North of the coast of Greenland found a tiny island, which, according to scientists who discovered it, is the northernmost piece of land in the Arctic Ocean.
It reports The Guardian.
The width of the island is only 30 meters and the highest point — 3 meters above sea level. According to researchers, the island has become visible due to the movement of pack ice and previously was hidden under it.
According to Morten Rasch, head of the Arctic research station in Greenland, the discovery was made by accident when the researchers went to collect samples. At first, they thought they had Oodak Island in front of them.
The team would suggest naming the island “Qeqertaq Avannarleq,” which means “northernmost island” in Greenlandic.
Over the past decades, a number of expeditions have been conducted to identify the world’s northernmost island. In 2007, explorer Dennis Schmidt found a similar island nearby.
Researchers believe that the “emergence” of the island from under the pack ice right now is not a direct consequence of climate change.
According to Professor Rene Forsberg of the Danish National Institute for Space Research, which studies a wide range of issues, the area north of Greenland is covered by the thickest polar ice. This summer, the ice is 2 to 3 meters thick, compared to 4 meters at the time of his very first expedition to Oodaak Island in 1978.
As previously reported, the week before last, rain fell at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet for the first time in observation history, which has been called an alarm signal for the ice sheet.
