Hi
I live on Greenland, teach physics in a high scool. The early sunrise was reported on the national government television news on the 11th, the only tvchannel uphere. Its not a viral.
here is the webpage with the original picture:
Source: http://knr.gl/index.php?id=183&tx_ttnewstt_news=63716&tx_ttnewsbackPid=143&cHash=f69d0f034b
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I have found coordinates for google maps for you:
69.199976,-51.132116
I believe this is the exact point the picture was taken from, a hilltop south of town where everybody goes to sing songs, welcoming the sun on the 13th of january. The reason you cant find ilulissat on google is because its registered under the danish colonial name: Jacobshavn.
However be carefull when looking at the pics on google earth/maps cos the glacier(in-land-ice) has retreated a lot since those satellite pics where taken. I found a map on this website that is a bit more up to date:
Source: http://www.33igc.org/coco/entrypage.aspx?t=programme&containerid=11169&parentid=11162&objectid=10883&guid=1&lnodeid=1&pageid=5026
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The mountains seen on the famous picture are rock-formations on the other side of the fjord.
The sun rises almost due south. There are no glaciers in the way, at most there will be a few floating icebergs on the fjord. So the theory about shrinking glaciers falls.
I dont think the ground is rising soo much that it could cause the change. One of the places where the ground lifts the most because of a melted glacier is around the great lakes in north America. Here the lift is about 2,5 mm a year. So if you stand on your toes it would have a greater effect.
On the 13th when about 1000 people where gathered to sing the sun welcome (everyone that can walk out there from the town!), it was half an hour late!! Nearly everybody had gone home but at 13.35 it came up over the horizon. It was not seen on the 12th.
Thats gotta play a little trick on you mind if you are from a nation of natives where very few even get a high school education. Especially if the sun has come up there at the same time for countless generations.
I wish i could explain it with all my education..
Illulissat has been populated for more than 4000 years.
here is a picture from the 13th:
Source: http://sermitsiaq.ag/indland/article70720.ece
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from the same place.
I dont buy your theory on ice crystals since there should be fewer of them in the atmosphere as the temperature rises. If ice crystals would be the reason it would have been seen before.
A spike of methane seems more likely to me, since the permafrost meting over Russias tundras emits a lot of that into the atmosphere but i would very much like a better explanation than that..
Look forward to solving this mystery..
Comment by Tommy B. | January 16, 2011 |
Source: http://halfastro.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/greenlands-early-sunrise/
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