In the past, Greenland truly existed as its name suggests: “The Land of Greenery”. This conclusion was announced by scientists on August 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
This finding also indicates that the global sea level rise caused by climate change may have far greater impacts than we previously imagined.
Scientists discovered plant and insect remnants beneath the GISP2 ice core, drilled 3 km deep in central Greenland in 1993. This is considered the clearest evidence to date that nearly the entire vast territory was once lush and green for a million years, when carbon levels in the atmosphere were much lower than today.
Flowers photographed on Kulusuk Island, Greenland. (Photo: AFP).
Although the rocks and ice of Greenland have been extensively studied, no scientist had previously investigated the fossils in the ice or sediment mix at the base of GISP2. Paul Bierman, a professor of Environmental Science at the University of Vermont (USA) and the lead author of the study, along with his colleagues, discovered fossils at the base of GISP2 that included willow wood, spores from moss, fungi, insect eyes, and poppy seeds. These are all indicators of a vibrant tundra ecosystem.
According to Bierman, if the ice in central Greenland melts, it is almost certain that ice will disappear across the rest of Greenland, “continuing the trend” of rising temperatures on Earth due to human fossil fuel use.
He warns: “If greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use do not drastically decrease, Greenland’s ice could melt nearly completely within the next few centuries to millennia. This would raise sea levels by about 7 meters, wiping out coastal cities worldwide and displacing hundreds of millions of people globally.”
Bierman and his colleagues’ research is based on two recent significant findings. In 2016, scientists examined the crystalline base of GISP2 sediment, using radiometric dating, estimating that this base may be no more than 1.1 million years old. Their model also indicated that if melting occurs at GISP2, then 90% of the remaining Greenland will be ice-free.
However, this finding is controversial, as there has been a belief that Greenland is an impenetrable ice fortress for millions of years.
Later, in 2019, Bierman and an international team re-examined another ice core, this time taken from Camp Century—a decommissioned U.S. military base near the Greenland coast from the 1960s. They were surprised to find that it not only contained sediments but also leaves and moss. Advanced techniques helped them date the sediments to 416,000 years ago.
The discovery of organic material in the coastal ice core prompted Bierman to return to GISP2 to search for similar materials, and the latest research results have clearly confirmed what scientists previously inferred through models and calculations.
This scientist asserts: “The ice must have disappeared, because otherwise there would be no plants, no insects, and no fungi. Now we know for certain that ice has vanished not only at Camp Century but also at GISP2 right in the center of the ice sheet. Now we understand that the entire ice sheet is prone to melting.”
