What Greenland Can Teach Us About The Earth’s Past and Future

Politicians are eyeing Greenland as an important strategic location, perfectly situated between Europe and North America. President Donald Trump has said he remains highly interested in acquiring or controlling Greenland as a national security and economic asset. But for a lot of researchers, Greenland is a beautiful and fragile place that holds important clues to the Earth’s past and future. So what are they learning about the large, icy island? 

On this episode, we’ll explore some of the research happening in Greenland. We’ll hear about archeologists digging up Viking graves to find out why a settlement disappeared sometime in the 15th century, and talk to an adventurous climate scientist who tracks and follows meltwater that’s flowing from Greenland’s ice sheet into the sea. Also, what are the riches buried under the ice that everybody is interested in? We’ll find out how mining for Greenland’s rare earth metals could affect this ecosystem.

• We talk with writer and photographer Neil Shea about his travels to Greenland and the intriguing historical mystery he found there — the Viking settlement that thrived and then vanished 500 years later. Shea explains how and why Erik the Red first pioneered the settlement, the global shifts that put them into decline, and lingering clues as to how and why they disappeared. Shea’s book about his Arctic adventures is “Frostlines: A Journey Through Entangled Lives and Landscapes in a Warming Arctic.”
• President Trump's intense interest in Greenland has raised the question — what is it about Greenland that makes it so valuable? One answer, according to journalist Vince Beiser, is its rare earth metals. We talk with Beiser about what makes these metals so valuable, the challenges involved with mining them, and his predictions for what will happen next. Beiser's book is “Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future.”
• Greenland isn’t just valuable strategically and economically — it’s also a key hub for research on climate change. We talk with Rutgers University geography professor Åsa Rennermalm about why Greenland — and, in particular, its massive ice sheet — is so important to this research, her experiences roughing it in the tundra, and what the recent political discourse could mean for the future of her research.