| Native name: Kalaallit Nunaat Grønland Greenland |
|
|---|---|
Outline Map of Greenland with ice sheet depths. (Note that much of the area in green has permanent snow cover, it's just less than 10m (33ft) thick.) |
|
|
|
|
| Geography | |
| Location | between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean |
| Area | 2,166,086 km2 (836,330.5 sq mi) |
| Area rank | 1st |
| Coastline | 44,087 km (27,394.4 mi) |
| Highest elevation | 3,694 m (12,119 ft) |
| Highest point | Gunnbjørn |
| Country | |
|
Denmark
|
|
| Province | Greenland |
| Largest city | Nuuk (Godthåb) (pop. 15,047) |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 56,344 (as of 2007) |
| Density | 0.026 /km2 (0.067 /sq mi) |
| Ethnic groups | 88% (Inuit and Inuit-Danish mixed ), 12% Europeans, mostly Danish |
Greenland is located between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Canada and northwest of Iceland. Greenland has no land boundaries and 44,087 km of coastline. A sparse population is confined to small settlements along the coast. Greenland possesses the world's second largest ice sheet.
Greenland sits atop the Greenland plate, a subplate of the North American plate.[1][2] The Greenland craton is made up of some of the oldest rocks on the face of the earth. The Isua greenstone belt in southwestern Greenland contains the oldest known rocks on Earth dated at 3.7-3.8 Billion years old.[3]
The vegetation is generally sparse, with the only patch of forested land being found in Nanortalik Municipality in the extreme south near Cape Farewell.
The climate is arctic to subarctic with cool summers and cold winters. The terrain is mostly a flat but gradually sloping icecap that covers all land except for a narrow, mountainous, barren, rocky coast. The lowest elevation is sea level and the highest elevation is the summit of Gunnbjørn Fjeld, the highest point in the Arctic at 3,694 meters (12,119 ft). The northernmost point of the Island of Greenland is Cape Morris Jesup, discovered by Admiral Robert Peary in 1909. Natural resources include zinc, lead, iron ore, coal, molybdenum, gold, platinum, uranium, fish, seals, and whales.
Contents |
total: 2,175,600 km²
land: 2,175,600 km² (341,700 km² ice-free, 1,833,900 km² ice-covered) (est.)
Maritime claims:
exclusive fishing zone: 200 nautical miles (370.4 km; 230.2 mi)
territorial sea: 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi)
arable land: approximately 0% ; some land is used to grow silage.
permanent crops: approximately 0%
permanent pastures: 1%
forests and woodland: approximately 0% ; there is a forest in Nanortalik municipality.
other: 99% (1993 est.)
Total population 56,000 inhabitants of which ca. 15,000 lives in the capital Nuuk.
Continuous ice sheet covers 84% of the country; the rest is permafrost.
Protection of the Arctic environment; climatic change; pollution of the food chain; preservation of the Inuit traditional way of life, including whaling; excessive hunting [4] of endangered species (walrus, polar bears, narwhal, beluga whale and several sea birds) - Greenland participates actively in Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC).
The Greenland ice sheet is 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) thick and broad enough to blanket an area the size of Mexico. The ice is so massive that its weight presses the bedrock of Greenland below sea level and is so all-concealing that not until recently did scientists discover that Greenland might actually be three islands.[5]
It is thought that before the Ice Age Greenland had mountainous edges, and a lowland (and probably very dry) center which drained to the sea by one big river flowing out westwards past where Disko Island is now.
There is concern about sea level rise caused by ice loss (melt and glaciers falling into the sea) on Greenland. Between 1997 and 2003 ice loss was 68–92 km3/a (16–22 cu mi/a), compared to about 60 km3/a (14 cu mi/a) for 1993/4-1998/9. Half of the increase was from higher summer melting, with the rest caused by velocities of some glaciers exceeding those needed to balance upstream snow accumulation (Krabill et al., L24402, GRL 2004). A complete loss of ice on Greenland would cause a sea level rise of as much as 6.40 meters (21.0 ft).
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Kansas reported in February 2006 that the glaciers are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago. By 2005, Greenland was beginning to lose more ice volume than anyone expected – an annual loss of up to 52 cubic miles or 217 cubic kilometres per year, according to more recent satellite gravity measurements released by JPL.
Between 1991 and 2006, monitoring of the weather at one location (Swiss Camp) found that the average winter temperature had risen almost 10 °F (5.6 °C).
However, a map of Greenland's Rate of change in Ice Sheet Height shows something different, since glacier is melting at the border but growing up at its center.
Recently, Greenland's three largest outlet glaciers have started moving faster, satellite data show. These are the Jakobshavn Isbræ at Ilulissat on the western edge of Greenland, and the Kangerdlugssuaq and Helheim glaciers on the eastern edge of Greenland. The two latter accelerated greatly during the years 2004-2005, but returned to pre-2004 velocities in 2006.[6] The accelerating ice flow has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in seismic activity. In March 2006, researchers at Harvard University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University reported that the glaciers now generate swarms of earthquakes up to magnitude 5.0.[5]
The retreat of Greenland's ice is revealing islands that were thought to be part of the mainland. In September 2005 Dennis Schmitt discovered an island 400 miles (644 km) north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Greenland which he named Uunartoq Qeqertoq, Inuit for "warming island".[7]
This is a list of the extreme points of Greenland, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location.
Greenland (nation)
Greenland has 18 towns - settlements with more than 500 inhabitants. Nuuk is the largest town - and the capital - with roughly one third of the country's urban population. Sisimiut with approximately 5,500 inhabitants is the second largest town, while Ilulissat is number three with ca. 5,000 inhabitants.
See Cartographic expeditions to Greenland
|
||||||||
|
||||||||