greenland

FOR those who find that Discovery Channel documentaries and Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentations don’t adequately capture the phenomenon of global warming, another option is now more readily available: pulling on a fur-lined parka and watching the ice melt in Greenland.Highlighted as a focal point of global warming in scientific reports and apocalyptic films like “The Day After Tomorrow,” Greenland is beginning to draw attention from tourists who want to see the effects of climate change for themselves.And the accessibility of Greenland for Americans got a boost last summer when Air Greenland started the first nonstop flight between the United States and Greenland, a five-hour flight out of Baltimore (airgreenland.com).
Visitors fly into Kangerlussuaq, the site of a former United States military base. The foot of the polar ice cap there is a popular picnicking spot for tourists, where they stare at a 250-foot wall of ice that, if it melts, has the potential to raise the world’s oceans by 24 feet, some researchers have estimated.