Greenland's prosperity:

13 March 2009

One of the most vivid symbols of global warming is the torrents of water that
drain from Greenland,s ice sheet each summer, Greenland,s ice sheet represents one
of global warming,s most distressing threats. The vast expanses of glaciers
measure, on average, 2.5 kilometers deep and contain enough water to raise sea
levels worldwide by about 8 meters.
Should they melt or otherwise slip into the ocean, they would flood coastal
city's, submerge tropical islands and change the world,s atlases. More disturbing
the infusion of fresh water could slow or shut down the ocean,s currents, plunging
Europe into bitter winter.

The island,s ice cover has already begun to disappear, and hunters who use the
frozen surface of the winter ocean for hunting and travel have found themselves
idle when the ice fails to form. The whales, seals and birds they hunt have begun
to shift their migratory patterns. The traditional culture will be hard hit, says
the director of the department of Arctic environment at the University of Aarhus
in Denmark. But from an overall perspective, it will have a positive effect.
Greenland,s fishermen are applauding the return of warm water cod. Shops in the
island,s capital have suddenly begun to offer locally produced potatoes and
broccoli, crops unimaginable a few years earlier.

But the real promise is what lies under the ice. Near the town of Uummannaq, about
halfway up Greenland,s coast, melting glaciers have revealed pockets of lead and
zinc. Gold and diamond prospectors have flooded the island, alcoa is preparing to
build more large aluminum smelters. The island,s mineral bounty is becoming more
accessible, and with more than 80% of the land currently iced over, the hope is
that the island has just begun to reveal its riches.

Offshore, expectations are even higher. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that
Greenland,s northeastern waters could contain around 30 billion barrels of
undiscovered oil and gas. On the other side of the island, the waters separating
it from Canada could yield billions of barrels more. And while Greenland is still
considered an oil exploration frontier, Mobil, Exxon, Chevron are already ramping
up exploration.

But while most of the world sees only peril in the island,s melt water,
Greenland,s independence movement has explicitly tied its fortunes to global
warming. In November, Greenlanders will vote on a referendum that would leverage
global warming into a path to independence. The proposed plan, is expected to pass
overwhelmingly. It would grant the first $16 million of oil and mineral income to
the local government, with further revenues split equally until Denmark,s share
reaches roughly the $680 million a year Greenlanders currently receive from the
Danes. Then there would be no further economic obstacles to independence.

However Greenland's prosperity could be short lived. As global temperature

increases, the accompanying changes in rainfall, evaporation and sea ice cover
will slow down the formation of the deep water current in the North Atlantic.

This falling column of cold, salt laden water pours itself to the bottom of the
Atlantic, where it forms an undersea river forty times larger than all the rivers
on land combined, flowing south down to and around the southern tip of Africa,
where it finally reaches the Pacific. Amazingly, the water is so deep and so dense
because of its cold and salinity that it often doesn't surface in the Pacific for
as much as a thousand years after it first sank in the North Atlantic off the
coast of Greenland
The out flowing undersea river of cold, salty water makes the level of the
Atlantic slightly lower than that of the Pacific, drawing in a strong surface
current of warm, fresher water from the Pacific to replace the outflow of the
undersea river. This warmer, fresher water slides up through the South Atlantic,
loops around North America where it's known as the Gulf Stream, and ends up off
the coast of Europe. By the time it arrives near Greenland, it's cooled off and
evaporated enough water to become cold and salty and sink to the ocean floor,
providing a continuous feed for that deep sea river flowing to the Pacific.

These two flows. Warm, fresher water in from the Pacific, which then grows salty
and cools and sinks to form an exiting deep sea river are known as the Great
Conveyor Belt.

If the Great Conveyor Belt, which includes the Gulf Stream, were to stop flowing,
because of the change in salinity and temperature the result would be sudden and
dramatic. Winter would set in for the eastern half of North America and all of
Europe and Siberia. Should this happen it would deal a crushing blow to
Greenland's new found wealth and hopes of independence.