Thunder in Greenland - unheard of for 30 years
An island imperiled
As their home melts, Greenlanders confront the fallout of climate change.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/island-imperiled-climate-change-threatens-greenland-its-way-life-ncna1054921
TASIILAQ, Greenland — When a severe thunderstorm rattled the town of Tasiilaq in East Greenland in April, it was all the 2,000 residents could talk about.
“Facebook was full of people saying, ‘I was doing this and then I heard the thunder,’ and when I went to my job, everyone was talking about it,” said Anna Kûitse Kúko, 63, who has lived in the coastal town for most of her life. “It’s just so rare. We maybe hear some thunder one time in 30 years. It was scary.”
For Kúko — who was born outdoors, delivered by her grandmother “in nature, just on the other side of the mountains” on the edge of town — the ominous roars, cracks and rumbles were just another way that she and her neighbors have seen their environment change over the last 15 years.
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The harbor and town of Tasiilaq, Greenland. (Lucas Jackson / Reuters)
Such drastic changes to ice conditions can have deadly consequences. Kúko, who works as a teacher in Tasiilaq, said four people have drowned from falling through thin ice in the past 15 years — an unusually high number for a town of experienced hunters who grew up using dog sleds, not snowmobiles, and harpoons, not shotguns, to nab their prey.
“It is much more dangerous to go on the ice now,” she said. “It’s unpredictable and more thin, so you can easily go through the ice and drown. Hunters used to know exactly how the ice would be.”
