At ground zero of warming, Greenland seeks to unlock frozen assets

On top of theworld, by a fiord in western Greenland, a remote hydro powerplant is buzzing with extra water from the melt of ancientglaciers. This island at ground zero of global warming isseeking to be one of the few places on Earth to benefit.

Outside the Buksefjord plantthe biggest of fivehydroelectricity stations built in Greenland since 1993 in apush to move away from imported oilcod that usually onlythrive further south can be seen swimming in the clear water.

And a worker at the facility is preparing to grow potatoesand turnips on land close to the Arctic Circle that is usually
too cold for anything other than lichen and reindeer.

The north Atlantic island "is in the midst of new thinking,"Environment Minister Mala Hoy Kuko said, to capitalize on analarming thaw that included a record early melt on the vast icesheet in April 2016 before a cooler May.

Hydro power "potential will grow even bigger with thewarming of the climate,"Kuko said in the capital Nuuk,whichgets power from Buksefjord 56 kilometresaway. Above his deskis a 2-metre tusk of a narwhal, a whale known as the unicorn ofthe sea.

Climate change, caused mainly by greenhouse gases fromburning fossil fuels, is set to cause economic harm in almostall parts of the world by spurring ever more droughts, heatwaves and floods, according to a U.N. panel.

Low-lying tropical island states from the Maldives to Tuvaluview Greenland's 3,000-metre thick ice sheetwithforeboding since it contains enough ice to raise world sealevels by sixmetres if it ever all melted, over many centuries.

But for the 56,000 inhabitants of Greenland, a giant islanda quarter the size of the United States, the melt may beunlocking frozen assets and helping businesses includingfishing, farming, mining, shipping and tourism.

"Unfortunately I can't sit down and weep and say it [climatechange]is bad because overall it's good for Greenland," saidHenrik Leth, chairman of both Greenland's biggest privatecompany, Polar Seafood, and the Greenland Business Association.

His firm's pre-tax profit rose to 335 million Danish crowns($51 million US) in 2015 from 235 million in 2014 thanks to highprices for its main products, prawns and Greenland halibut.

About 90 per cent of the island's exports are fisheries, andmany hunters and fishermen welcome shifts in currents,apparently linked to warming, that have brought cod to westGreenland for the first time in two decades, and mackerel to theeast.

'Pros and cons'

Prime Minister Kim Kielsen, whose island has wide powers ofself-rule within the kingdom of Denmark, cautioned that "thereare pros and cons" to the melt.

Arctic regions are warming at about twice the globalaverage, partly because a melt of white ice and snow revealsdarker ground and water that soaks up ever more heat.

Most worryingly for Greenlanders, the melt threatens thelivelihoods of Indigenous hunters in the north who usedogsleds and rely on ice to hunt seals. And some buildings and airportsstanding on permafrost are at risk.

Faced with such threats, the islanders are looking toextract as many benefits as possible from the changes.

The ice melt could help the government meet its target ofraising the share of its electricity that comes from hydro to 90per cent by 2030, from about two-thirds now.

Officials say hydro plants that could draw directly from theice sheet could power a proposed new aluminum smelter and ironore mines.

Buksefjord gets water from a lake, fed mostly by rain andmelting snow, with some from ancient glaciers, officials say.

Climate change could also boost the island's hopes todevelop minerals ranging from rare earths to oil and gas, eventhough low prices have put most plans on hold. Melting snow andice makes prospecting less complicated andimproves access tosites.

"There will be more open water for shipping and it will becheaper for companies to get out minerals," saidJosephineNymand, a scientist at the Greenland Institute of NaturalResources.

The opening waterways could prove a boon for the tourismindustry too, giving visitors better views of spectacular glaciers, such as at Ilulissat.This summer, Crystal Cruises LLCplans to send a first cruise ship through the Northwest Passagefrom Alaska to New York, calling at Greenland.

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Among other projects linked to the Greenland melt,scientists are also studying how to tap some of a billion tonnesofmilky-coloured sediment that gets washed every year from theice sheet into the sea.

"It could be dredged up and shipped to tropical nations asnutrients" for farming, said Minik Rosing, a professor of geology at Copenhagen University.

Drought, flooding and artificial snow

Economists say it is hard to pin down the net effects ofclimate change for Greenland, named by the Vikings about 1,000years ago during a natural warm period.

For farmers, for example, warmth and a longer growing seasonin the south have been offset by drought some have hauled icebergs from the sea to help irrigation.

Prime Minister Kielsen, pointing to the ceiling of hisoffice, about threemetres high, said that in the north: "Just 15years ago the sea ice thickness could be compared to the heightof this room." In some places, it was now too thin to walk on,he added.

Showing the importance of ice for transport, Greenland'sstatistics bureau documents about 15,000 sled dogs on the islandagainst just 4,033 cars, two motorbikes and "railways: 0 km."

The pace of change this year has been disorientating, eventhough Greenlanders have adapted to sharp shifts in climatesince people first arrived from North America 4,500 years ago.

Many people in Nuuk, a town of 17,000, were shocked whenorganizers of the Arctic Winter Games in early March, usually asnowy month, had to generate artificial snow.

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Among the drawbacks of warming, rising temperatures arethawing permafrost such as at Kangerlussuaq on the ArcticCircle, the site of the island's main airport. And in 2012, aflood of melt water from the ice sheet washed away a bridge.

"It was a disaster," said Kim Ernst, a former chef at theRoklubben restaurant that was cut off for three months.

Many glaciers worldwide are shrinking because the summermelt exceeds the amount of snow that falls in winter and getscompressed into ice. In many nations, from the Andes to theHimalayas, this will disrupt hydro power andirrigation.

But despite Greenland losing about a net 300 billion tonnesof ice a year, according to the Danish Meteorological Service,its store is almost inexhaustible.

The CEO of government-owned energy company Nukissiorfiit,Michael Pedersen, said it was looking at building a new hydroproject to provide power to the towns of Aasiaat andQasigiannguit in the west.

But like climate change itself, benefits can beunpredictable. Fishermen seeking the new arrivals, for example,are at the mercy of shifting currents that are often a mystery.

"Three weeks ago I went out fishing and got a lot of cod,"said Tnnes Berthelsen, deputy head of the KNAPK association offishermen and hunters.

"Yesterday I went fishing again but I didn't get even one."