Ice, ironically, defines Greenland. Up to almost two miles thick in places, the ice that envelops the austerely beautiful island determines its ecology, its economy and its culture.
What scientists can say with certainty is that Greenland’s ice is melting due to global warming, and the consequences reverberate like the resounding rumble of a calving glacier. The quickening disappearance of the ice is upsetting marine ecologies and challenging the ancient traditions of the indigenous Inuit. And by opening new sea routes and yielding access to prized natural resources, it has engendered a race among the superpowers to assert control over the island. Greenland is a bellwether of global disruption driven by climate change.
The ice sheet is dwindling in real time. Sapphire lakes of meltwater, sometimes miles wide, collect on glaciers in summer. Massive icebergs slough off the sheet into the surrounding seas. As glaciers recede, rock and soil concealed by ice for millennia reappear.
Load YouTube videoAll that melting ice is a critical cause of sea-level rise. New research shows glacial surface water cascading down through crevasses warms as it falls, creating a lubricating effect at the base that accelerates a glacier’s march toward the sea. Sea-level rise attributable to Greenland alone is forecasted to reach nearly a foot over the next century, even if greenhouse gas emissions abate.
Satellite images show that thousands of square miles of the ice sheet have melted away over the last three decades, creating wetlands and allowing vegetation to colonize the terrain. In the surrounding waters, the loss of pack ice — the floating ice chunks from polar regions that grip Greenland’s coasts — threatens polar bears and seals, which depend on it for hunting and breeding.
Ice is infrastructure on an island with few roads. The Inuit traditionally use dog sleds to reach essential fishing and hunting areas and to travel between their widely dispersed settlements, but this practice is declining as sea ice disappears. In addition, thawing permafrost is destabilizing homes, roads and bridges, creating new economic burdens.
As climate change accelerates the decline of ice on land and in the surrounding seas, Greenland finds itself recast as a pivotal player in geopolitics. There are two reasons.
Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance tour the U.S. military’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on Friday, March 28, 2025. (Jim Watson/AP)
First, the island sits at the eastern end of the Northwest Passage, an ice-bound sea route connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic that is becoming more reliably navigable as temperatures rise. The distance from London to Tokyo via the Suez Canal is 13,000 miles, but just 9,900 miles using the Arctic route, and there are similar savings for many routes utilizing the Panama Canal. Ports on Greenland’s west coast are strategic locations for maintenance facilities, refueling depots and military installations.
The second reason is that, as its ice sheet diminishes, Greenland’s strategic mineral and fossil fuel resources become less difficult to access. Greenland is rich in critical metals, including nickel, zinc, copper and gold. It also has large deposits of rare earth elements essential to the manufacture of wind turbines and electric vehicles. And the island is known to have significant reserves of oil and natural gas, which it has not developed due to resistance from environmentalists and the Inuit.
As the climate warms, the dual prospects of militarization and extractive industrialization hang over the island. Because of its strategic location on emerging Arctic shipping routes and its bountiful stock of minerals and fossil fuels, Greenland is now coveted by China, Russia and the United States. Donald Trump’s second-term rhetoric has been strident to the point of not ruling out a military takeover.
The island’s new geopolitical prominence evinces the lassitude of the international community in confronting the climate crisis. After decades of half measures and stalled initiatives, during which warming proceeded apace, the world finds itself in a defensive posture, reacting to developments foreseen but not deterred.
A resident watches as pieces of ice pile up, blocking the access of the port of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. (Emilio Morenatti/AP)
The failure to keep climate change in check has led to upheaval in the Arctic environment that has rekindled colonialist tensions not seen in a century. The superpowers now view the polar region as a potential military theater and an area of intense economic competition. There is bitter irony in feuding over fossil fuels in environments already unraveling from their combustion.
The planet is having a mess-around-and-find-out moment.
The great danger is that countries abdicate their responsibility to stem global warming and instead prioritize policies to adapt to or exploit it. Self-interest cannot be the sole basis for navigating change in the 21st century. Unfortunately, that has been the guiding star of the Trump administration and the MAGA movement. The sooner the nations of the world can shift their focus to a just energy transition, the more hope there is for Greenland and its ice.
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