What climate change means for Greenland’s traditional Inuit lifestyle and the world

By EMMA BURROWS, EVGENIY MALOLETKA and KWIYEON HA

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) — Growing up in a village in northern Greenland, Jørgen Kristensen’s closest friends were his stepfather’s sled dogs. Most of his classmates were black-haired Inuit; he was different. When he was bullied at school because of his blond hair – an inheritance from a Danish father he never knew – the dogs came at him.

He first went ice fishing alone with them when he was 9 years old. They fueled the start of a lifelong love affair and Kristensen’s career as a five-time Greenland dog sled champion.

“I was just a little kid. But many years later, I started thinking about why I love dogs so much,” Kristensen, 62, told the Associated Press.

“The dogs have been a great support,” he said. “They lifted me up when I was sad.”

For over 1,000 years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen. But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, about 300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, that’s not possible.

Instead of sliding on snow and ice, Kristensen’s sled bounces on dirt and rocks. Pointing to the hills, he said it was the first time he could remember when there hadn’t been snow — or ice in the bay — in January.

Rising temperatures in Ilulissat are causing permafrost to melt, buildings to collapse and pipes to crack, but it is also having consequences that ripple across the rest of the world.

The nearby Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is one of the fastest and most active on the planet, sending more icebergs into the sea than any other glacier outside Antarctica, according to the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO. As the climate has warmed, the glacier has retreated and cut off chunks of ice faster than ever, significantly contributing to sea level rise from Europe to the Pacific Islands, according to NASA.

Melting ice could reveal untapped deposits of critical minerals. Many Greenlanders believe this is why US President Donald Trump has made their island a geopolitical hotspot by demanding ownership of it and previously suggesting the US could take it by force.

In the 1980s, winter temperatures in Ilulissat regularly hovered around -13 Fahrenheit in winter, Kristensen said.

But these days, he says, there are many days when the temperature is above freezing — sometimes it can reach 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Kristensen said he now had to collect snow for the dogs to drink during the trip, as there was none along the route.

Although the Greenlanders have always adapted — and may in the future make dog sleds with wheels — the loss of ice affects them deeply, said Kristensen, who now runs her own business showing tourists her native Arctic.

“If we lose dog sledding, we lose a big part of our culture. It scares me,” he told AP, pursing his lips and crying.

The ice floe is disappearing

In winter, hunters should be able to take their dogs far out onto the sea ice, Kristensen told AP. The ice caps act as “great bridges”, connecting Greenlanders to hunting grounds but also to other Inuit communities in the Arctic, Canada, the United States and Russia.

“When the sea ice appeared, we felt completely open to the whole coast and we could decide where to go,” Kristensen said.

Last January there was no ice at all.

Driving a dog sled on the ice is like being “completely borderless, like on the longest and widest highway in the world,” he said. Not having this is “a very great loss”.

Several years ago, Greenland’s government had to provide financial support to many families in the far north of the island after the sea ice did not freeze hard enough to allow hunting, said Sara Olsvig, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents Inuit from all Arctic countries.

Global warming also makes life more dangerous for fishermen who have swapped their dog sleds for boats, because there is more rain instead of snow, said Morgan Angaju Josefsen Røjkjær, Kristensen’s business partner.

When snow falls and is compressed, air is trapped between the flakes, giving the ice its bright white color. But when rain freezes, the ice that forms contains little air and is more like glass.

A fisherman can see the white ice and try to avoid it, but the ice formed by rain takes on the color of the sea – and that’s dangerous because “it can sink you or throw you out of your boat,” Røjkjær said.

Climate change, Olsvig said, “affects us profoundly” and is amplified in the Arctic, which is “warming three to four times faster than the global average.”

The glaciers are melting

Over its lifetime, the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier has retreated about 40 kilometers, said Karl Sandgreen, 46, director of the Ilulissat Icefjord Center, dedicated to documenting the glacier and its icebergs.

Looking out the window at hills that would normally be covered in snow, Sandgreen described mountain rock revealed by melting ice and a previously ice-covered valley inside the fjord where “there’s nothing now.”

Pollution also accelerates ice melt, Sandgreen said, describing how Sermeq Kujalleq melts from the top down, unlike Antarctica’s glaciers which largely melt from the bottom up as sea temperatures rise.

This situation is exacerbated by two elements: black carbon, or soot released by ship engines, and debris from volcanic eruptions. They cover snow and ice with a dark material and reduce the reflection of sunlight, absorbing more heat and accelerating melting. Black carbon has increased in recent decades as shipping traffic in the Arctic has increased and neighboring Iceland experiences periodic volcanic eruptions.

Many Greenlanders told AP they believe melting ice is why Trump — a leader who has called climate change “the biggest scam of all time” — wants ownership of the island.

“His goal is to get the minerals,” Sandgreen said.

Since Trump returned to office, fewer U.S. climate scientists have visited Ilulissat, Sandgreen said. The US president must “listen to the scientists” who are documenting the impact of global warming, he said.

Teaching children about climate change

Kristensen said he tries to explain the consequences of global warming to tourists he takes on dog sled rides or to visit icebergs. He explained to them how Greenland’s glaciers are as important as Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

International summits, such as November’s UN climate talks in the Amazon gateway city of Belem, play a role, but it’s just as important to “teach children around the world” about the importance of ice and oceans, alongside subjects like math, Kristensen said.

“If we don’t start with children, we can’t do anything to help nature. We can only destroy it,” Kristensen said.

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