Roar of melting glacier sounds climate change alarm

ILULISSAT (Denmark) (AFP) - Flying low over the vast expanse of Greenland’s Ilulissat glacier, one of the world’s biggest, the effects of global warming are painfully visible as the ice melts at an alarming rate.

The helicopter lands on a granite cliff overlooking the Ilulissat ice fjord, or Kangia in Greenlandic, offering a magnificent, panoramic view of elaborate ice formations as they float towards the sea at a rate of two metres (yards) an hour, spilling massive icebergs into the open water.

Off in the distance, huge boulders of ice break off the imposing Ilulissat glacier, more commonly known by its Greenlandic name Sermeq Kujalleq, creating a thunderous roar as the glacier recedes in one of the planet’s most striking examples of global warming.

“The ice in some places on the coast is now melting four times faster than before,” says Abbas Khan, a Dane who studies the movements of Greenland’s glaciers at the Danish Space Centre.