Greenland doesn’t usually make the news. The country sits between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans and is the least densely populated country in the world. Less than 60,000 people call Greenland home.
The reason there’s not too many people up there is that most of the land is covered in ice.
And most of the ice doesn’t melt away in summer.
Except last year. Nearly the entire ice sheet melted in just four days.
Shades of pink represent melted ice in satellite pictures of Greenland taken July 8 (left) and 12. Courtesy of nasa.gov.
So, my buddy Chris — who studies ice melt for a living — is up in Greenland now on a mission to collect ice cores from across the Greenland ice sheet.
The cores might give some evidence as to what caused the melt. And how we might prevent it again in the future.
The ice sheet holds 10 percent of the Earth’s glacial ice, an equivalent to a 7-meter rise in global sea levels. That could mean billions of dollars in damage around the world. Homes lost, businesses under water — literally — and communities displaced.
Figuring out the “why” is key.
The most exciting part of this whole thing, other than the results — which, let’s be honest, will take a while to crunch down — is that Chris is blogging the adventure.
Chris and his teammates will be snowmobiling across Greenland collecting ice cores for the next 40 field days.
I seriously recommend you check this blog out — with frequency — because Chris and his team will have amazing tales to tell over the next 50 days or so.
Click –> here <–
Good luck, Chris!