ILULISSAT, Greenland — The gargantuan chunks of ice breaking off the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and thundering into an Arctic fjord make a spectacular sight. But to Greenlanders, the scene also is deeply worrisome.
The frequency and size of the icefalls are a powerful reminder that the frozen sheet covering the world's largest island is thinning -- a glaring sign of global warming, scientists say.
"In the past we could walk on the ice in the fjord between the icebergs for a six-month period during the winter, drill holes and fish," said Joern Kristensen, a fisherman and one of the indigenous Inuit who make up most of Greenland's population of about 56,000.
"We can only do that for a month or two now. It has become more difficult to drive dog sleds because the ice between the icebergs isn't solid anymore."
In 2002-2003, a six-mile-long stretch of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier broke off and drifted silently out of the fjord near Ilulissat, Greenland's third largest town, 155 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The fjord has been designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.
Although Greenland, a little more than three times the size of Texas, is the prime example, scientists say the effects of climate change are noticeable throughout the Arctic region, from the northward spread of spruce beetles in Canada to melting permafrost in Alaska and northern Russia.
Indigenous people, who for centuries have lived by adapting to the cold, fear that even small and gradual changes could have a profound effect.
"We can see a trend that the fall is getting longer and wetter," said Lars-Anders Baer, a political leader of Sweden's Sami, a once nomadic, reindeer-herding people.
"If the climate gets warmer, it is probably bad for the reindeer. New species [of plants] come in and suffocate other plants that are the main food for the reindeer," he said.
Rising temperatures also are a concern in the Yamalo-Nenets region in western Siberia, Alexandr Navyukhov, 49, said. He is an ethnic Nenet, a group that lives mostly off hunting, fishing and deer-breeding.
"We now have bream in our river, which we didn't have in the past because that fish is typical of warmer regions," he said. "On the one hand it may look like good news, but bream are predatory fish that prey upon fish eggs, often of rare kinds of fish."
