Inspired, and Worried, by a Flyover of Greenland

Photo by Anjali Kumar

A couple of weeks ago, midway through a flight from Frankfurt to Montreal, the pilot of our Air Canada flight came on the loudspeaker and said, “Passengers on both the right and left side of the airplane may want to raise your blinds and take a look at Greenland.” We did, and collectively gasped. I have flown over Greenland before, but never with this little cloud cover or with this crystalline clarity.

An eyeful of Greenland’s coast raised in me two contradictory responses. The first was, “Holy toboggans, look at all that ice! Where are my crampons?” The second was, “Should I be worried that there isn’t more ice?”

The legendary icecap of Greenland is getting smaller, and that is a reason to worry and to take action. The culprits are the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that our cars, factories, and power plants (and yes, the plane in which I sat) spew into the air in ever greater quantities. They are trapping heat in the atmosphere and heating Greenland, the planet’s second-biggest collection of glaciers after Antarctica.

The breathtaking view from the plane made me want to visit Greenland and explore the unimaginable vastness of its ice. The great white expanse on the horizon of the photo continues for another 1,500 miles, nearly the distance from New York City to Denver.

But temperature trends point toward a lot less ice. In 2010, the melting season in Greenland lengthened by 50 days compared to the average. That’s almost the same as spring starting a month earlier and winter holding off a month longer. Meanwhile, Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, experienced the warmest spring and summer on record. Greenlanders have some reason to celebrate; their home is becoming a much greener and more pleasant place to live. For the rest of us, it’s not such good news.

If this freezer section of the Northern Hemisphere were to thaw out completely, it is estimated that ocean levels would rise 23 feet, in the process drowning most of our coastal cities. With leading Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry convinced that man-made global warming is a hoax and with the climate debate producing mostly hot air, there’s little standing in the way of the Big Melt. The view from 30,000 feet says that Greenland’s gleaming whiteness is something worth saving.