Debate over a controversial project aimed at extracting uranium and rare earth minerals has sparked political uncertainty in Greenland’s parliament.
Scientists who have studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory for 34 years find that annual snowfall is no longer enough to replenish glaciers.
The huge melt was due not only to warm temperatures, but also atmospheric circulation patterns that have become more frequent due to climate change, suggesting scientists may be underestimating the threat to the ice, the authors found.
The iceberg, dubbed D28, broke away from the Amery ice shelf between September 24 and 25, according to observations from European and American satellites. It measures 1,582 square kilometres and contains 315 billion tonnes of ice.
US-Russia missile sabre-rattling in the Arctic sends threatening political messages but the bigger threat is its lasting environmental damage.
The US president tweeted he will postpone an August meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen as she had no interest in "discussing the purchase of Greenland" with him.
The world’s largest island has long been on the mind of successive American leaders who have been interested in its strategic and economic value.
"Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the newspaper Sermitsiaq during a visit to Greenland.
Greenland, the world's largest island, is a semi-autonomous Danish territory between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans that has 82% of its surface covered in ice.
On a recent expedition to Greenland, TRT World correspondent Andrea Sanke saw how some countries and landscapes are suffering as global temperatures rise, and makes a very personal plea.
A group of the world's leading ice scientists released an expert judgement which said the area of land lost to the ocean could be equivalent to that of France, Germany, Spain and Britain combined and would displace more than 180 million people.
The UN warns that the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has hit a new high, stressing over need to take drastic action to achieve targets set by the Paris climate agreement.
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