Greenland

Greenland

Geography
|Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its northerly | | |
|location, at the point where the Atlantic meets the Arctic | | |
|Ocean, means that Greenland is surrounded principally by cold| | |
|ocean currents, so the coasts are constantly being cooled. | | |
|This, combined with the radiation of cold from the inland | | |
|ice, gives Greenland its arctic climate. | | |
|The ice cap or inland ice covers 1,833,900 square km, | | |
|equivalent to 85 percent of Greenland's total area, and | | |
|extends 2,500 km (1,553 miles) from north to south and up to | | |
|1,000 km from east to west. | | |


At its center, the ice can be up to 3 km thick, representing 10 percent of the world's total fresh water reserves.If all the ice were to melt, the world's oceans would rise seven meters.
Climate
Greenland is often associated with cold and darkness and it can, of course, get very cold. However, there is also plenty of light and, although the polar darkness often reigns (in Qaanaaq, the sun doesn't rise for a whole three months!), it is never totally dark. Greenland enjoys more hours of summer than anywhere down south, but the weather is nowhere near as warm, even though the light is much more intense. Greenland summers won't give you an all-over tan, but your face and neck will turn a beautiful shade of brown....

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