Why Greenland Is So Incredibly Empty... It's Not Just The Ice
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2024
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Greenland is a spectacle to behold! It's almost entirely covered in ice, yet there are some "green" areas. Still, the largest island in the world is home to only about 56,000 people making it one of the least densely populated regions of the world. So why do so few people live in Greenland? And why is it called "Green" if it's actually filled with so much ice?
Stock footage is acquired from www.storyblocks.com.
Animation support provided by DH Designs (needahittman.com) - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
2/3 of the landmass is above the Arctic Circle, and the southernmost tip is on roughly the same latitude line as Anchorage Alaska. Yikes!
Most people neither understand the issues with life at high lattitudes having very extreme sunlight cycles of near total light a few months a year and total darkness a few months a year making agriculture near impossible. Nor the drastic effects of climate change as they get more extreme as the lattitudes higher. Even when it's a desert wasteland in the tropics and subtopics little plant life will exist up in the high lattitudes so it will not really be a refuge for humanity when the heat gets here to remove us from existence
😂@@norml.hugh-mann
@@norml.hugh-mann that's is why we got Elon Musk!!!! Why you think he wants to populate Mars??. My theory is maybe humans already lived on Mars we destroyed it and left it a desolate waste land after several nuclear bombs while only a few escaped landing on Earth or it could of been gradually done. Crazy theory but if we move from planet to planet terriform it our needs use it destroy it and move on sounds way too much like human history already we use it & destroy it.
As a Canadian, I've been obsessed with Greenland for a long time. It's so close to us, almost as close as the USA yet to get there you currently have to fly to Copenhagen or Reykjavik then backtrack to Kangerlussuaq or Narsarsuaq (both International airports were former US Air Force bases from WWII) before continuing onto Nuuk since its runway is still too short for anything but DeHavilland Dash 8-Q400 flights (ironically a Canadian made aircraft) but the runway expansion/new international terminal project is finally underway so that will change in the coming decades making it much easier to visit from North America... There have been some Iqaluit-Nuuk flights in the past they've never been commercially successful enough to be sustainable... Probably because of the lack of cargo capacity to bring in cheaper goods from Canada to supplement European imports...
Why not take the Amtrak to Greenland
What I don’t get is why we(us Americans and you Canadians) have allowed Denmark to continue its claim to Greenland. It’s more on our side of the Atlantic than their side. We should just like, ya know, take that shit lol. It should honestly just be part of Canada, we just want a little oil for our troubles in procuring it from the European colonials :-)
You can buy a sailboat and sail there
@@charlesbrown4483 Right after you give back the American colonies you stole.
@@KaiHenningsen Whose gonna make us?
I've flown over it on the way to Europe and the ice goes on forever, beautiful in its grandeur. Like you, I figured "Greenland" was the name applied by Norse real estate agents to get people over there, thinking they'd be hoeing verdant gardens instead of hunting seals on ice floes. Real estate agents have a euphemism for every sort of dilapidated property they're peddling.
Have you ever wondier if there is afordable green home with neverending backyard? There is. Nuuk Real/Max offers the best value for suprisingly low amount of money. In the heart of nature, connected with the spirit of the past and without disturbing neighbours. Last 10 000 km2 for sale. :-)
@@akagi007 That's funny, and true, too. Real estate agents have a happy story about everything. One time I was looking for riverfront property in Florida, after a heavy rainstorm. The real estate lady said, "Do you like to fish?" I said I did. She said, "Then you'll love this property. You can fish from your living room." Turned out it was under four feet of water.
@@alansewell7810 Did they sell it to Aquaman?
@@KaiHenningsen All's I know is that I didn't buy it. I bought a house on a hill, thereby staying above the flood plain. Another good one is when people buy a lake or river property, they typically ask, "Are there any alligators around?" The Realtor typically says, "Alligators? Perish the thought! There hasn't been a gator spotted in these parts in at least 50 years." Then you go out on the deck and stomp on it and 20 alligators come swimming out from under it.
One of my favorite fun facts about Greenland is that the island has one single forest! It’s located entirely within one single canyon, which has to be one of if not the loneliest forest on Earth
There are some lonely "forests" in Australia too but not as lonely as that. The desert in our northwest has dry riverbeds that are filled briefly only by the occasional tropical cyclone. Within a few days they are mostly empty again. But in the deep sand along the bottom of the riverbed there's still a lot of water. And along those riverbeds you can see the trees that used to cover the entire landscape. That lonely forest in Greenland reminds me of those.
Around 800 A.D. there began a four-century period of high global temperatures, known as, The Climatic Optimum. It was not a global disaster back then as today. Many parts of the world previously uninhabitable due to harsh and cold weather, became moderate and open for agriculture. In England, grapes were being grown in the south.
In Greenland, much land land in the southern tip around the coastlines became suitable for farming and animal grazing. The weather had greatly moderated in southern Greenland to like that of today's southern Canada where it is warm enough to plant crops once a year while the winter, cold and snowy, was not Arctic freezing as before. The once stormy seas around Greenland calmed enough to make extensive fishing safer and feasible. It was a good time for the Norse settlers.
As the four hundred years came to an end, the world began to experience the exact reverse, unusually cold, wet, and prolonged winters. This was a ecological disaster for Europe which led to crop failures, famines, and plagues like the Black Death.
In Greenland, the land and seas over the course of just ten to fifteen years reverted to its originate state. The Norse descendents could no longer farm the cold, harsh windswept land nor pasture animals. The surrounding seas once again became frigid and stormy, too unsafe for fishing or whaling. According to history, the Norse settlers began to due out from starvation and famine and malnutrition. Those who did not die eventually sailed to the Scandinavian homelands of their ancestors.
this was an interesting read. Can you please droop the source?
Wikipedia @@umerghaffar4686
I think it was a one two punch because the Dorset also disappeared. The inuit killed them just like in canada during the crazy psycho killer inuit colonization(east asian with genetically zero altruism).
Warmer weather won't be a disaster for modern times either. Warmer weather would be a good thing. The climate is gonna change no matter what we do. It's been changing for billions of years and it's not going to suddenly become static because we eat bugs and pay carbon taxes.
Why did the video seem like it repeated itself?
20 percent is an area the size of California give or take, of course much of that is rugged rocky land with no chance for agriculture. Also, when Eric the Red discovered Greenland it was during the medieval warm period. When the climate became too harsh for their way of life with sheep farming, they bailed.
I think the context note is for you: There is no climate change prior to the industrial revolution. Ignore the expected bounce back effect after the little ice age. There was no little ice age. There was no medieval warm period. There are 5 lights.
FYI
Yes, about half the population would like secession from Denmark, but the Greenland homerule acknowledges dependency of 500 million $ annual subsidies ~ 10k per capita from Denmark so it's not immediately on the table.
Around 1 in 4 have mixed Inuit/European ancestry - It's not 100% native Inuit as you made it sound. Equally around 1 in 4 currently lives in Denmark.
Canada and Greenland actually have a common land border splitting the tiny uninhabited Hans Island in two. Interesting story behind worth checking out.
Next you can do Baffin Island, Elsesmere Island, northeastern Siberia, then the Moon and Mars.
I would've thought you'd want do a talk about Devon Island before moving onto a talk about Mars.
Baffin Island is pretty cool--it's kinda like a mini Greenland with its own ice sheets, fjords and a small capital, Iqaluit that's quite similar to Greenland's capital.
Moreover, (and according to a little bird from the future) these two unique islands will experience massive population growth in coming centuries due to climate change. Coming up: Stanley Cup 2125: Iqaluit vs Nuuk. Won't spoil the result here--you'll just have to wait and find out. (Hint: it will be Canada's first Stanley Cup since 1993--you read it here first!)
Ironically people are talking about settling Mars when Greenland, Nunavut and even Antarctica are much more benign and habitable than the best possible location on Mars. They're a bit closer too.
My grandchildren learn more on this channel than they do on any other channels
The internet gives you a university at your fingertips. It really is astounding if you use it in the right way.
I'm with you , I love this channel lots of facts you didn't realize well done
I'm from Greenland brother, very lucky my parents met at thule so I'm the only greenlandic american on earth. Best video about greenland👍
glad to see another greenlander !
Do they have many women there? Seems like it would be another Anchorage where the men outnumber something like 12 to 1.
The period of time when the Vikings and Erik were exploring the north Atlantic from around 700 to 1100CE was the Medieval Warm Period. Ice retreated and cropping and agriculture was extended over high latitude areas. Greenland was very green with large expanses of arable land. But as we all know The Little Ice Age AKA the Dark Ages followed for 500 years until the mid 19th century and it has been warming ever since in a natural cycle. Mostly caused by volcanic eruptions and associated ash and aerosol sulphite. Crop failures for decades, the plague, the French Revolution, the Polynesian diaspora. All caused by changes in the climate due to nature taking its course over Millennia. The only constant is change!
YO MAMA CHICKENTULA??
Great video. Thanks always been fascinated with this place. Thanks for all the great info
I saw -75 degrees farenheit on my computer in Greenland...
🥶😱🥶
Outside or inside?
explains why nobody lives there
No thanks!!!
that must have been in Eismitte in the interior. there is a research station there
Happy Holidays Geoff. I really enjoyed ur geography videos 😃 Thanks 👍 😃 🧡
As a geography FAN. I LOVE Geography By Geoff. Best geography channel. Always answering interesting questions
fr
Geoff is MUCH better than Kyle, the other geography guy. He drives me crazy! You know who I’m talking about… with those stupid shirts that always remind me of what Tony Soprano would have worn back in the 70’s and his liberal slant on what should just be about the facts of geography.
If you examine Canadian geography you'll find nearly everyone lives in the very south. Anyplace that is uninhabited is so for very good reasons...not because of lack of will or some real-estate marketing failures.
Hi from Montreal! I love winter, many perks including "Quiet!", I majored in Sylviculture and re-wild the place but left my trade cuz they refuse to listen! Happy New Year!
i've heard that 'Iceland' is an anglicization of the Icelandic word for 'island'; and given that Iceland is an island, i'm tempted to believe that
Iceland is the english translation of the icelandic name Ísland, literally meaning ice land. The word for island in icelandic is eyju.
Good quality, interesting videos, youve earned a new sub
Erik the Red was a Norwegian explorer Who moved to Iceland. (He had a son there, known as Leiv Eriksson). Erik the red disponeres Hreenland and sounded the first European settlement there. Greenland and Iceland was a part of Norway when Denmark and Norway went into a union in the middle ages. When this union ended in 1814, Denmark kept the Norwegian colonies Greenland and Iceland.
Merry Christmas. Love this channel
It should be noted that trees grow in Iceland but not in Greenland.
There is a small “forest” in southern Greenland
@@hawthornedan Yes there is, introduced and planted by scientists and not native. Iceland can claim a few native species of tree.
Greenland was settled BECAUSE it used to have trees.
Iceland similarly used to have forests but they were mostly felled for housing and ships. There is an effort to reestablish the Icelandic forests however.
The Qinngua valley in Greenland has a remnant native forest.
Do they have birds there since they have no trees
@@johnpaki1534 Ground nesting bird are a “thing”.
Iceland is NOT warmer because of volcanism, come on do your research. Icelands southeast coast is warm because of the North Atlantic Current. That current is warmed by the gulf current and also helps to make South East Greenland more habitable.
In Greenland the Southeast coast is not settled because of the massive storms that occur regularly when adiabatic winds blow down from the ice sheet. It's impossible to land ships or operate aircraft under such conditions for much of the year. The Southern most settlements on the East Coast are around Tasiilaq. From there to the Southern tip there are no settlements at all afaik, despite the vicinity of the Gulf Stream.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Youre correct, I messed up. I meant the south west is more habitable because the NA Current has less effect on the south west coast of Greenland.
I feel like the naming convention for Iceland and Greenland came about as described for Iceland but Greenland was just the name given to the green SW portion of the massive ice sheet and it stuck as the entire land mass rather than just the green region that was inhabited. The settlers disappeared so I’m sure there were stories told of the green land beyond the ice and it just became called Greenland
There was a Viking settlement there before the Little Ice Age
The Inuits are not descendants from Dorset culture but from the Thule people which emerges near Bering strait. Inuits ancestors arrived from the north-west roughly 1000 years ago, at the same time or slightly before the Vikings. Plaeo-Eskimo have almost no living descendants today.
G'day, mate! Love your channel and all the great information. Just one small request. If you could do us a favour outside the USA and add metric units, that would be totally awesome. Cheers! 😊
Temperature winter/summer variation of Nuuk would have been handy.
Good show.
Love this timing for some reason
Very interesting 🧐 Thanks!
Very little is "known" about the underlying minerology of Greenland, subsequently speculation is rampant. It is a potential source of angular sand, valuable for making high quality concrete, but of little economic value since it has to be shipped so far to be used. The island is actually rather concave and the miles deep ice in the center is significantly trapped and largely resistant to massive flow into the sea. The edges of Greenland that are not ice covered, are rock and unsuitable for agriculture or significant ranching. The potential to exploit hydropower along the coast and use it to produce hydrogen for export has been proposed. Greenland is a very harsh place and most of it will remain so even as global temperatures rise.
I just found your channel and find it very interesting, thank you! I'm in USA and would love to hear your take on the effect of immigration (thinking specifically of Mexico and parts south) on the various states and regions you discuss.
Hold on, isn't Anarctica less populated than Greenland?
yes, antarctica has around 1,000-5,000 people (almost none of them if any are permanent)
It's a Continent though
@@etrestre9403 Greenland is not a continent because it sits on the North American plate: geologically, it's an annexe of North America :) Antarctica has its own continental plate.
@@DieFlabbergast He was referring to Antarctica as a continent, not Greenland.
He called it the "least densely populated region of the world." The graphic substituted "area" for region. Not "island."
WIthout the glaciers, Greenland might be an archipelago like northern Canada. I wonder if the open sea between Canada's big open islands were once solid glacier and been mistaken for a continuous island.
Mistaken by who? I don't think people could had planes back then. But i see your point.
An island that makes Hudson Bay look small. Amazing.
A pretty glaring error at 07:09. The geothermal and volcanic activity of Iceland has almost ZERO effect on its climate. In fact, there are almost no places on earth where the geological activity affects the day to day climate in any meaningful way. Iceland's climate is significantly milder than Greenland's because of the Gulfstream's effects, the fact it is a much smaller island and the warm westerly Atlantic Winds which do not impact Greenland as much due to its proxmity to Canada. I'm honestly surprised that as a geography educator you could even float the idea that geothermal springs have a major effect on climate.
I think a bigger question is why the Hell does anyone live there? What a miserable place
Right? Plus it looks kinda ugly and depressing.
It's the perfect place to get away from people.
I think a big part of it is that Nuuk is just not a great location for a capital. It’s right on the coast, so summers are pretty cold. Inland locations have much warmer summers. Also southern Greenland have warmer winters too.
Nuuk (capital)
July avg high: 52F
Feb avg low: 12.4F
Kangerlussuaq
July avg high: 62.2F
Feb avg low: -12.8F
Narsarsuaq
July avg high: 60.3F
Feb avg low: 12.0F
I think if Greenland had chosen a capital further inland it for one would have more land to develop a larger city, and secondly would have a much more attractive climate, a climate that can actually support trees!
Before planes the supply ships from Denmark could only arrive half the year. The rest of the time it was too dangerous because of the sea ice floating around and either freezing the ships or destroying them. There is no "inland" on Greenland. The choice is rocky coast or ice that moves towards the sea.
@@24jh42 Kangerlussuaq is 80 miles inland from Sisimiut, there are plans to connect the two towns by road, but as of yet I think only a gravel road exists. To put that in perspective that’s like San Francisco to Sacramento. And everything in between is relatively flat tundra and glacier free which could be developed into grazing land, and if not for sheep than definitely Reindeer. That region is roughly 13,500 sq mi, that’s about the size of the state of Maryland or Moldova.
I get that back in to 1700s during the end of the little ice age things were different. But post WWII when the US built military infrastructure on the Island, Greenland could’ve focused their efforts to develop in particular this region instead of just Nuuk which just sits on a rocky peninsula with nothing but fishing industry.
@@greasher926 Take a look at the satellite image. Connecting a 200 km road between Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq (or more considering the bridges and tunnels needed). Not even the Norwegians would attempt such a massive investment considering the 6000 people living in the area. The maintenance alone could cripple the Greenlandic economy. Far cheaper to sail up the fjord, and in the months were sailing might be hampered by ice and bad weather, I can guaranty the road would not be of any use either.
@@greasher926 What you call "nothing but fishing industry" is 90% of Greenland's export. The capital is located where it is because it's a logical place for a main port. The waterways are the roads of Greenland and the sea itself is the natural resource that makes it possible for people to make a living there.
Great video. I've wondered why the two islands were called "Iceland" and "Greenland" when they seemed to be the opposite.
Not sure if it's completely factual but what I had hear is Iceland didn't want people immigrating to it and Greenland was trying to get people to immigrate back when only stories and written maps existed.
@@JonGZBOS This is a funny story that I've heard of, Though I have never seen factual basis of it. When I was doing undergrad in Anthropology a professor said that it was actually due to the fact that the aurora borealis in Greenland makes the ice sheets reflect the green of the aurora. Whereas the name of Iceland comes from Leif Erickson passing through straits nearby during the warm months but the glaciers were mistaken for ice sheets from far away so they chose not to land there.
Viking "humour"?
Largest island in the world? What about Australia? What about Antarctica? Pretty sure those are bigger than Greenland.
It's the same with Australia. But they have desert instead of ice.
and politicians.
sigh.
I'm pretty sure Australia still has a lot of undeveloped arable land, it's population is quite low
The Thule, Dorset and Inuit people were not thought to have intermixed significantly, from what I understand.
My father went to Thule regularly for work in the 70s and 80s, Greenland was a major topic in my childhood.
they sell car roof carriers there?
How can you talk so much about Greenland and so little - practically close to nothing at all - about Denmark and the interactions and history between the two?
Thanks!
No mention at all of the mercator projection. the map that makes so many people think Greenland is larger than it actually is?
It's location is very strategic to the US and control of the Arctic.
I would definitely love to visit both greenland and iceland would i live in these places probably not, i love my sun, heat, birds and trees to much, still would love to visit
Ice is not the only reason, ice not melting by gulf stream is another 🙄
Very interesting!
You didn’t answer why the us was interested in purchasing it, and you also didn’t talk about they were trying to get their independence from Denmark.
Greenland is now icier than during the relative warm period when Erik the Red named it.
It’s so incredibly empty because when we 🇬🇧 got there we realised there was no one to take it from.
😂😂
How about a Baffin Island clip. Baffin Island is pretty cool (at least in the spring and autumn)--it's kinda like a mini Greenland with its own ice sheets, fjords and a small capital, Iqaluit that's quite similar to Greenland's capital.
Moreover, (and according to reports from certain time traveling bird from the future) these two unique islands will experience massive population growth in coming centuries due to climate change. Coming up: Stanley Cup 2125: Iqaluit vs Nuuk. Won't spoil the result here--you'll just have to wait and find out. (Hint: it will be a Canadian city's first Stanley Cup since 1993--you read it here first!)
Missed opportunity to have this video just be 5 minutes of silence then you saying "cold" followed by 5 more minutes of silence
Another GBG classic 👌
They could become a world food production powerhouse, if they ran power cables from geothermal plants in Iceland to power large greenhouses.
Has anybody asked Gertie Thunderbutt for her opinions?
She's very good at opinions, quite opinionated in fact (if I may dare).
Iceland has always supported a decent level of agriculture with root crops and sheep farming and it is a stone's throw from the world's richest cod fisheries off its SE coast. The earliest settlers were Irish monks. None of this is the case in Greenland, where the attempted European settlement died out in the 13th century.
Thanks for making a video on Greenland.
Advise: decrease the overly repetitive narration
The Vikings ran out of Walruses', and sailed further West to find more, such as Newfoundland.
It's cold and frozen and generally quite shit and it's "So Incredibly Empty" because it's cold and frozen and generally quite shit.
Like.. DUH 🙄
Is it less densely populated than Antarctica? I find that very surprising.
I love northern Greenland and want retire there in the winter
I know you get a lot of comments, so this may be overlooked. But look up and maybe do a video on the Vinland map and all that surrounding that mystery.
The climate 1000 years ago was much warmer than today. That's why it really was green at that time. They could grove barley in Greenland for 200 years until the climate got colder leading up to the Little ice age. And now again it is becoming a little warmer.
My city I live in has about double the population of Greenland. Wild.
My local school district has 10x the population of Greenland. It’s very warm for most of the year.
Just to remind ourselves that the area of Greenland is grossly exaggerated in the map shown due to the nature of the map projection.
nothing new... he just rephrased everything that can be found within wikipedia
Im glad Im not the only one that thinks his content is extremely repetitive.
When you first arrive in Greenland, you are very impressed by the extreme beauty of nature and the colorful buildings and their unique lifestyle. But after living there a few months, you become depressed by the extreme boredom and isolation and silence. You get the impression the natives rely on tourists for mot only money, but also a much needed change in their boring lives.
It looks like a intact hit this would be a est of impact . 5.31 x 1025 Joules = 1.27 x 1010MegaTons.
11.500 yrs ago NW Greenland was struck by a 300m IRON CORE Object @ 54,000 mph.
It is likely in the 10th century was much warmer. The Viking settlement probably failed due to plummeting temperatures making livestock and farming impractical. The time of Roman occupation of the British Isles was much warmer as well. Odd that this is not presented here. Well not that odd. Would't want to offend the current climate cult.
it was wiped out because of the collapse of its only industry, ivory, and the advent of the Black Death and the Little Ice Age. You are correct, the 10th century was the beginning of the Mediaeval Warming Period when temperatures were warmer than today. But the Black Death and the loss of Greenland's only export were the real killers.
If only the Greenlandic Norse language could be revived, and then would be taught alongside Inuit Greenlandic language.
Icelandic is not far away …
Excellent video, but you forget that the average temperature in the Viking Age was 7 degrees Celsius higher than today. American researchers have documented that the Vikings were in America 400 years before Columbus, it may have been because the temperature dropped and they migrated from Greenland to America. Genetic research has shown that Native American Indian tribes had Scandinavian genes.
CEO of YAPPING. Told NOTHING while talking 11 minutes straight.
the flatter parts of barren landscape with zero trees & foreboding or incredibly dull aspects is identical to the locations where ‘low cost’ or rental new housing is developed on the surrounds of villages & towns in southern England nowadays - those parts where no one has chosen to live throughout the previous 2000 years…😮👍
I think that once they get those north shore beach resorts up and running and the NFL expansion teams in place, it should fill up nicely.😁
Greenland is cool.
Has anyone done oil and mineral exploration along the coasts or under the ice?
No, it’s _not_ the ice… it’s the yetis.
Very interesting.
I bet there is some INSANE rockhounding there for like 2 weeks of the year ^^
If today was April Fool’s, I’d say my thumbnail is my Great Greenlander dog taken in the fiord in Greenland where we grow weed in our greenhouse.
This is so much more entertaining than school
Reminds me of an old Gallagher joke, "Greenland is full of ice, Iceland is green!"
Iv been over Antarctica now thats ice
Try barren cold and remote
Greenland has so much ice and smow because it was previously at the north pole before the last pole shift
The real question is will Geoff run out of geography before hitting 1M subs?
I would like to visit someday
hmmm growing up in Australia, we were always taught that Australia is the largest island in the world.
I wonder what the health of the local people is like. Have they moved from a fish and meat diet to a crap western diet like, Canada's Inuit people, and suffered the consequences?
Hey bro your videos are fantastic. But 1 genuine criticism I have is if you could do all your voiceovers on the same mic/settings. Specifically, the mic in the first 30 seconds of the video is much nicer
The climate was warmer when Greenland was explored by the Vikings. It was more amenable to farming back then, but with our colder climate now it seems much less of an appropriate name.
The least densely populated region in the world is easily Antarctica... Greenland is the least densely populated country.
20% Green? I see 0% Green
Life is amazing
Well that’s a few thousands more than I imagined were living there, I thought it was in the hundreds really.
Thanks bro
Greenland with 56,000 people is still more densely populated than Antarctica.