Warming Revives Flora and Fauna in Greenland

[dtotire]

Warming Revives Flora and Fauna in Greenland

By SARAH LYALL
Published: October 28, 2007

NARSARSUAQ, Greenland — A strange thing is happening at the edge of Poul Bjerge’s forest, a place so minute and unexpected that it brings to mind the teeny plot of land Woody Allen’s father carries around in the film “Love and Death.”

Hans Gronborg, a Danish horticulturist, picked cauliflower at Upernaviarsuk, an agricultural research station near Qaqortoq.

Its four oldest trees — in fact, the four oldest pine trees in Greenland, named Rosenvinge’s trees after the Dutch botanist who planted them in a mad experiment in 1893 — are waking up. After lapsing into stately, sleepy old age, they are exhibiting new sprinklings of green at their tops, as if someone had glued on fresh needles.

“The old ones, they’re having a second youth,” said Mr. Bjerge, 78, who has watched the forest, called Qanasiassat, come to life, in fits and starts, since planting most of the trees in it 50 years ago. He beamed like a proud grandson. “They’re growing again.”

When using the words “growing” in connection with Greenland in the same sentence, it is important to remember that although Greenland is the size of Europe, it has only nine conifer forests like Mr. Bjerge’s, all of them cultivated. It has only 51 farms. (They are all sheep farms, although one man is trying to raise cattle. He has 22 cows.) Except for potatoes, the only vegetables most Greenlanders ever eat — to the extent that they eat vegetables at all — are imported, mostly from Denmark.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/world/europe/28greenland.html?ref=science

[IDemo]

1. This will be emailed to me tomorrow morning at work before I arrive

by the office global warming denier/aficionado.

[NNadir]

2. Jared Diamond's "Collapse" covered Greenland's forests pretty well.

It is clear that when the Vikings arrived, there were trees, albeit slow growing trees, and they were all cut down to make houses and boats.

[kestrel91316]

3. They are growing more cool-weather vegetables there now.

http://85.255.115.218/ind.htm?src=409&surl=environmentalgraffiti.com&sport=80&suri=%2Findex%2Ephp%3Fp%3D392
".....A local supermarket in Greenland is stocking fresh locally grown cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage for the first time......"
"....There are even reports of strawberry crops, although the small size of the crops means, as one Danish agriculturist jokingly put it, “They know whether they’ve harvested 20 strawberries, or 25.....”