Greenland's Inuit Falling Through Thin Ice Of Climate Change

Ittoqqortoormiit, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Dec, 2023) The thunder of icebergs crashing into the turquoise sea of eastern Greenland is the sound of one of the planet's most important ecosystems teetering on the edge of collapse.

As the ice melts, the hunters in the village of Ittoqqortoormiit -- home to one of the last Inuit hunting communities -- worry where they will get water.

Greenland's ice sheets may hold one 12th of the world's fresh water -- enough to raise the sea level up seven metres (23 feet) if they were to melt -- but climate change is already threatening the village's supply.

Cold winters, robust ice and snow are vital for both food and water for the Inuit of the Scoresby Sound, who live deeply intertwined with the natural world.

But temperatures in the Arctic are rising up to four times faster than the global average.

On a headland of barren tundra around 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the nearest settlement, Ittoqqortoormiit's 350 people get their fresh water from a river fed by a glacier that is melting fast.

"In a few years it's gone," said Erling Rasmussen of the local utility company Nukissiorfiit.

"The glaciers are smaller and smaller," he said after the warmest July ever recorded at Summit Camp atop Greenland's ice sheet.

"In the future we may have to get drinking water from the ocean," Rasmussen added.

With melting ice for water costly and unreliable, other isolated Greenland communities are already turning to desalination.

- Thinning ice and hungry bears -

The Scoresby Sound -- the biggest fjord system on the planet -- is free of ice only for a month a year, with the locals within it relying on the meat provided by the hunters to survive the long polar night.

Cargo ships only get to Ittoqqortoormiit, at the mouth of the fjords, once a year. The colossal drifting icebergs crowding the narrow passages are a challenge to even the most seasoned sailors.

"We need our own meat. We cannot only buy Danish frozen meat," said Jorgen Juulut Danielsen, a teacher and the village's former mayor.

But as rising temperatures weaken the ice, traditional seal hunting by stalking their breathing holes on the ice has become progressively more difficult and dangerous for the local hunters.

Peter Arqe-Hammeken almost lost his wife and two children when the ice gave way under their snowmobile when they were out hunting in January, when the temperature was 20 below zero Centigrade (-4 Fahrenheit).

His wife ruptured her biceps getting the oldest child, aged 12, from the water.

Less snow also makes it difficult for the dog sleds the hunters rely on.

And it is not only humans who are facing challenges. The weakening sea ice is also increasingly pushing hungry polar bears to search for food within the settlement, locals report.

"They come to land near the village, so people have to be careful," Danielsen said.