Only two million people call the Arctic home — roughly half the population of Berlin. Beyond the Russian cities of Murmansk and Norilsk, it is largely a wilderness, though one increasingly visited by scientists, especially to the glaciers of Greenland. A Danish research team has made a troubling discovery: much of the island’s meltwater is not coming from the surface of the ice sheet, but from ancient ice layers deep beneath it — ice that releases particularly high concentrations of methane as it melts.

In Disko Bay on Greenland’s west coast, the small town of Ilulissat lies among towering icebergs calved from a glacier whose fjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Further north, whales feed on the nutrients carried up by glacial meltwater.

Ittoqqortoormiit in east Greenland at the mouth of Scoresbysund — the largest fjord system on earth — is one of the most remote settlements in Greenland and home to around 900 people.  Dog sleds are used to go hunting and catch seals. Sometimes a cruise ship breaks through the dwindling sea ice to Scoresbysund. This is a special event for locals and tourists alike.