It’s the time of reckoning again for the Arctic ice, as summer comes to an end and the freezing seasons starts. The scientists are constantly improving their measuring and forecasting, so the results come as no real surprise.

Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar Research puts the ice extent figure at 5.1 million km2, which is only 70 percent of the longer-term average between 1979 and 2000. It is not as low as the schocking record low of 4.1 million km2 in 2007. But the experts stress that does not mean a recovery. The slight increase this year is fresh ice, which is less thick. The AWI’s Professor Ruediger Gerdes says the proportion of thicker perennial ice has been reduced so far that summer ice cover is much more sensitive to atmospheric anomalies than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Two ships went through the north-east passage this summer. The Arctic is changing fast.

I got a mail today from Lars Holst Hansen, deputy station chief during the summer season at Zackenberg Ecological Research Station, the one I visited in July, and a biologist with NERI, the National Environment Research Institute.
It seems there have been several polar bear visits to the station, right up on to the beach. Lars, many thanks for your short report. Here is one of Lars’ pictures.

PHOTO BY LARS HOLST HANSEN
You may well ask what a polar bear is doing on land like this at this time of the year, no ice in sight anywhere. Presumably he is hungry. It seems he also went close to some Zackenberg kayakers. I’m hoping Lars will send me the scientist’s  view of the visit.
Thanks again Lars, and look forward to hearing more from you.

Well, your ice-blogger is back from Greenland and trying to get back to business as usual, if there is such a thing.

(Meltpond on the Greenland ice sheet from the air)
I’m still working on stories for radio and online and will put some links to shorter pieces below.I’m making some longer features as part of our international “Pole to Pole” project, which will only be ready later. Meanwhile there’s no shortage of climate developments to keep a journalist out of mischief in the run-up to Copenhagen.
Other media reports have been confirming my own experiences on climate change in Greenland.
The Guardian had a huge spread, including front-page coverage, on the rapid loss of mass from the ice sheet.
Guardian Correspondent on Greenland
The Guardian is actively running a campaign it calls 10:10, reduce your own emissions by 10% in 2010. Does that sound like a lot to you or far too little?
The background on 10:10
A large-scale campaign like this has surely got to be a good idea?
More alarming ice-breaking (-melting?) news came out in the form of a WWF report launched at World Climate Conference 3 in Geneva.
(Why do we need yet another climate conference?)
The report sums up the latest scientific evidence on the changes taking place in the Arctic and warns that feedback effects from the warming will speed up and increase climate change all over the planet. A quarter of the world’s population could be affected by flooding as a result of melting ice.
WWF’s Arctic Climate Expert Martin Sommerkorn on Arctic and World Climate
WWF’s Arctic site
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon picked up on that same theme addressing the conference after a trip up to the Arctic the same week. You’d think that meant top priority for the climate change issue. But is it resulting in any action?
A couple of Greenland article links:
Climate Change already visible in Greenland
Young Volunteers help protect World Heritage Ice Fjord

It’s not possible to get close up to the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier by boat because of all the icebergs in the ice fjord.

It is possible to have a good look at one of the others though, Eqip (pronounced Eh-ri, I’m not sure how the transcription gets to Equip), if you’re prepared to spend five hours each way on a boat, which I did. That reminds you once again you’re definitely up in the polar circle. On a bright summer’s day, the wind is literally icy, as you travel out through the ice cover on the water, between the icebergs.

Boats have to keep a safety distance of 400m from the wall of ice. All around the ice on the water crackles and pops as the oxygen it contains escapes.

This glacier calves around every half-hour. There’s a rumble like thunder, a crack like a gun and a lump of ice falling down into the sound in an explosion of what looks like powdery snow. This glacier, too, is on the retreat.

The oxygen-rich waters are full of fish. Attractive for seabirds:

I saw little seals popping up between the icebergs. Some humpback whales also put in an appearance, although they were playing hard to get for the camera:

But the species of wildlife I had most contact with was undoubtedly the hardy Arctic mosquito. Yes, even in Ilulissat, surrounded by icebergs, there are mosquitos. Elke Meissner, the German honorary consul, told me you could set your calendar by them, mid-June to mid-August. No doubt that too, is changing. A climate-change induced extension of the “grozzie” season is definitely not something I’d welcome. In Zackenberg, I was told they’re only around for one month – unfortunately I picked it. The wind keeps them away, so the boat trip with the icy wind was a treat. But when we got close to land to pick up some people camping in the area of the Eqip glacier, they were all wearing mosquito nets and desperate to come on board. They brought clouds with them, but they didn’t survive long (for one reason or another).
Meanwhile, the captain chopped up some of the ice he’d taken on board at the glacier – the ship’s drinking water.

12 hours later, we headed into the harbour of Ilulissat.

Changing shades of ice at 2am

I just read an advertisement for “mobile tourist cabins”. The main advantage listed is that you can move them around to cope with climate change, so that you can shift them with the ice sheet as it retreats.
Climate change is very obvious here, although I’ve met a few people who still think it could be just natural fluctuation. Some of them are people in the tourist industry. Jens Laursen, the manager of tourism in Kangerlussuaq is unwilling to accept a connection between emissions from air travel and retreating ice. He is, of course, dependent on people coming to Greenland by air. Flying is the main way to get anywhere here, and the distances are huge on the world’s biggest island. In winter, dogsled has traditionally been the main means of transport, not only for personal use, but for instance for fishermen, who bring large quantities of halibut they catch by a long line dropped through holes in the ice over the snowy slopes to Ilulissat. But this is losing importance, as the season when there’s enough hard-packed snow for it to be viable is becoming shorter, and the winters become less predictable.

Accounts from the locals here back up what the scientists are telling us. Morten Rasch, the man behind the Zackenberg ecological monitoring programme, for example, stresses that the variability of the climate will increase. Yesterday I interviewed Karen Filskov, who comes from Ilulissat and now works for Destination Avannaa -the regional office promoting development in the huge region of North Greenland, Qaasuitsup kommunia. It’s said to be the biggest municipality in the world in terms of area, with 660,000 km2. She told me a series of winters in a row up to 2006 had been so mild the fishermen could fish from boats in the bay rather than taking the dogsleds to the ice. A lot of them then got rid of their dog teams, which are expensive to feed. Then the last two winters were particularly harsh. The water was frozen, and they had no dogs. It’s becoming increasingly changeable, she says.
Karen told me there are still 3,000 dogs in Ilulissat. Most of them now have to be kept outside the town centre – admittedly not far away. There’s a weird rugged rocky area dotted with little dog kennels and huskies – chained so they don’t run around fighting in packs – dozing in the heat beside their sleds.

The captain of the “Pearl”, a boat that takes people to see calving glaciers up the coast, told me he had not only noticed differences in his work on the water. He used to travel around, for instance to matches with his local football team, using the dogsled in winter. Now, he says, he can only rely on that for a few weeks rather than a few months. Incidentally, I talked to him with the assistance of Laali Berthelsen from Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.

She’s working here as a guide in between her studies. She’s one of the few people here who seems to have recognised the potential of learning languages and the tourism industry. Most of the people working as guides here are from Denmark or other European countries. It seems there’s still a lack of locals with the necessary language skills. Nowadays, the children (and there are plenty of them here) are learning English at an early stage in school, so perhaps the next generation will be different.
Laali also told me she used to get new skis every Christmas as a child in Nuuk. These days she has to go somewhere else if she want’s enough snow to ski.

Ilulissat’s glacier, Sermeq Kujalleq (Jakobshauen) and the ice fjord (Kangia) are striking witnesses to the process of global change (assuming you know what they were like before, that is).

The glacier discharges ice from the inland ice sheet into the sea. The pieces that break off are stranded in the fjord, where the water is fairly shallow, resulting in the spectacular jam of icebergs, some smooth, some jagged, over kilometres, right down to the mouth at Ilulissat. But the glacier itself has retreated massively, especially since 2001. Karen tells me the icebergs are smaller (although still huge), because the ice is also thinner.