GROENLANDIA. VIAGGIO INTORNO ALL'ISOLA CHE SCOMPARE

Scoresby Sund, the largest fjord system in the world, in north-eastern Greenland. In summer 1934 five young mountaineers led by Count Leonardo Bonzi set off to explore the peaks of the fjord’s southern slopes. It was the first Italian expedition to Greenland, and it was nearly transformed into a tragedy, due to the bad weather and ice preventing the ship that had come to pick them up from approaching the coast for almost two weeks. Traces of this adventure still remain on maps in the Milano and Roma glaciers and the Savoia peninsula, the only Italian place names in the whole of the Arctic.
In summer 2019, the journalist and writer Sandro Orlando spent a month in this fjord system to document the effects of the climate change emergency. The pack ice that prevented access to the mouth of the Scoresby Sund 85 years ago has disappeared completely, and today there is open sea in place of the ice. In this remote corner of eastern Greenland, at 70 north latitude, where in August maximum temperatures are by now approaching 18°C, the glaciers are retreating at startling speed due to the effect of warm sea currents, with icebergs breaking off continuously, to melt even before they reach the ocean.
The landscape photographed in the 1930s by Leonardo Bonzi’s group no longer exists, and not just because the blanket of snow that covered the Savoia peninsula in summer has given way to rocks and detritus, but because an entire ecosystem has been upset by an increase of almost 3°C in average temperatures in just thirty years. Many species of animals which the small local Inuit community relied on for their sustenance, such as narwhals and bears, have also disappeared along with the glacier. However, the acceleration in Arctic warming is a catastrophe that concerns us all, due to the consequences the melting of the polar ice cap is having on the climate of the whole planet. Every year the glaciers of Greenland lose 500 billion tons of ice, a mass of fresh water capable of raising the sea level by 1.5 millimetres, altering global ocean circulation and unleashing extreme events and climatic anomalies at all latitudes.
The book "Groenlandia. Viaggio intorno all’isola che scompare" will be released by Laterza in July 2021.