward as the climate becomes suitable for growing wine 
grapes, according to David Phillips, the Canadian government's senior 
climatologist.

Thirty years ago, farmers in the Peruvian Andes were unable to 
cultivate crops above 14,000 feet because it was too cold, says 
climate scientist Anton Seimon. Now, farmers are planting large 
potato fields at 15,000 feet.

Many climate scientists argue that any local benefits of the warming 
trend are more than offset by the global costs. One worry: That 
discussion of the benefits could undermine efforts to slow global 
warming. "I'm not keen to provide ammunition to those who oppose 
action," said Dr. Wallace Broecker, a researcher at Columbia 
University's Earth Institute, in an email declining an interview. "Of 
course there will be benefits. But the net will be bad."

Icebergs in a fiord alongside Greenland's largest commercial potato 
farm, which has expanded in recent years as temperatures have risen.

For the government of Greenland, the calculus is not so simple. 
Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, supports efforts to 
curb global warming through the Kyoto Protocol. That international 
treaty aims to reduce human-related greenhouse gases in the 
atmosphere, caused by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil, 
which many scientists say are helping cause the earth to heat up.

Josef Motzfeldt, Greenland's Vice Premier and Minister of Finance and 
Foreign Affairs, says he worries about the places that may be 
engulfed by the sea if Greenland's glaciers melt. "When the seas rise 
just one meter, it will be a big catastrophe," he says.

Warmer weather has a downside even in Greenland, Mr. Motzfeldt points 
out. It's hindering the native Inuit's traditional way of life, 
undermining their ability to hunt seals and polar bears on the 
thinning ice. He's concerned that polar bears could "disappear 
completely" in the changing environment.

Even Greenlanders who welcome the recent climate changes recognize a 
downside. Mr. Magnusson says he typically uses a snowmobile to herd 
his 2,300 reindeer. But the area where he can use his snowmobile is 
shrinking, and the melting snow and ice could eventually make 
snowmobiling impossible. He says he will adapt by using horses, 
helicopters or by simply walking.

Still there's no denying the good news for many Greenlanders. "If we 
are egoistic, we will be happy," says Mr. Motzfeldt. "We have longer 
growing seasons for the plants and the vegetables."

Many here see warming as an important step toward greater economic 
independence from Denmark, which still provides about half of 
Greenland's government revenue. With just 57,000 people on the 
roughly 840,000-square-mile island, Greenland's gross domestic 
product is $1.1 billion, about a quarter of the GDP of Fiji, a South 
Pacific island nation of about 7,000 square miles.

"The conditions for living are getting better," says Kaj Egede, the 
chairman of Greenland's Board of Agriculture, in his office in Qaqortoq.

Some farmers are trying new types of produce, such as broccoli, 
cauliflower and Chinese cabbage. Most are getting more from their old 
crops. "Usually we only have one cut of hay," says Kenneth Hoegh, a 
farming consultant for Greenland's Department of Agriculture. "But 
because it is getting warmer -- it is definitely getting warmer -- 
more and more farmers are getting two cuts of hay."

Those higher yields are rippling through the agriculture chain. Over 
the past five years, a doubled hay crop has helped sheep farmer Erik 
Rode Frederiksen. He was named after Eric the Red, a Viking explorer 
who settled Greenland around 980. The extra hay gives him fatter 
sheep worth more money at slaughter. Sheep flocks across the country 
have increased 10% in the past three years, according to government statistics.

 From the early 1960s to 1998 cows were rare in Greenland, and 
Greenlanders relied on powdered milk subsidies from the Danish 
government. But improved grazing and hay fodder are tempting some 
farmers and sheep ranchers to add cows to their livestock holdings.

For Greenlanders, adapting to the effects of climate change is 
nothing new. Oxygen isotope samples taken from Greenland's ice core 
reveal that temperatures around 1100, during the height of the Norse 
farming colonies, were similar to those prevailing today. The higher 
temperatures were part of a warming trend that lasted until the 14th century.

Near the end of the 14th century, the Norse vanished from Greenland. 
While researchers don't know for sure, many believe an increasingly 
cold climate made eking out a living here all but impossible as 
grasses and trees declined. Farming faded away from the 17th century 
to the 19th century, a period known as the Little Ice Age. Farming 
didn't return to Greenland in force until the early 1900s, when Inuit 
farmers began re-learning Norse techniques and applying them to 
modern conditions. A sharp cooling trend from around 1950 to 1975 
stalled the agricultural expansion.

Since then, temperatures have mainly been on the upswing. Ole Egede 
is taking advantage of the warmer climate. He and his brother live on 
Greenland's southwest coast on an isolated farm at the head of an 
inlet that can be reached only by helicopter or by a boat that can 
navigate around the icebergs that often choke the blue fiord. Mr. 
Egede started Greenland's first commercial potato farm in 1999 and it 
remains the largest potato farm in Greenland.

Improved farming technology and methods, such as new cold-resistant 
seed varieties and cultivation techniques -- are responsible for some 
of Greenland's expanding agriculture. But experts credit the 
more-favorable climate with much of the new growth. "There's no doubt 
he's now growing potatoes because of better conditions," Mr. Hoegh, 
the farming consultant, says of Mr. Egede.

Greenland's fishermen also are beneficiaries of the higher 
temperatures. Warm-water-loving cod, one of the region's most 
commercially lucrative fish, are booming in the balmier coastal 
waters. In the 1960s, 90% of all fish caught in Greenland were cod. 
But a string of cold winters in the late 1980s drove off much of the 
cod population by the early 1990s.  The cod, says commercial 
fisherman Kim Hoegdan, "just came within the past three years. We 
have never seen them before in this amount."  Mr. Hoegdan says he 
expects to catch as much as 440,000 pounds of cod this year, up from 
about 3,000 pounds two years ago, when the fish began trickling back.

Shrimp -- Greenland's largest export -- could actually decline in 
numbers since they prefer colder water, and are eaten by cod. But the 
value of an increased cod harvest likely would exceed any losses of a 
reduced shrimp harvest, according to the Arctic Climate Impact 
Assessment, a multigovernmental study looking at the social and 
economic consequences of the warming. A revitalized cod industry 
could double the export earnings of the Greenlandic fishing industry, 
according to the 2005 report.

Greenlanders are aware that the benefits brought to them by global 
warming could spell disaster for people elsewhere. But as long as the 
temperatures are rising, they're determined to make the most of it.

"We, as people, need warmer weather as well," says Mr. Frederiksen, 
the sheep farmer.

Write to Lauren Etter at <mailto:lauren.etter at wsj.com>lauren.etter at wsj.com1
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/lccss_deciph.com/attachments/20060719/30c196ce/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 24d9b7.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 71837 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : /pipermail/lccss_deciph.com/attachments/20060719/30c196ce/attachment-0001.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------