Remote but resource-rich island occupies a key position in a warming world Remote, icy and mostly pristine, Greenland plays an outsized role in the daily weather experienced by billions of people and in the climate changes taking shape all over the planet.
Think of Greenland as an open refrigerator door or thermostat for a warming world, and it's in a region that is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe, said New York University climate scientist David Holland.
Greenland is where climate change, scarce resources, tense geopolitics and new trade patterns all intersect, said Ohio University security and environment professor Geoff Dabelko.
The world's largest island is now "central to the geopolitical, geoeconomic competition in many ways," partly because of climate change, Dabelko said.
Since his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, which is an semiautonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally and a founding member of NATO.
