In mid-June, the photo of some sled dogs walking with their paws immersed in water, water produced by a large melting of the ice pack in a coastal area in northwestern Greenland, was widely shared online. Many newspapers have associated that image with the effects of global warming, but a photograph taken 35 years ago – in the same area and in the same period – tells a somewhat different, and more complex story than the simplifications circulated in recent days (also the Post had posted the most recent image, explaining why some caution was needed).
The photograph of last June 13 was taken by Steffen Malskær Olsen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute, near the Inglefield fjord in northwestern Greenland, not far from Qaanaaq (Thule). The permanence of an area of high pressure in the area had favored an increase in temperature in a period of the year when there is always the sun and the climate is substantially mild, although it may be at those latitudes.
In the image, the dogs almost seem to walk on water: in reality they have their paws resting on the part of the ice that has remained intact under the part that has melted due to the heat.
In addition to being seen online by hundreds of millions of people around the world thanks to the somewhat hasty communication that could show a symptom of global warming – an undoubtedly established phenomenon – the photo of Steffen Malskær Olsen was also seen by Mads Peter Heide Jørgensen, a respected professor at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. Observing her, Heide Jørgensen recalled a very similar photograph he had taken in more or less the same area, again with the sled dogs with their paws soaked, but in 1984, at a time when the effects of global warming were known. , but less marked and tangible than today.
The old image was published by the Danish newspaper Politiken and the Post got in touch with Heide Jørgensen to get some more confirmation directly from its author.
Heide Jørgensen said he took the photograph around June 17, 1984, at the same time and essentially in the same place where Malskær Olsen would have taken his picture 35 years later. At the time, Heide Jørgensen had spent a couple of months in the Qaanaaq area collecting samples from marine mammals, as part of a study on the presence of heavy metals:
It was a nice summer time and hot, but this is often the case in that area between the months of May and June. Sea ice helps stabilize the weather and the sun is present 24 hours a day, so there are often temperatures above zero degrees for 24 consecutive hours, which help accelerate the thaw. This is what leads to the presence of water above the pack ice, usually around one meter thick. It makes it a little scary when traveling on it because you don't see the ice covered by the water and you might run into some hole made by seals during the winter, but luckily dogs pay attention to such things.
The timing and extent of ice melting vary from year to year, depending on the amount of snow that has accumulated on the ice, the amount of clouds and the temperature. As Heide Jørgensen explains, it is still normal to see the water covering the pack ice. It happened in 1984 as it has happened this year and as it will probably happen in the next few years.
As climatologists and experts often explain, from a single season it is not possible to draw certain conclusions on the role of global warming for particular phenomena. However, this does not imply that the climate emergency must be neglected, as Heide Jørgensen added:
I do not want to in any way detract from the effects and importance of global warming, which we see tangibly in Greenland, but water above the sea ice is a normal thing in Greenland, and it was even before the rise in levels. of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the main causes of the greenhouse effect: together with other gases, it prevents the Earth from dispersing the energy absorbed by the sun's rays in the form of heat, leading to an increase in global temperature that causes climate change (out-of-control melting of ice, rising sea levels, increasingly extreme weather events and much more). The release of CO2 into the atmosphere has increased enormously in the last century due to human activities, whose role in global warming is now scientifically proven. The more CO2 we continue to produce, the harder it becomes to keep climate change under control, hence the need and commitment of countries around the world to reduce emissions and study new solutions to reduce the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The increase in temperature in Greenland in recent years is a fact, and there are reports that show that the increase in maximum temperatures has been particularly marked in recent years. Regardless of the specific case of the photo with sled dogs, anomalies in temperatures and events such as melting ice must be monitored and investigated to establish the causes and role of global warming.