Climate of Greenland

[4] In the far south of Greenland, there is a very small forest in the Qinngua Valley, due to summer temperatures being barely high enough to sustain trees.

There are mountains over 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) high surrounding the valley, which protect it from cold, fast winds travelling across the ice sheet.

The Greenland ice sheet is 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) thick and broad enough to blanket an area the size of Mexico.

It is thought that before the last Ice Age, Greenland had mountainous edges and a lowland (and probably very dry) center which drained to the sea via one big river flowing out westwards, past where Disko Island is now.

Half of the increase was from higher summer melting, with the rest caused by the movements of some glaciers exceeding the speeds needed to balance upstream snow accumulation.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Kansas reported in February 2006 that the glaciers are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago.

Recently, Greenland's three largest outlet glaciers have started moving faster, satellite data show.

This means that researchers must view old photographs of glaciers and compare them to ones taken today to determine the future of Greenland's ice.