Reporter: Tara Brown
Producers: Stephen Rice and Julia Timms
If we're to believe the predictions about global warming, Australia's future is looking decidedly bleak.
Rising sea levels, devastating droughts and wild weather, it's frightening stuff.
Tara Brown has just returned from a place where they couldn't be happier about climate change.
Greenland is the world's largest island, it's incredibly remote, unbelievably cold and spectacularly beautiful and right now it's booming.
You see, the island's massive ice cap is melting at an astonishing rate.
And while that's got the scientists terrified, the locals are ecstatic.
The big thaw is great news for tourism, fishing and farming. It hasn't been this warm since the Viking days, and Greenland has never been so green.
Transcript
TARA BROWN: If you want to see icebergs, Greenland is the place to come. They don't get any bigger or more beautiful than this. The thing that strikes you immediately about Greenland is that nature dominates. There are no skyscrapers, no freeways and with an entire population of 60,000, almost no people. Just this sublime stark landscape where you are a mere witness to nature at its most spectacular. And nature is always at work. Even as you watch, it changes.
FINN SIEGSTADT: Imagine a big piece fallen off and it creates about 15ft-20ft waves and you have to get out very fast.
TARA BROWN: My guide is Finn Siegstadt. As a Greenlander, he has learned to respect the ice.
FINN SIEGSTADT: When it breaks off it's like an explosion. The air wants to get out and that's why we see or hear a loud cracking noise.
TARA BROWN: It sounds quite frightening, actually. It's like the whole thing is about to collapse.
FINN SIEGSTADT: Yes, yes.
TARA BROWN: For Greenlanders like Finn the disappearing ice is a weather vane — proof global warming is happening right here, right now.
FINN SIEGSTADT: When you live here you don't have to be a scientist to notice the changes that we have seen. For about 10 years ago all this, all this Disko Bay area was frozen winter ice. This is gone, this is history.
TARA BROWN: For most Greenlanders, this is good news. It's the start of a boom in tourism, farming and fishing - all the more remarkable when you consider this enormous island is mostly in the Arctic Circle, up near the North Pole. Greenlanders are hardy mix of native Inuits and tough Scandinavian settlers who've made their homes the only splash of colour on this otherwise barren landscape. Like Finn, most are still traditional hunters using dog sleds to track seals and bears. But now, they're more than happy to come in from the cold. In the past 30 years temperatures have risen by 1.5 degrees — more than double the global average. It hasn't been this warm in Greenland since the Vikings arrived here 1,000 years ago. All that's left of that once thriving colony are the ruins of their farms and this beautiful stone church. Legend has it the Viking Eric the Red, banished here for a couple of murders he committed, named this place Greenland. He did so to make it sound as appealing as possible, to entice his fellow countrymen to come and settle here. And it worked - for 400 years the Vikings called Greenland home. No-one really knows why they suddenly disappeared but most believe there was a harsh cold snap and, unable to adapt, the Vikings became Greenland's early victims of climate change. If there's a modern-day Viking it's Stefan Magnusson. He came here from Iceland to farm reindeer but unlike his forebears he's adapting and making the most of today's changing weather.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Now they'll be ready for Christmas, for the jingle bells.
TARA BROWN: This is a character who wears seal-skin pants, speaks six languages and is bringing up his young family in the middle of nowhere. You're very resourceful.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Maybe.
TARA BROWN: You have to be, don't you?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: You said it. (Laughs)
TARA BROWN: Stefan runs 2000 reindeer on a vast property — 150,000 hectares of jaw-dropping wilderness. It's such beautiful countryside — so steep.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Really entertaining.
TARA BROWN: And high up in the mountains, accessible only by horse or helicopter — a glacier.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: We are here.
TARA BROWN: It's a long ride here. In the last 10 years, Stefan has watched this glacier retreat by almost 100 metres.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Yeah, you see that, uh, grey area over there approximately 100 metres wide?
TARA BROWN: Yes.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: That's brand new — new land that has been coming up from the ice during the last five to 10 years.
TARA BROWN: In such a short amount of time?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Yes, yes. You know you are really experiencing the global warming here. You're observing it happening and I think Greenland is one of the few places on the planet where you really see it and where you sense it.
TARA BROWN: For Stefan, global warming means less ice that means more pasture and ultimately well-fed happy reindeer make more reindeer. You live in such a beautiful isolated place. Are you worried that the warmer climate will bring the world to you? That the world will discover Greenland?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: No, actually I'll be glad because sometimes we are a little bit lonely here and so I'll be happy to receive Australians as visitors here.
TARA BROWN: With the weather on its side the south of Greenland is undergoing an agricultural revolution.
KENNETH HOEGH: This is quite good quality I'm pretty sure. It looks quite good and it seems to be quite tasty for the animals. It's like salad, yeah. Oh, yes, it's sweet.
TARA BROWN: Mmm.
KENNETH HOEGH: There's gonna be some really lucky sheep this year.
TARA BROWN: Lucky sheep? Scientist Kenneth Hoegh is leading the charge trying to turn a nation of hunters into a nation of farmers. So, things are looking good in Greenland?
KENNETH HOEGH: It's getting greener.
TARA BROWN: You don't realise how tough it is to grow anything here until you see how excited Kenneth is about his cauliflowers. Mmm. It's very nice actually. I don't think I've ever eaten raw cauliflower before.
KENNETH HOEGH: No? But it's good, huh. Sweet.
TARA BROWN: Everything from lettuce to Chinese cabbage, it's all growing in Greenland's warmer weather.
KENNETH HOEGH: Yah. Oh, yes, that's sweet.
TARA BROWN: It's like you're in a lolly shop.
KENNETH HOEGH: Yeah, that's right.
TARA BROWN: What do you think this experiment is proving or showing?
KENNETH HOEGH: Well, it's proving that we are able to produce much more vegetables in Greenland and that we don't have to import it by plane and we can get a better quality and probably, hopefully, at a better price as well.
TARA BROWN: And then Kenneth takes me on a special detour. In a far corner of his farm he has a prized forest of conifers - the only forest in a country with no trees. So, Kenneth, how old is this forest?
KENNETH HOEGH: Well, they are 40 years old.
TARA BROWN: But it's only been in the last 10 years they've experienced a growth spurt the warmer weather marked in their trunks.
KENNETH HOEGH: You see the top shoot?
TARA BROWN: Yes.
KENNETH HOEGH: And then it's 2006, '05, '04, '03, '02, '01 and around the year 2000 is around here.
TARA BROWN: Yes.
KENNETH HOEGH: So, a lot's happened in the last seven years.
TARA BROWN: So to have a growth spurt like this, what does that tell you about the climate?
KENNETH HOEGH: To be honest, when I started here 15 years ago working here I wouldn't have imagined that they would grow so good as they do now.
TARA BROWN: That's the good news, here's the bad. When you fly north and over Greenland's vast ice cap the downside of global warming becomes frighteningly clear. Eighty percent of Greenland is still under ice. If it were all to melt sea levels around the world would rise by a disastrous seven metres. That thaw is already under way and glaciers here are retreating at a rate that is shocking glaciologists like Ginny Catania.
GINNY CATANIA: It's been increasing in melt over the last, maybe 15 years or so. Every year we see more and more and more melt.
TARA BROWN: Do you have any doubt that man's got something to do with this?
GINNY CATANIA: No, I don't.
TARA BROWN: Ginny's been tracking the movement of the ice using satellite positioning. It's cold, hard work but Ginny hopes the data collected here will reveal if warmer temperatures are causing the ice to move down the mountain more quickly and, in turn, melt more rapidly. The glacier in this area is the fastest in the world moving 15km a year down the fjord.
GINNY CATANIA: It's definitely been speeding up and it's kind of, from our perspective, it's sort of a unique thing because we never really thought ice could really go that fast.
TARA BROWN: Ginny has brought me to the edge of the ice fjord where the glacier flows towards the sea. It's a great view out there, isn't it?
GINNY CATANIA: Yeah, it is.
TARA BROWN: What are we looking at?
GINNY CATANIA: Well you can see Jakob Severin glacier coming into its fjord. and then the entire fjord is just filled with icebergs, sort of floating.
TARA BROWN: The icebergs are unpredictable, and, as they roll, dangerous. But most of all, they're breathtaking. This is one of life's unforgettable experiences — to travel along the wall of the great glacier where the glacier meets the sea where giant blocks of ice carve off to become icebergs. Ninety-five years ago, it is likely a monster iceberg from this glacier sunk the unsinkable Titanic. The glacier here at Ilulissat is the world's biggest ice machine producing 20 million tonnes of ice each day in the form of icebergs the size of cruise ships. This one is a baby by Greenland standards but it and the others that form here each day hold enough fresh water to supply Sydney and Melbourne for a whole year. Even for Greenlanders like Finn Seigstadt the ice is still a source of wonder. Taste's good?
FINN SIEGSTADT: It's a bit salty.
TARA BROWN: That's an understatement, isn't it?
FINN SIEGSTADT: Actually you can almost hear bubbles getting out of the ice. You can almost talk to the ice somehow.
TARA BROWN: What do you say to it?
FINN SIEGSTADT: Well, if you're lonely, you always have someone to talk to.
TARA BROWN: But not all Greenlanders are as romantic as Finn. The ever-resourceful Stefan Magnusson has discovered his reindeer farm may be sitting on a huge deposit of precious metals like vanadium and titanium. Apparently Greenland is full of it and the warmer weather makes it more economical to mine.
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Yes, it'll be very good for Greenland.
TARA BROWN: Has there been an estimate on how much it's worth?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Um, approximately, $200 billion.
TARA BROWN: Two hundred million dollars?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Billion.
TARA BROWN: Billion dollars?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Yes, approximately.
TARA BROWN: Disappearing icebergs, rising sea levels, unpredictable weather - this is the downside of a changing climate, but, for Stefan, a settler from Iceland, the balance is clear. Global warming gives him the best shot at a good life. And, after 500 years of living in a snap freeze, who can begrudge Greenlanders their time in the sun? I know you are not originally from Greenland, but you love it, huh?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Yeah, I love it here. It's going to be one of the greatest countries on the planet with this global warming.
TARA BROWN: It's going to be?
STEFAN MAGNUSSON: Yeah, going to be, yes.
