Ilulissat Icefjord: A UNESCO World Heritage Site

In 2004 Ilulissat Icefjord was admitted onto UNESCO’s World Heritage List, and is today at the centre of the huge international focus on global warming thanks to extensive media coverage, visits by tourists, and study trips by professionals and politicians alike.

In recent years the site has been visited by several American senators, including John McCain, Speaker of the United States House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chairman of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, and many others besides.

© Carsten E. Thuesen/GEUS

In addition to being Greenland's biggest natural attraction owing to the fjord's gigantic icebergs, Ilulissat Icefjord is also an easy place to observe that a significant retreat of glaciers is indeed taking place in Greenland.

The glacier Sermeq Kujalleq has thus retreated some 15 km (9 miles) over the last 4 years. This retreat means that the icebergs that emerge are now expected to become gradually smaller as the mouth of the glacier is now on land, rather than in the water.

World Heritage Site
Located on the west coast of Greenland, 250-km north of the Arctic Circle, Greenland's Ilulissat Icefjord (40,240-ha) is the sea mouth of Sermeq Kujalleq, one of the few glaciers through which the Greenland ice cap reaches the sea.

Sermeq Kujalleq is one of the fastest (40 m/day during summer time, 19 m/day before 2002) and most active glaciers in the world. Its annual calving of over 70 cubic kilometres of ice, which is twice as much compared to before 2002 and more than any other glacier outside Antarctica.

© Carsten E. Thuesen/GEUS

Studied for over 250 years, it has helped develop our understanding of climate change and icecap glaciology. The combination of a huge ice-sheet and the dramatic sounds of a fast-moving glacial ice-stream calving into a fjord covered by icebergs makes for a dramatic and awe-inspiring natural phenomenon.

All tour operators in Ilulissat organise trips to Ilulissat Icefjord, including hiking trips, sailing trips and helicopter flights.

Read more about Ilulissat Icefjord at GEUS' homepage (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) and also download these guidelines of how you can protect the Icefjord when visiting. 

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