Climate Impacts of Greenland

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by Owen Gaydos3 views·Updated Dec 5, 2021
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  1. Hi, my name is own Ghettos and I'm in the class of 2025.
  2. Today, I'm going to be talking about the climate impacts of Greenland.
  3. The first picture you see is a map of the
  4. beautiful country of Greenland which is home to 56,000,
  5. people.
  6. The next picture you see is where it is situated on a map of earth.
  7. It is a northern country right below Antarctica,
  8. located between the atlantic and arctic oceans
  9. and east of the Canadian arctic archipelago,
  10. pretending to its place in the climate system.
  11. Greenland is located in a polar climate zone
  12. which consists of brisk summers and cold winters,
  13. Temperatures usually vary between 11°F and 50°F.
  14. Greenland is prone to massive changes in weather.
  15. You can go from sunny to a blizzard just like that.
  16. This is because of an eastward progression of low air
  17. masses over the layer of cold air about Greenland's interior.
  18. Now going back to the first map,
  19. you can see Greenland's three biggest population centers nuke soon and elusive
  20. in the lower left side of the country.
  21. This map also highlights the thickness of Greenland's ice sheets,
  22. which because of their melting, is a big risk for climate impacts.
  23. Now,
  24. Greenland is in the arctic region where the temperature is getting
  25. hotter twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
  26. This is because a phenomenon called arctic amplification.
  27. This will occur when there's a change in the net radiation balance of earth
  28. and this causes a bigger transformation and
  29. temperature around the poles than the global average
  30. scientists believe this swift warming as a
  31. result of climate change caused by humans.
  32. Another thing is warming in the ocean water
  33. is undermining the ice sheets in Greenland.
  34. The accelerating rate of ice melt is causing
  35. drastic changes to arctic ecosystems and human communities.
  36. Furthermore, warmer temperatures mean more days of melting.
  37. This melting leads towards a resulting sea level rise in two main ways.
  38. First,
  39. water from the ice sheet seeps into the ocean
  40. directly contributing to sea level rise and second,
  41. the water's capability to accelerate flowing glacial ice towards
  42. the ocean also impacts the rise in sea level.
  43. Another threat posed by the changing climate in Greenland is the effect on humans.
  44. Greenland ice melting may cause around 100 million people to
  45. get flooded at the end of a given year.
  46. Further effects of melting ice include things such as heat waves,
  47. and unpredictable weather, which can lead to damage crops and food shortages.
  48. Finally, climate change is affecting Greenland's hunting, learning,
  49. language change, job creation, and immigration.
  50. Now, for a deeper dive,
  51. Greenland's rate of acceleration of ice melt is
  52. probably the most major change in the region.
  53. First, warmer air at the surface of the ice,
  54. she contributes to around half of the ice loss in Greenland.
  55. The other half of the ice loss is coming from a combination of a
  56. warmer ocean temperatures on the coastline and
  57. the splitting of icebergs into the ocean.
  58. The Greenland ice sheets make up 8% of its of Earth's freshwater,
  59. which significant enough to cause global sea level rise by upwards of 20 ft
  60. the impact of even a small amount of sea level rise can
  61. lead to increased flooding from wild weather events such as hurricanes.
  62. This sea level rise could result in a global catastrophe,
  63. but this doesn't only affect humans
  64. as ice melts.
  65. Wildlife are also losing their homes and certain animals,
  66. such as polar bears are being forced to change their habits.
  67. This means spending more time on land.
  68. This can lead to increased interaction between humans and polar bears.
  69. Efforts to stop this ice melting truly depends on how fast we, as a population,
  70. can cut carbon emissions right now.
  71. Now for emissions and GDP,
  72. Greenland's emissions history has been completely consistent over time.
  73. The emissions from 1959 to 2018 has stayed the same at an extremely,
  74. extremely low rate of 0.064, which you can see here on the graph
  75. now for the GDP,
  76. You also see Greenland current GDP rounding to about $3.052 billion.
  77. While their GDP per capita is at $54,470.96 in comparison, the world's GDP
  78. Is $84.578 trillion,
  79. which shows that Greenland's GDP is just a minuscule sliver of the world's GDP
  80. While on the other hand, the world's average GDP per capita is around $11,300,
  81. which means that although total GDP is a very small percentage,
  82. Greenland's GDP per capita is around five times the global average.
  83. And these are my sources. Thank you so much for giving me a second chance.
  84. Professor Holt you. It means a lot and thank you for letting me do the project.