Since Donald Trump regained the US presidency, he has talked about the possibility of taking over Greenland. He insisted that the United States will control the island, currently autonomous territory of Denmark, and that if its proposals are rejected, it may seize Greenland by force or, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly suggested to members of Congress on January 5, 2026, purchase the island.
The idea of a US takeover made headlines again in early 2026 following comments about Greenland by a senior Trump adviser, which drew rebukes from European countries.
During a congressional hearing in 2025, senators and experts spoke about the importance of Greenland to the United States. They focused on the strategic value of the island and its natural resources: essential minerals, fossil fuels and hydroelectric power. No one mentioned the dangers, many of them exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change, that will inevitably face those who long to own and develop the island.
This is reckless, as the Arctic climate is changing more rapidly than anywhere else on Earth. This rapid warming further increases the already considerable economic and personal risk for those who live, work and extract resources in Greenland, and for the rest of the planet.
I am a geoscientist who studies the environmental history of Greenland and its ice sheet, including natural hazards and climate change. This knowledge is essential to understanding the risks facing military and extractive initiatives in Greenland today and in the future.
Greenland: Land of extremes
Greenland is different from where most people live. The climate is freezing. For much of the year, sea ice clings to the coast, making it inaccessible.
A layer of ice, up to 3 kilometers thick, covers more than 80% of the island. The population, about 56,000 people, lives along the island’s rugged, rocky coast.
While researching my book “When the Ice Disappears,” I discovered how Greenland’s harsh climate and vast wilderness hampered past colonial efforts. During World War II, dozens of American military pilots, disoriented by thick fog and out of fuel, crashed into the ice sheet. A Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912 and, 46 years later, another sank a Danish ship specifically designed to defend against ice, killing all 95 people on board.
Now, compounded by climate change, natural hazards make resource extraction and military activities in Greenland uncertain, costly and potentially deadly.
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moving rocks
Greenland’s coastal landscape is prone to rockfalls. This danger arises because the coast is where people live and where the rock is not hidden under the ice sheet. In some places, that rock contains crucial minerals, such as gold, as well as other rare metals used in technology, such as circuit boards and electric vehicle batteries.
The unstable slopes reflect how the ice sheet eroded the deep fjords when it was largest. Now that the ice has melted, nothing reinforces the nearly vertical walls of the valley, so they collapse.
In 2017, a slope in northwest Greenland collapsed 900 meters into the deep waters of the fjord. Moments later, the wave generated by the rockfall (a tsunami) devastated the nearby villages of Nuugaatsiaq and Illorsuit. The water, laden with icebergs and sea ice, tore houses from their foundations as people and sled dogs ran for their lives. By the end, four people had died and both towns were in ruins.
The steep walls of the fjords surrounding the island are littered with the scars of ancient rockfalls. Evidence shows that at some point in the last 10,000 years, one such landslide dumped enough rock into the water to fill 3.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools. In 2023, another rockfall triggered a tsunami that moved back and forth for nine days in a Greenland fjord.
There is no paved road network in Greenland. The only viable way to transport heavy machinery, minerals and fossil fuels would be by sea. Docks, mines and buildings tens of meters above sea level would be vulnerable to tsunamis caused by rockfalls.
Melting ice will be deadly and costly
Human-induced global warming, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is accelerating the melting of Greenland ice. This melting threatens the island’s infrastructure and the lifestyle of its inhabitants, who for millennia have adapted their transportation and food systems to the presence of snow and ice. Record flooding, fueled by heat-induced melting of the ice sheet, has recently washed away bridges that stood for half a century.
As the climate warms, the permafrost (frozen rock and soil) underlying the island thaws. This destabilizes the landscape, weakening steep slopes and damaging critical infrastructure.
Thawing permafrost already threatens the US military base in Greenland. As the ice melts and the ground settles under the runways, cracks and craters form, posing a danger to aircraft. Buildings tilt as their foundations settle into the softening ground, including crucial radar facilities that have scanned the sky for missiles and bombers since the 1950s.
Greenland icebergs may threaten oil platforms. As global warming accelerates the flow of Greenland’s glaciers, they calve more icebergs into the ocean. The problem is worsening near Greenland, but some icebergs are moving towards Canada, endangering oil platforms there. Ships stand guard, ready to tow away the threatening icebergs.
The Greenland government banned fossil fuel drilling in 2021 out of environmental concerns. However, Trump and his allies remain eager for exploration to resume on the island, despite exceptionally high costs, disappointing results from initial drilling and the continued risk of icebergs.
As Greenland’s ice melts and water flows into the ocean, sea level changes, but in ways that might not be intuitive. Far from the island, sea level rises approximately 2.5 cm every six years. But near the ice sheet, it is the land that rises. Gradually freed from the weight of its ice, the rock beneath Greenland, long sunk by the enormous ice sheet, is recovering. That increase is rapid: more than 1.8 meters per century. Soon, many Greenland ports could become too shallow for maritime traffic.
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Greenland’s challenging past and future
History clearly demonstrates that many past military and colonial efforts failed in Greenland due to their poor consideration of the island’s harsh climate and dynamic ice sheet.
Climate change drove Norse settlers out of Greenland 700 years ago. Explorers trying to cross the ice sheet lost their lives due to the cold. American bases built within the ice sheet, such as Camp Century, were quickly destroyed by the deformation of the snow that enveloped them.
In the past, the United States focused on short-term gains, with little regard for the future. The abandoned US military bases from World War II, scattered around the island and requiring cleanup, are one example. The forced relocation of Inuit communities from Greenland during the Cold War is another example. I think Trump’s current demands for the United States to control the island and exploit its resources are equally short-sighted.
However, when it comes to the planet’s habitability, I argued that Greenland’s greatest strategic and economic value to the world lies not in its location or its natural resources, but in its ice. That white snow and ice reflects sunlight, keeping the Earth cool. And the ice sheet, sitting on land, prevents water from reaching the ocean. As it melts, the Greenland ice sheet will raise global sea level, up to about 7 meters when all the ice is gone.
Climate-driven sea level rise is already flooding coastal regions around the world, including major economic centers. If this continues, it is estimated that the damage will amount to billions of dollars. Unless Greenland’s ice remains frozen, coastal flooding will force the largest migration ever seen by humanity. These changes are expected to destabilize the global economic and strategic order.
These examples demonstrate that ignoring the risks of natural disasters and climate change in Greenland spells disaster, both locally and globally.
*This article, originally published on February 19, 2025, was updated with the United States’ new attention to Greenland.
*Paul Bierman is a professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Vermont.
This text was originally published in The Conversation
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