The Fate of Greenland

Viewed from above, Greenland offers an endless vista of whiteness interrupted only byscattered ponds of azure-colored melt water. Ninety percent of Greenland is covered by ice; its icesheet, the largest outside Antarctica, stretches almost 1,000 miles from north to south and 600miles from east to west. But this stark view of ice and snow is changing--and changing rapidly.Greenland's ice sheet is melting; the dazzling, photogenic display of icebergs breaking offGreenland's rapidly melting glaciers has become a tourist attraction. The Fate of Greenlanddocuments Greenland's warming with dramatic color photgraphs and investigates Greenland's climatehistory for clues about what happens when climate change is abrupt rather than gradual. Geologicalevidence suggests that Greenland has already been affected by two dramatic changes in climate: theMedieval Warm Period, when warm temperatures in Northern Europe enabled Norse exploration andsettlements in Greenland; and the Little Ice Age that followed and apparently wiped out thesettlements. Greenland's climate past and present could presage our climate future. Abrupt climatechange would be cataclysmic: the melting of Greenland's ice shelf would cause sea levels to risetwenty-four feet worldwide; lower Manhattan would be underwater and Florida's coastline would recedeto Orlando. The planet appears to be in a period of acute climate instability, exacerbated by carbondioxide we pour into the atmosphere. As this book makes clear, it is in all of our interests to payattention to Greenland.

Wallace Broecker, an oceanographer, is Newberry Professor of Geology at Columbia University and a winner of the Crafoord Prize in Geosciences.