Growing City: The Gold Rush of Climate Change in Greenland

It is almost 11 pm in Ilulissat, where the summer sun never sets, and Søren Stach Nielsen strolls. The trail runs along a rocky outcrop near the ocean, where the giant icebergs that give its name to this city – Ilulissat means "iceberg" in Greenlandic – glow pink under the midnight sun.

Nielsen has recently taken a tough new job and evening walks have become a habit. A former civil servant and former social scientist, he is now the managing director of this part of northwestern Greenland, the Avannaata region, which is about the size of France but less than 11 years old. 000 people.

It is one of the hardest environments inhabited by humans in the world and is at the forefront of global warming. "If you want to see climate change with your own eyes, that's where you can go," says Nielsen.

Temperatures have increased more than twice as fast as the rest of the world due to the retreat of the Arctic sea ice. The thunder of icebergs often breaks in the village.

"If you look at the situation in 20 years, it's kind of a shock," said Nielsen, highlighting the evolution of the local economy. But it's not a climate-induced recession that makes it difficult to work. In fact, its main challenge is one that most other bureaucrats would like to barter: the city of Ilulissat is currently experiencing rapid economic growth as it warms.

"There are two booming cities in Greenland: the capital Nuuk and the Ilississat," says Nielsen, pulling out a business card bearing the name of a sled dog and halibut, the municipality's coat of arms.

Fishing and hunting have been Ilulissat's main economic drivers since its establishment as a Danish trading post more than 250 years ago. Recently, the fishing industry has experienced strong growth, partly because of the decline of the pack ice. On top of that, tourism has also been booming.

Nielsen says the situation looks like a rush for gold. "It sounds like a Klondike scenario here," he says, drawing a parallel between the 4,500-inhabitant village and the Canadian region, which has become synonymous with gold fever. "There are no unemployed in this city."

The growth caused by a warmer climate and improved accessibility of this icy land recently placed Greenland in the spotlight of the geopolitical ramp and attracted the attention of unwanted circles. Last month, US President Donald Trump said he wanted to buy Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

His proposal was quickly postponed. But the incident has highlighted the fact that Greenland is one of the few places where it is expected to take advantage of climate change, even as global warming has catastrophic consequences elsewhere.

Maybe it's going in the right direction for our city – but on the whole, I would like that not to happen, because in the whole of the Earth, that does not go in the right direction.

The largest island in the world, Greenland itself is also critical in determining how quickly the impacts of climate change will be felt. Greenland is covered with an ice cover of about one kilometer deep, which covers 81% of its territory, an area four times larger than California.

Warm air, receding sea ice and the darkening of the ice surface caused by soot and algae combine to warm Greenland faster than scientists expect – and the melting of the ice cap accelerates.

A heat wave this summer recorded record temperatures on the ice, contributing to the days when 95% of its surface melted.

It could be catastrophic for the rest of the world. Greenland's ice cap contains enough water to raise sea level by seven meters if it melts. (It would still take thousands of years at current rates.)

Already, rapid warming in the Arctic means that Greenland is the largest contributor of meltwater to the rising oceans, in front of Antarctic and mountain glaciers, accounting for about a quarter of the rise every year.

As climate scientists set out to predict the pace of ice melt and sea level rise, Greenland has many answers. "Over the next five to ten years, Greenland will become the leading player in sea level rise," said Marco Tedesco, head of the cryospheric processing laboratory at City College in New York.

For lowland areas like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Florida and many small island countries, what is happening in Greenland could determine their future.

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The city of Ilulissat at first glance, does not look like a booming city. The short summer means that the gravel covers most yards, the gardens are impossible and the melting permafrost has made the roads wavy and cracked. But there are also signs of wealth: cars on the streets, skimobiles ready for the winter and new fishing boats arriving in shipping containers at the port.

The third supermarket in the city opened in the spring. Cafes and tourist shops are very lively. "Business is going very well," says Paneeraq Fleischer, manager of the Pisiffik supermarket, right next to the football field.

However, it has a problem: the economic boom has resulted in a shortage of manpower. "In the summer, we struggle to find people who can work," she says. Some coffee shops and supermarkets have started bringing workers from the Philippines to address the shortage.

Local contractors such as Flemming Bisgaard, whose company is renting construction equipment, say it is difficult to meet the demand. "This city is exploding in terms of tourists," says Bisgaard. With 40,000 to 50,000 visitors expected this year, there are days when there are more tourists than residents.

Even the kindergarten has "no photo" signs to prevent tourists from taking pictures of children in the playground.

However, not all areas of Ilulissat's life are developing. The number of Greenlandic sled dogs has declined sharply in recent years, largely due to the disappearance of the pack ice. There were about 15,000 people in this city, a lot more than the people, but there are now about 3,000.

"There are always fishermen, dog sled enthusiasts – but now it's a free time activity," says Anja Reimer, director of the local museum. Sled dogs were traditionally an essential part of ice fishing in winter, when hunters traveled long distances by sled across the frozen ocean. But as the pack ice retreats, this way of life is in decline.

Reimer and her husband abandoned their sled dogs several years ago. "People lived off the land, but now they must have a job," she sighs. But she adds that Greenlanders still have a close connection with nature. As an Inuit people, Greenlanders share cultural and linguistic ties with other Aboriginal groups in the Arctic.

She points out that every home in the city faces the ocean. "It is very important that the local people have a view of the sea. If they can not see the sea, then their spirit is depressed."

The growing number of boats – which can now be used over the year as there is less ice – has contributed to a fishing boom. The price of halibut, the main catch here, has tripled in the last decade. And fishermen can catch more than before.

The total annual fishery at Ilulissat is about DKK 500 million (£ 59.7 million), which is a lot of money for a town of 4,500 inhabitants. The busy harbor is flanked on one side by a halibut processing facility and on the other by a shrimp processing plant.

"You can only put a few hundred pounds of fish on a sled. But you can put two tons on a boat, "explains Karl Sandgreen, a former fisherman. He now works in tourism, as a boat owner, and explains that visitors are often surprised to learn that he is looking forward to global warming. "Climate change suits me because it's getting warmer," he says.

In a place where winter lasts eight months a year, it does have advantages. Heating bills are lower and supply vessels can access the harbor for a longer summer period to replenish grocery store shelves. Sandgreen says that many residents welcome this. "They are not so sad about this, about climate change, they just have to make some changes to their way of life."

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Icebergs that make Ilulissat Famous ones come from the Jakobshavn giant glacier, called Sermeq Kujalleq in Greenlandic, which is one of the fastest glaciers in the world. The glacier empties into a long, iceberg-filled fjord that slowly heads towards the sea, the iced Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Every year, the volume of water that melts here would be enough to power the entire city of New York.

The Jakobshavn Glacier is one of the most studied glaciers in the world because it flows very fast. "When you stand there, you can see the ice moving under your feet, it's going very fast," says Konrad Steffen, a Swiss scientist who has studied the ice cap near Ilulissat for more than three decades.

Its research station, anchored in the ice, travels about 30 cm per day when the ice flows and reaches a speed exceeding one meter per day in summer. But the rapid merger has put it at risk. "I could lose my job, I do not know," he sighs.

The world has warmed about 1 ° C since the pre – industrial era with increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but this warming has not been distributed. uniformly – and the Arctic is heating up faster. The Steffen Research Station has recorded a mean temperature increase of 2.8 ° C since 1990.

Tedesco City College estimates that this summer's data is of particular concern. "It seems that every year we see a new pilot begin to melt and reach a new record." Even the top of the Greenland ice cap, a spot that does not break the freeze every two hundred years, has seen above -Zero temperature this summer.

The Danish Meteorological Institute estimates that the 2019 melt season resulted in a net ice loss of about 329 billion tonnes from the Greenland Ice Sheet, one of the highest ever recorded.

This is not good news for sea level rise in the world. "The changes we are seeing in Greenland are globally larger and are happening sooner than expected," says Eric Rignot, professor of Earth System Science at the University of California at Irvine.

"If you look at the rate of increase in mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica now and you project that until the end of the century, we get a meter of elevation of the level of the sea."

He's eager to add that it's a rough calculation with a lot of uncertainty – but the accelerated melting rate is clear. "When you start melting ice cream. . . the pack ice will respond even faster with time, it will not react in a linear way, "he says.

Understanding the changes in ice in Greenland is essential as it is considered a model for the future behavior of Antarctica – which contains 10 times more ice but is colder for the moment and has not yet begun to melt. as much.

"Greenland is what Antarctica could look like in a century," said Rignot. "In Greenland, glaciers usually run 10 times faster than in Antarctica. . . you can see that things are happening on a shorter time scale in Greenland. "

Anna Hogg, a glaciologist from the University of Leeds, recently returned from a research expedition near Ilulissat, said the changes observed on the fastest glacier in Greenland had been particularly important.

"Because it is so vast, so vast, it is possible that this glacier has an impact on the overall ice loss in Greenland," she says. "We saw on Jakobshavn various processes the existence of which we did not know – many of them were observed here for the first time."

These discoveries were sometimes counterintuitive: Hogg discovered by satellite imagery that the giant glacier began to slow down around 2016 – and was starting to thicken.

Greenland represents what Antarctica might look like in a century. In Greenland, glaciers flow 10 times faster … you can see that things are happening over a shorter period

"It's never just a picture of the ice accelerating and melting faster, and Jakobshavn showed it to us," she says. The glacier was moving at a speed of 17 km a year in 2013, but this summer it was moving at about 5 km a year (still fast, by glacial standards).

Even with the slowdown in Jakobshavn, the melting ice in Greenland continued to accelerate. This year, the scope of the merger was comparable to that of the previous precedent set in 2012.

"The polar regions are those hotspots where a little push or a little change can lead to a really dramatic change," said Hogg. "There are massive changes in the region, and it is impossible for it to not have significant repercussions."

Some of the most alarming effects are the feedback loops that are becoming obvious in the region. The retreating sea ice is an example: with less white ice cover reflecting the sun's rays, the darker ocean absorbs more heat from the sun, warming the water and making it more difficult to form sea ice. That's why the Arctic is heating up so much faster than the rest of the planet.

Scientists call this "amplification", a vicious circle where warming generates warming. Other examples of warming feedback loops include changes in cloud cover and the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide.

These effects are about to be set out in a scientific report released this month by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The ocean currently stands at about 3.3 mm per year – partly because of melting ice and partly because of thermal expansion due to warming – and has risen by about 20 cm during the last century.

This increase has already aggravated storms and poses an existential threat to low-lying islands, river deltas and coastal cities. Although the cost of this damage is difficult to estimate, a recent study has shown that floods from the high seas would cost about US $ 14,000 a year by the end of the century.

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The inhabitants of Ilulissat have mixed feelings about all of this. "That may be what is happening right now for our city, Ilulissat," says Bisgaard, the entrepreneur, referring to economic growth. "But overall, I wish it did not happen, because all over the world, things are not going well."

A recent study, conducted by the University of Copenhagen and other research institutes, asked the Greenlanders how they felt about climate change. Some 43% said they had hope and 38% were afraid of it.

In terms of whether climate change is good or bad overall, 40% consider it a bad thing, but 46% think it is neither good nor bad. These figures are radically different from the views expressed in Europe, where growing public concern over climate change has made reducing carbon dioxide emissions a major political priority.

Konrad Seblon, head of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Ilulissat Icefjord, said that Greenland is less exposed than many other countries to some of the worst impacts. It shows the melting of glaciers. "The day the ice is gone, half of Europe will be submerged," he said. "When the ice is gone, we will have more land, we will have plenty of space to live – Greenland will always exist."

Meanwhile, the threat of being overrun by tourists coming to see the melting ice has become a major concern for many city dwellers. According to Seblon, the increase in visitor numbers creates stress for the local environment and for residents – a challenge that will be even greater once the new airport is completed in about four years.

Whether it takes 50 or 100 years, it is certain that they will not be here forever. It looks so beautiful, but really the tears of humanity will be poured on this

Cui Yanhua, one of these tourists, is visiting Greenland for the first time as part of a 10-day organized tour that will also take place in Iceland. While most visitors to Greenland come from Denmark and Europe, a growing number come from China. Standing on a rocky promontory overlooking the city, Cui takes out his phone to take a photo of his companion next to a polar bear statue.

"This statue is so well placed that the polar bear looks at the ice, the habitat on which it depends for its survival," he explains, explaining at length the polar bear's way of life. . He is a Beijing-based artist who is working on a polar bear-themed sculptural installation at his home, as well as one on the Tibetan antelope, which is also affected by climate change.

For Cui, Ilulissat's iceberg message is clear and he worries a lot about it – maybe more than some residents. "Whether it takes 50 or 100 years, it is certain that they will not be here forever," he said, moved. "It looks so beautiful, but the tears of humanity will sink on it." Next year, he wants to travel to Antarctica.

While he is getting ready to receive more visitors, Ilulissat is also trying to prepare for other less-than-expected changes that global warming could entail. Nielsen, the executive director, said the period of economic prosperity would not last forever. "At the moment, this Klondike-like situation is such that it will not happen in many years," he said.

This summer, hotel executives and investors have committed themselves to try to capitalize on the expansion of tourism. But he is more concerned about keeping children in school, as many residents have only primary education. The sudden wealth of the city has also led to social problems, including drug abuse and tax evasion, he admits.

The day the ice will be gone, half of Europe will be submerged. . . We will have more land, more space to live – Greenland will always exist

Thanks to fishing income, Nielsen says the city can afford to be selective about the type of tourism and investment it accepts. It shows the bank branch down the street – the turnover is the largest of all banks in Denmark and Greenland, as fishermen cash their checks after each daily catch.

Looking back on the changes, he is surprised that things have happened as well.

"Fifteen years ago, we thought it was our worst nightmare if there was no sea ice," he recalls. "I thought, what will they do to fishermen and hunters who use the ice plate to make a living? But anyway, they adapted very quickly. "

Other Greenlanders sometimes point out that when it comes to climate change, they have learned something relevant in surviving here: nature will always have the last word.

Even seemingly peaceful icebergs testify to this – they can separate violently without warning, sending shock waves into the water that turn into tsunamis on the shore. Reimer, the director of the museum, turns on her computer after our interview to show me images of a tsunami that killed a tourist in Ilulissat.

"They're like time bombs," she says, pointing at the icebergs. "They could leave at any moment."

For her, climate change, like dangerous icebergs, demonstrates what Greenlanders have understood for a long time. "You know that nature reigns here. You can not rule nature, "she says. "The force is so strong that you can not control it." This is also a point of view for other places: we should all be prepared for changes that no one can foresee.

Leslie Hook is the FT correspondent for the environment.

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