Gelu Sulugiuc

When I joined a fencing club in June, I just wanted to learn about a sport I would cover for the
first time at the Beijing Games. Then a grandmother thrashed me in my first bout, bruising more than just my ego.

I used to fool around with a plastic sword as a kid, pretending I was d'Artagnan, so I figured I was well primed for a promising amateur career in this low-profile sport.

My first disappointment at the fencing club in Hellerup, a suburb of Copenhagen, was not being allowed to try the sabre -- seen by some as cooler than the other two weapons, epee and foil, because it is derived from the cavalry sword and allows slashing hits as well as thrusts.

My coach, Mads Eriksen, said that weapon was too complex for a novice, so I was assigned the epee, where the rules are easy: just poke any part of the opponent's body and you score a point.

Of course, it's important that your epee be the same length as your adversary's. Apparently I had not considered this when I unwittingly selected a weapon meant for 12-year olds.

At least the sight of me 'en garde' with a stunted epee gave everyone in the room a reason to start the training session with a good laugh.

I continued to provide humour material when I promptly lost my first match to a grandmother. Granted, Sara is a young grandmother, but her daughter has a daughter, so there was no denying it: I lost to a grandmother, and badly.

Sara said the 15-10 thrashing had been her first win in months at the club. Her epee also gave me the first of many bruises that were to pepper the right side of my body during my time at the club.

I never managed to win a match in my short tenure there but at least it's given me real appreciation for the skill of the fencers I'm watching here.

Dr. Koni Steffen is the director of University of Colorado at Boulders Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and a veteran researcher of Arctic climate. The following are excerpts from a Reuters interview with Dr. Steffen at his research camp in Greenland in which he discusses the accelerating melting of Greenlands ice cap and its effects on global ocean levels.

Q: Lets start by describing your research here at Swiss Camp.
A: We want to measure the climate over longer term to find out how it is interacting with the ice masses. The location of the Swiss Camp is unique. When we started in 1990, the amount of precipitation here and the melt of snow and ice equaled. We had zero change. This warming were currently observing in Greenland moves this line to higher elevations on the ice sheet. Warmer temperatures in spring and fall made the melt period in Greenland much longer. Therefore we see more and more melt water from the ice sheet flowing out into the ocean and decreasing the reflection of the sun. We have seen that the total melt area over the last 30 years increased by 30 percent. This is a large area. Up to 50 percent of Greenland in the inner part never melts. Its too cold and its too high in elevation, as the ice goes to 3,000 metres. But this area gets smaller and smaller.

Q: How far along are scientists in understanding ice sheet dynamics and their effect on global ocean levels?
A: One effect is the melting of the ice sheet. Another effect is the dynamic response of the ice sheet, and this is quite a new observation. In the past we all assumed the ice sheet was moving at constant speed toward the ice edge. The big glacier here, Jakobshavn Isbrae, had a velocity of 6-7 km per year into the fjord up to 1995. Suddenly, this glacier retreated in the fjord, but by 2002-2003 its speed had doubled to 14-15 km per year. This is a very large volume of ice that moves into the ocean. Every year, we lose 100 to 150 cubic km of ice in Greenland. There is an imbalance that we can only explain by the dynamics of the ice. Its moving faster into the oceans through this glacier and other glaciers on the east coast.

Q: Did the last IPCC report underestimate the forecast for the rise in ocean levels?
A: I think it definitely underestimated. We complained heavily before it was released and thats why they added a few lines that if there is a dynamic response of ice sheets the upper uncertainty might be higher. That tells you that the current IPCC report only takes into account the current understanding. We can model melt but we cannot model the dynamics. How can you actually set an uncertainty band that small if you dont understand a major process that produces now so much melt water?

Q: Could Greenland's meltdown have an effect on the conveyor belt of ocean currents?
A: The meltdown effect is currently a hypothesis. We do know how much water is produced by melt. If you put that into a model for the conveyor belt it will not change the global circulation. The dynamic loss of ice has increased over the last five years, every other year almost doubling. If you put this curve in, some models can predict a change in the conveyor belt within 50 to 100 years. But its one out of 10 models. The uncertainty is quite large.

The way we understand this from the past, we had abrupt climate changes that happened when huge water masses were collected on ice sheets and were flushed out at once, way bigger than what we can produce now on Greenland. The theory is open. Can we produce enough fresh water to change the conveyor belt? The present situation is we doubt it. It is unlikely that we have an abrupt climate change due to the ice loss of Greenland alone. If Antarctica is reacting faster...

Antarctica is the sleeping giant. But it was cold so far. The peninsula that sticks out into the ocean was the only place you could see very strong warming its actually the place with the strongest warming on the globe currently. If that has an effect on big ice shelves if they start to disintegrate, then the ice masses from higher elevation move into the ocean, then there is a possibility that you actually produce more fresh water, which could change the conveyor belt.

The cause of the current warming is an increase in greenhouse gasses, which is worldwide, not just in the Arctic. Even with these greenhouse scenarios, we have regions that will not warm, or warm very little, and other regions will warm three or four times faster. The only thing that could stop Greenlands melting is the ocean currents, and they are very inert. They need a lot of energy to actually make changes.

Q: Short of the conveyor belt stopping, what could reverse the warming in Greenland?
A: We had a similar warming in Greenland in the 1930s. It took about two and a half decades to get that warm, but the temperatures were almost identical as they are now. But this was a local warming around Greenland. Right now we have warming all the way down to the mid-latitudes. How could it be reversed? Thats a hard question, because if you put greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere it takes a very long time to take them out. We have never had such a high carbon dioxide level in the past 500,000 years. We have good climate data from ice cores in Antarctica that go back 500,000 years and from these records we can see the ice ages and the warming periods, but the driver a lot of the time was CO2, and now CO2 is way above what we had in the past.

We cannot take CO2 out of the atmosphere, not in the amount thats currently there. It is self-regulating, yes. CO2 is taken out and put into the ocean, but its a very slow process. If we actually start now, changing our emissions through better fuel consumption or better insulation, everything helps in that way. The population of the Earth grows. We know California has grown its industry and population but its CO2 output has decreased in the last 15 years. It is possible to have an increase of the economy and population and decrease your output. Only that would help in the longer term. But the warming will continue even if we turn off all the engines today because of the memory effect in the atmosphere. It takes quite a long time.

Q: How do you view the media coverage of climate change?
A: One disappointment I would raise is if you look at the understanding of climate change by scientists lets be generous 95 percent of scientists say we understand the process and we are convinced there is global warming. The media reports it, like a lot of other stories, as 50-50. They want to always show the other side. That's good, but Im disappointed that the media does not reflect that there is a 95-5 percent discussion. It sounds like its 50-50. The public reads this and they cant make up their mind usually.

Dr. Koni Steffen on the Greenland ice cap. Photo by Bob Strong, Reuters.

Dr. Koni Steffen is the director of University of Colorado at Boulders Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and a veteran researcher of Arctic climate. The following are excerpts from a Reuters interview with Dr. Steffen at his research camp in Greenland in which he discusses the accelerating melting of Greenlands ice cap and its effects on global ocean levels.

Q: Lets start by describing your research here at Swiss Camp.
A: We want to measure the climate over longer term to find out how it is interacting with the ice masses. The location of the Swiss Camp is unique. When we started in 1990, the amount of precipitation here and the melt of snow and ice equaled. We had zero change. This warming were currently observing in Greenland moves this line to higher elevations on the ice sheet. Warmer temperatures in spring and fall made the melt period in Greenland much longer. Therefore we see more and more melt water from the ice sheet flowing out into the ocean and decreasing the reflection of the sun. We have seen that the total melt area over the last 30 years increased by 30 percent. This is a large area. Up to 50 percent of Greenland in the inner part never melts. Its too cold and its too high in elevation, as the ice goes to 3,000 metres. But this area gets smaller and smaller.

Q: How far along are scientists in understanding ice sheet dynamics and their effect on global ocean levels?
A: One effect is the melting of the ice sheet. Another effect is the dynamic response of the ice sheet, and this is quite a new observation. In the past we all assumed the ice sheet was moving at constant speed toward the ice edge. The big glacier here, Jakobshavn Isbrae, had a velocity of 6-7 km per year into the fjord up to 1995. Suddenly, this glacier retreated in the fjord, but by 2002-2003 its speed had doubled to 14-15 km per year. This is a very large volume of ice that moves into the ocean. Every year, we lose 100 to 150 cubic km of ice in Greenland. There is an imbalance that we can only explain by the dynamics of the ice. Its moving faster into the oceans through this glacier and other glaciers on the east coast.

Q: Did the last IPCC report underestimate the forecast for the rise in ocean levels?
A: I think it definitely underestimated. We complained heavily before it was released and thats why they added a few lines that if there is a dynamic response of ice sheets the upper uncertainty might be higher. That tells you that the current IPCC report only takes into account the current understanding. We can model melt but we cannot model the dynamics. How can you actually set an uncertainty band that small if you dont understand a major process that produces now so much melt water?

Q: Could Greenland's meltdown have an effect on the conveyor belt of ocean currents?
A: The meltdown effect is currently a hypothesis. We do know how much water is produced by melt. If you put that into a model for the conveyor belt it will not change the global circulation. The dynamic loss of ice has increased over the last five years, every other year almost doubling. If you put this curve in, some models can predict a change in the conveyor belt within 50 to 100 years. But its one out of 10 models. The uncertainty is quite large.

The way we understand this from the past, we had abrupt climate changes that happened when huge water masses were collected on ice sheets and were flushed out at once, way bigger than what we can produce now on Greenland. The theory is open. Can we produce enough fresh water to change the conveyor belt? The present situation is we doubt it. It is unlikely that we have an abrupt climate change due to the ice loss of Greenland alone. If Antarctica is reacting faster...

Antarctica is the sleeping giant. But it was cold so far. The peninsula that sticks out into the ocean was the only place you could see very strong warming its actually the place with the strongest warming on the globe currently. If that has an effect on big ice shelves if they start to disintegrate, then the ice masses from higher elevation move into the ocean, then there is a possibility that you actually produce more fresh water, which could change the conveyor belt.

The cause of the current warming is an increase in greenhouse gasses, which is worldwide, not just in the Arctic. Even with these greenhouse scenarios, we have regions that will not warm, or warm very little, and other regions will warm three or four times faster. The only thing that could stop Greenlands melting is the ocean currents, and they are very inert. They need a lot of energy to actually make changes.

Q: Short of the conveyor belt stopping, what could reverse the warming in Greenland?
A: We had a similar warming in Greenland in the 1930s. It took about two and a half decades to get that warm, but the temperatures were almost identical as they are now. But this was a local warming around Greenland. Right now we have warming all the way down to the mid-latitudes. How could it be reversed? Thats a hard question, because if you put greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere it takes a very long time to take them out. We have never had such a high carbon dioxide level in the past 500,000 years. We have good climate data from ice cores in Antarctica that go back 500,000 years and from these records we can see the ice ages and the warming periods, but the driver a lot of the time was CO2, and now CO2 is way above what we had in the past.

We cannot take CO2 out of the atmosphere, not in the amount thats currently there. It is self-regulating, yes. CO2 is taken out and put into the ocean, but its a very slow process. If we actually start now, changing our emissions through better fuel consumption or better insulation, everything helps in that way. The population of the Earth grows. We know California has grown its industry and population but its CO2 output has decreased in the last 15 years. It is possible to have an increase of the economy and population and decrease your output. Only that would help in the longer term. But the warming will continue even if we turn off all the engines today because of the memory effect in the atmosphere. It takes quite a long time.

Q: How do you view the media coverage of climate change?
A: One disappointment I would raise is if you look at the understanding of climate change by scientists lets be generous 95 percent of scientists say we understand the process and we are convinced there is global warming. The media reports it, like a lot of other stories, as 50-50. They want to always show the other side. That's good, but Im disappointed that the media does not reflect that there is a 95-5 percent discussion. It sounds like its 50-50. The public reads this and they cant make up their mind usually.

Dr. Koni Steffen on the Greenland ice cap. Photo by Bob Strong, Reuters.

AASIAAT, Greenland - The ice cap is spectacular when the sun is shining, but you dont want to be there during a snow storm. We barely escaped one that would have confined us to our tents for at least two days, taking a helicopter back to Ilulissat early in the morning, just as a blizzard was gathering steam.

I left Bob in Ilulissat taking more pictures of icebergs and took a 25 minute flight down to Aasiaat, the capital of Greenlandic kayaking and whale watching. The town of 3,000 overlooks an archipelago of around 1,000 islands in the southern part of Disko Bay. Snow-capped Disko Island can be seen 80 kilometres to the west, a distance local elders say hunters would traverse every winter on dog sleds when the bay used to freeze over. With average winter temperatures warming significantly, that hasnt happened in years.

Kayaking, invented in the Arctic, almost disappeared in Greenland in the middle of the last century when it was made irrelevant for fishing with the advent modern trawlers. A push to salvage local traditions resulted in the establishment of kayaking clubs in several towns. Now, Greenland organizes national kayak championships in disciplines such as speed and endurance, as well as kayak carrying and rolling. There are 30 different ways to roll on each side of the kayak, says Adam Hansen, a local kayaker.

Tourists come to Aasiaat for kayaking trips ranging from two to eight days, spending the night in tents or hunting huts on uninhabited islands. Between the middle of June and the end of September, they can usually see minke and humpback whales and narwhals up close from the kayak, sometimes right outside Aasiaat harbor.

Hansen is always ready to recall close encounters, like the time when five orcas attacked a minke whale. One of the killer whales hit the minke so hard it pushed it up out of the water, he said. Another time, we were kayaking toward a group of feeding humpback whales to get a better look at them when we realized that we were in the middle of the circle of bubbles they make to trap the plankton. We had to paddle fast out of their eating area, because thats exactly where they surface. 

Its too early to see whales now, so the remains of one fin whale hunted by local fishermen three years ago will have to do. Its skull and bones are sitting at the bottom of a shallow sound now blocked off by pack ice that scratches against our slow-moving boat with a fearsome shriek.

In the cafeteria at Sømandshjemmet (Seamans Home) hostel that overlooks the harbor, weathered fishermen with big hands and worn-out overalls eat hearty portions of roast pork and potatoes. They are wary of talking about whale hunting because of the strong reaction it causes in most of the Western world.

We dont kill whales for killings sake, we use them for food, says Ib Brandt, a harpoon operator. We hunt at the minimum we can use and we dont waste any part of the meat.

The sun sets long after midnight in Aasiaat in May. Photo by Gelu Sulugiuc, Reuters.

AASIAAT, Greenland - The ice cap is spectacular when the sun is shining, but you dont want to be there during a snow storm. We barely escaped one that would have confined us to our tents for at least two days, taking a helicopter back to Ilulissat early in the morning, just as a blizzard was gathering steam.

I left Bob in Ilulissat taking more pictures of icebergs and took a 25 minute flight down to Aasiaat, the capital of Greenlandic kayaking and whale watching. The town of 3,000 overlooks an archipelago of around 1,000 islands in the southern part of Disko Bay. Snow-capped Disko Island can be seen 80 kilometres to the west, a distance local elders say hunters would traverse every winter on dog sleds when the bay used to freeze over. With average winter temperatures warming significantly, that hasnt happened in years.

Kayaking, invented in the Arctic, almost disappeared in Greenland in the middle of the last century when it was made irrelevant for fishing with the advent modern trawlers. A push to salvage local traditions resulted in the establishment of kayaking clubs in several towns. Now, Greenland organizes national kayak championships in disciplines such as speed and endurance, as well as kayak carrying and rolling. There are 30 different ways to roll on each side of the kayak, says Adam Hansen, a local kayaker.

Tourists come to Aasiaat for kayaking trips ranging from two to eight days, spending the night in tents or hunting huts on uninhabited islands. Between the middle of June and the end of September, they can usually see minke and humpback whales and narwhals up close from the kayak, sometimes right outside Aasiaat harbor.

Hansen is always ready to recall close encounters, like the time when five orcas attacked a minke whale. One of the killer whales hit the minke so hard it pushed it up out of the water, he said. Another time, we were kayaking toward a group of feeding humpback whales to get a better look at them when we realized that we were in the middle of the circle of bubbles they make to trap the plankton. We had to paddle fast out of their eating area, because thats exactly where they surface. 

Its too early to see whales now, so the remains of one fin whale hunted by local fishermen three years ago will have to do. Its skull and bones are sitting at the bottom of a shallow sound now blocked off by pack ice that scratches against our slow-moving boat with a fearsome shriek.

In the cafeteria at Sømandshjemmet (Seamans Home) hostel that overlooks the harbor, weathered fishermen with big hands and worn-out overalls eat hearty portions of roast pork and potatoes. They are wary of talking about whale hunting because of the strong reaction it causes in most of the Western world.

We dont kill whales for killings sake, we use them for food, says Ib Brandt, a harpoon operator. We hunt at the minimum we can use and we dont waste any part of the meat.

The sun sets long after midnight in Aasiaat in May. Photo by Gelu Sulugiuc, Reuters.

NUUK, Greenland - The taxis are Mercedes-Benzes. The local discotheque is called Manhattan. And Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End opened here two days earlier than in the United States. This is the modern face of Nuuk, the tiny capital of Greenland, which has 15,000 inhabitants and only a handful of traffic lights.

But for all its westernization and economic development, the fjord city and its denizens try their hardest to preserve their Greenlandic spirit. In the middle of the capital stands a statue of mythical Inuit character Kaassassuk wrestling with the Lord of Mighty Power a symbol of the will and strength of Greenland to take on any challenge.

The leader of the Home Rule government, Premier Hans Enoksen, only gives interviews in Greenlandic, using a translator even for Danish. Locals speak with great hope of the oil exploration projects off Greenlands west coast, which, if successful, could provide the island the funds it needs to wean itself off from yearly grants from Denmark and become independent.

But until the oil starts flowing and Nuuk becomes the Kuwait City of the Arctic, Santa Claus will have to continue to power his sled with reindeer.

Nuuk boasts the worlds largest letter box, and it belongs to Santa. Kids from all over the world send letters addressed simply to Santa Claus, North Pole, Greenland, and they end up here, at Santas Post Office, in a mailbox as big as a house. Its already about half-full, and the sign outside says it will not be emptied until Christmas.

Children play on Kaassassuks statue in downtown Nuuk. Santas mailbox in Nuuk. Photos by Gelu Sulugiuc, Reuters.

NUUK, Greenland - The taxis are Mercedes-Benzes. The local discotheque is called Manhattan. And Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End opened here two days earlier than in the United States. This is the modern face of Nuuk, the tiny capital of Greenland, which has 15,000 inhabitants and only a handful of traffic lights.

But for all its westernization and economic development, the fjord city and its denizens try their hardest to preserve their Greenlandic spirit. In the middle of the capital stands a statue of mythical Inuit character Kaassassuk wrestling with the Lord of Mighty Power a symbol of the will and strength of Greenland to take on any challenge.

The leader of the Home Rule government, Premier Hans Enoksen, only gives interviews in Greenlandic, using a translator even for Danish. Locals speak with great hope of the oil exploration projects off Greenlands west coast, which, if successful, could provide the island the funds it needs to wean itself off from yearly grants from Denmark and become independent.

But until the oil starts flowing and Nuuk becomes the Kuwait City of the Arctic, Santa Claus will have to continue to power his sled with reindeer.

Nuuk boasts the worlds largest letter box, and it belongs to Santa. Kids from all over the world send letters addressed simply to Santa Claus, North Pole, Greenland, and they end up here, at Santas Post Office, in a mailbox as big as a house. Its already about half-full, and the sign outside says it will not be emptied until Christmas.

Children play on Kaassassuks statue in downtown Nuuk. Santas mailbox in Nuuk. Photos by Gelu Sulugiuc, Reuters.

Copenhagen correspondent Gelu Sulugiuc and Reuters photographer Bob Strong ventured to Greenland to visit a team of scientists studying the melting of the ice sheet. The following was written at Swiss Camp, on the ice cap.

After a bumpy 35-kilometre snowmobile ride, we finally reach JAR-2 (Jakobshavn Ablation Region 2), where Dr. Koni Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder and NASAs Dr. Jay Zwally must conduct work on instruments that measure snowfall, wind speed, ice thickness and its movement toward the ocean.

Dr. Steffen warns us of dangerous crevices, then promptly steps in one, his left leg sinking up to the knee. I expected it to be there, based on that crack in the ice, he says with a grin. I just wanted to test my theory.

We move the snowmobiles away and vow not to approach the hole, while Dr. Zwally does the exact opposite. He methodically pokes at it with an aluminium pole, enlarging it. This is big enough that if you go down you may never come out, he says nonchalantly. It may be as big as the one that helicopter pilot fell in the other day. Then he ties himself to a snowmobile, leans over the crevice and starts videotaping it. Id say its at least 15 metres deep and wide enough for several of us to fit in it, he announces.

Most of the data from JAR-2 and other stations like it are beamed by satellite to the United States, but some must be downloaded locally. Dr. Steffens crew posts all of it on the Internet for anyone interested in climate change. Here are some of the facts their research here has helped determine:

• The winter temperature in Greenland has risen by some 5 degrees Celsius (9 Fahrenheit) over the last 15 years. Spring and fall temperatures have climbed by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit), while summer temperatures have remained constant.
• Over the last 30 years, the area of the ice cap that melts has grown by 30 percent. Every year, 100-150 cubic kilometers more ice melts than forms in Greenland.
• The ice cap is moving faster toward the coast. The glacier Swiss Camp rests on moves toward the coast at 14-15 kilometres (8.7-9.3 miles) a year, up from 6-7 kilometres (3.7-4.3 miles) a year in 1995.

For Dr. Steffen, todays job entails removing the solar-powered instruments from the pole theyre currently perched on and attaching them to a shorter base. Last years ice melt left the expensive equipment dangling 3 meters (9.8 feet) in the air, and with more melting expected this year, they will be vulnerable to the strong winds that sweep the ice cap.

Were already late, since Dr. Zwally had to turn his snowmobile around after 8 kilometres (5 miles) to look for his GPS unit. Thats a crucial piece of equipment on the ice cap, where every direction looks the same. If youre stranded and the wind blows away the snowmobile tracks, you have no chance of finding your way back to camp without a GPS unit.

By noon, the sun is warm enough to require 50 SPF sunscreen as Dr. Steffen uses a propane-powered steam drill to make a hole 7 meters (23 feet) in the ice for the new pole. The first three tries are unsuccessful, but the fourth is good. It can take as many as eight holes to get to the needed depth, so this is good news.

To lift the instruments off the old base, Dr. Steffen climbs a 3 metre (10 foot) crane precariously held upright by three people pulling on ropes while two others steady it from the bottom. As he sways back and forth, Dr. Steffen lifts the entire contraption onto the new pole, but another problem emerges: the two parts wont align closely enough for a bolt to fasten them together.

After several failed efforts to attach the instrument pole to its new base, someone calls for the ultimate solution: duct tape. They dont have any, because Dr. Steffen hates it, but they do have electrical tape. So they tape the two pieces together and drop them into the hole. Within hours, the water in the hole will freeze and anchor the new shorter set-up to the ice sheet, ensuring the steady flow of weather data will continue. Next year, Dr. Steffen will return here to check the instruments and will likely have to go through the whole exercise again.

Dr. Koni Steffen working on the Greenland ice cap. Photos by Bob Strong, Reuters.

Copenhagen correspondent Gelu Sulugiuc and Reuters photographer Bob Strong ventured to Greenland to visit a team of scientists studying the melting of the ice sheet. The following was written at Swiss Camp, on the ice cap.

After a bumpy 35-kilometre snowmobile ride, we finally reach JAR-2 (Jakobshavn Ablation Region 2), where Dr. Koni Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder and NASAs Dr. Jay Zwally must conduct work on instruments that measure snowfall, wind speed, ice thickness and its movement toward the ocean.

Dr. Steffen warns us of dangerous crevices, then promptly steps in one, his left leg sinking up to the knee. I expected it to be there, based on that crack in the ice, he says with a grin. I just wanted to test my theory.

We move the snowmobiles away and vow not to approach the hole, while Dr. Zwally does the exact opposite. He methodically pokes at it with an aluminium pole, enlarging it. This is big enough that if you go down you may never come out, he says nonchalantly. It may be as big as the one that helicopter pilot fell in the other day. Then he ties himself to a snowmobile, leans over the crevice and starts videotaping it. Id say its at least 15 metres deep and wide enough for several of us to fit in it, he announces.

Most of the data from JAR-2 and other stations like it are beamed by satellite to the United States, but some must be downloaded locally. Dr. Steffens crew posts all of it on the Internet for anyone interested in climate change. Here are some of the facts their research here has helped determine:

• The winter temperature in Greenland has risen by some 5 degrees Celsius (9 Fahrenheit) over the last 15 years. Spring and fall temperatures have climbed by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit), while summer temperatures have remained constant.
• Over the last 30 years, the area of the ice cap that melts has grown by 30 percent. Every year, 100-150 cubic kilometers more ice melts than forms in Greenland.
• The ice cap is moving faster toward the coast. The glacier Swiss Camp rests on moves toward the coast at 14-15 kilometres (8.7-9.3 miles) a year, up from 6-7 kilometres (3.7-4.3 miles) a year in 1995.

For Dr. Steffen, todays job entails removing the solar-powered instruments from the pole theyre currently perched on and attaching them to a shorter base. Last years ice melt left the expensive equipment dangling 3 meters (9.8 feet) in the air, and with more melting expected this year, they will be vulnerable to the strong winds that sweep the ice cap.

Were already late, since Dr. Zwally had to turn his snowmobile around after 8 kilometres (5 miles) to look for his GPS unit. Thats a crucial piece of equipment on the ice cap, where every direction looks the same. If youre stranded and the wind blows away the snowmobile tracks, you have no chance of finding your way back to camp without a GPS unit.

By noon, the sun is warm enough to require 50 SPF sunscreen as Dr. Steffen uses a propane-powered steam drill to make a hole 7 meters (23 feet) in the ice for the new pole. The first three tries are unsuccessful, but the fourth is good. It can take as many as eight holes to get to the needed depth, so this is good news.

To lift the instruments off the old base, Dr. Steffen climbs a 3 metre (10 foot) crane precariously held upright by three people pulling on ropes while two others steady it from the bottom. As he sways back and forth, Dr. Steffen lifts the entire contraption onto the new pole, but another problem emerges: the two parts wont align closely enough for a bolt to fasten them together.

After several failed efforts to attach the instrument pole to its new base, someone calls for the ultimate solution: duct tape. They dont have any, because Dr. Steffen hates it, but they do have electrical tape. So they tape the two pieces together and drop them into the hole. Within hours, the water in the hole will freeze and anchor the new shorter set-up to the ice sheet, ensuring the steady flow of weather data will continue. Next year, Dr. Steffen will return here to check the instruments and will likely have to go through the whole exercise again.

Dr. Koni Steffen working on the Greenland ice cap. Photos by Bob Strong, Reuters.

Copenhagen correspondent Gelu Sulugiuc and Reuters photographer Bob Strong are in Greenland to visit a team of scientists studying the melting of the ice sheet. Gelu wrote the following when at Swiss Camp, on the Greenland ice cap.

Twenty-five minutes by helicopter from Ilulissat, we come upon the first interruption of the seemingly endless expanse of Greenland's ice sheet -- a cluster of red, brown and yellow dots. These are the tents of Swiss Camp.

This is where scientists led by Dr. Koni Steffen, the director of University of Colorado at Boulders Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, have been studying the islands climate since 1990. They are particularly interested in changes in the amount of yearly snowfall, ice melt and its velocity toward the ocean. Their research will help answer the question of how much the worlds oceans will rise because of global warming and what will happen to the conveyor belt system of currents that brings temperate weather to Western Europe. Swiss Camp is mainly funded by NASA, which uses data obtained here to calibrate its own satellite data.

Every year from late April to early June, Dr. Steffen works alongside colleagues and graduate students in gruelling conditions. Temperatures here fall to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) at night and a biting wind blows almost incessantly. The occasional storm creates white-out conditions in which an inexperienced visitor could easily get lost between one tent and the next, a potentially fatal mistake. To top it all off, the toilet is simply a hole in the ice outside.

This year Dr. Steffens crew brought enough food to feed one person for 280 days, more than usual because of the large number of journalists visiting the camp. With global warming regularly gracing the front pages of major newspapers and high on the agenda of world governments, Greenlands climate is a hot topic. The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), is scheduled to visit Swiss Camp this week.

At first, the camp consisted of three giant red tents placed side by side, which still exist but are now almost totally buried in snow. One has been turned into a refrigerator after melt water flooded in one summer and produced a thick layer of ice on the floor the following winter. It would take a jackhammer to remove it, a project the crew has been delaying for years. One of the other original tents is now a working room (complete with computers, satellite phones and other equipment). The other is a kitchen.

A trap door through the kitchen tent roof leads to a makeshift hallway that doubles as a sauna. It takes hours to get it hot enough, but the scientists are glad to have it since it can also serve as a substitute for a shower. The kitchen table seats nine, but everyone tries to score one of the two folding chairs next to the propane heater. In the rest of the tent, it is warmer to stand than to sit, since hotter air rises to the ceiling and the ice sheet below chills the floor.

The camps occupants sleep in smaller tents outside, three of which are the same kind Robert F. Scott used in his ill-fated 1912 trek to the South Pole. With a cot, a camping mattress and an arctic weather sleeping bag, a researcher can weather temperatures below minus 20 Celsius. "Out here, you burn energy just by sleeping," one of the graduate students warns us.

Dr. Steffen is an Arctic veteran. In his youth he spent time floating on sea ice, accompanied only by two trusted Greenlandic sled dogs. The dogs once protected him for days from a hungry polar bear, driving the beast away from his tent over and over again. Dr. Steffen was armed, but couldnt bring himself to kill the bear. Eventually, a party of Inuit hunters who stumbled on his site did the job for him. They took the fur and left the meat for the dogs.

Constantly cracking jokes in his Swiss-German accent, Dr. Steffen is always ready to tell Swiss Camp stories, such as the time when NASA scientist Dr. Jay Zwally and some grad students tied snowboards to a snowmobile and rode right through an area that Dr. Steffen had requested be kept untouched so he could measure its albedo the snows reflectivity of the suns rays. Youre just like the children, was the only reproof he gave his long-time friend.

Dr. Zwally doubles as the Swiss Camp cook. His specialties are fried fish and lobster tail, while Dr. Steffen treats his crew to fondue every once in a while. Spirits are high when the weather is good enough to work outside, but when storms confine everyone to their tents, the camp can become a bit claustrophobic.

Luckily for us, the midnight sun is shining brightly and the forecast calls for clear skies the next day, so we will be able to escape the confines of the camp and follow Dr. Steffen and his crew as they do maintenance work at a research station on a glacier 35 kilometres (22 miles) away.

Food storage at Swiss Camp. Photos by Bob Strong, Reuters.