A new island has appeared off the east coast of Greenland, proving that Global warming is increasing in earnest. The newly dismembered landmass, which is several miles long, is located halfway up the country’s remote east coast, around 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
When last surveyed in 2002, the land appeared to be joined to the mainland by an ice bridge, but five years later members of the US Geological Survey have taken pictures proving the area is now detached from the mainland thanks to the effects of melting.
The map of Greenland will now have to be redrawn. And redrawn again and again it would seem, if the effects of Global warming continue with such startling alacrity.
According to the US Geological Survey: “more islands like this may be discovered if the Greenland Ice Sheet continues to disappear.” Until recently scientists believed the Greenland Ice Sheet (the second largest in the world after Antarctica) might take 1,000 years or more to break-up, but studies since 2004 are indicating that the disintegration is accelerating much faster than was thought previous.
Dennis Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, California, has named the island Uunartoq Qeqertoq - which for those of you not fluent in Inuit - means Warming Island.
Click here for Uunartoq Qeqertoq website
If this isn’t proof of global warming, I don’t know what is!!
Comment by Craig — May 1, 2007 @ 9:16 am