By Yarrow Axford
January 23, 2026
Greenland’s 57,000 people have weathered the last month in the eye of a terrifying storm: President Trump, who at Davos this week referred to Greenland as “a piece of ice” and confused it with Iceland, has managed to simultaneously ignore their existence and threaten them with a military invasion.
Featured Picture: The author’s research team with a sediment core recovered from a remote lake in the mountains of southernmost Greenland. Residents and businesses in the towns of Qaqortoq and Narsarsuaq contributed to this field work in countless ways, including helicopter transport, cargo handling, consultation about animal hazards, fuel resupplies, and pointing the team to the tastiest cheese in town. Research conducted under the Government of Greenland’s Scientific Survey License number VU-00130. (Photo by G.E. Lasher)
What a terrible way to treat a friend. And the world owes a lot to the people of Kalaallit Nunaat, known in English as Greenland.
As a climate scientist working to reconstruct how past periods of climate warming affected ice and ecosystems, I have focused my research in Greenland for the past 15 years. Working in such a scientifically important, culturally rich, and naturally stunning place has been the greatest privilege of my career.
I’ve led or helped with more than a dozen research trips to Greenland. Every time, research was only possible because people in Greenland supported and welcomed our work; and for the most rewarding projects, they have also been close partners. Every foreign scientist who has done research in Greenland—whether to GPS-track a glacier’s movement, image black holes with the Greenland Telescope, measure ocean temperatures, count migratory birds, observe cosmic explosions by watching for neutrinos at an on-ice observatory, or drill deep into ice or ocean sediments—has benefited from some form of support from Greenland’s people.
Consider the Greenland Ice Sheet, which in summers is crawling (in relative terms) with intrepid scientists keen to forecast how climate change will affect people around the world. Greenland’s ice sheet contains 90 percent of the Arctic’s land ice, the equivalent of about 21 feet of global sea level. It is the largest contributor to global sea level rise today—apart from the physical expansion of seawater that happens when the ocean warms. As Greenland’s melt accelerates, rising seas will force people on low-lying coastlines around the world out of their homes, expanding migration crises within and across countless national borders. Unless Antarctica’s much larger ice sheet nosedives into collapse in the coming decades, Greenland’s ice may be the greatest geopolitical force of this century. (Antarctica’s will be, eventually.)
Everything we know about Greenland’s ice sheet has come thanks to Greenlanders, who have partnered in and permitted decades of ice sheet research.
When Greenlanders were thrown into Trump’s imperialist crosshairs earlier this month, many American scientists who do research in Greenland were deeply upset. Greenland’s people—90 percent of whom are Inuit people, indigenous to the Arctic—have been our friends, allies, and coworkers. In the words of Greenlander Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council: “Times have changed since Inuit lands were mere commodities that could be bought and sold.” Trump’s threats to acquire or invade Greenland, when Greenland’s people and their leaders have repeatedly and emphatically stated this is not what they want, are also threats to violate the human rights of Greenland’s Inuit people.
So, I was pleased but not surprised when 225 (at time of publication) US scientists who conduct research in Greenland quickly signed on to a Statement in Solidarity with Greenland earlier this month. (In the words of a geomorphologist colleague, “I signed … about 15 seconds after it showed up in my inbox.”) A small group of geoscience faculty and doctoral students from five US universities drafted the statement, and we made it public in Greenlandic and English on January 9, the day that Trump made headlines for saying, “We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not.”
Our statement asserts that signatories “vehemently oppose President Trump’s aggressive stance regarding Greenland and reiterate—as Greenland’s leaders have clearly stated—that Greenland is not anyone’s to ‘buy’ or ‘take.’ Greenland belongs to its people.” It urges signatories to be loud about Greenland’s right to self-determination, including with their representatives in Washington, D.C. This is an issue even most Republicans in Congress should disagree with Trump about: The percent of Americans who support using military force to take control of Greenland remains in the single digits, and only a slightly larger percentage of Americans believe (incorrectly) that Greenlanders want to join the United States. It’s exceedingly rare for Americans to be that unified on anything these days.
The waterfront of Nuuk, Greenland, in November 2025. (Photo by Yarrow Axford)
With our statement, we wanted most of all to speak, as a community, to our friends and colleagues in Greenland. “To Greenlanders,” the statement says, “thank you, and we stand with you.”
Collecting signatures on the statement brought a rare ray of sunshine, thanks to an idea from a Ph.D. student in our group of authors who suggested we give signatories the option of including a personal but anonymous message to people in Greenland.
“The people and lands of Kalaallit Nunaat are lovely, welcoming, and independent. They should be celebrated!” wrote one scientist. “I am honored and humbly appreciate the opportunity to carry out globally relevant research in Greenland, a country with a deep and rich culture,” wrote another.
“As an Alaskan, I feel a shared sense of community with Greenlanders. I feel personally offended by the rhetoric coming from the White House and I feel deeply ashamed and embarrassed by it.”
And from another, “I have worked in Greenland and with Greenlanders for 20 years. There are so many ways in which they have been supportive and enthusiastic collaborators, and it has been a pleasure to grow relationships, make discoveries, and share insights. I sincerely hope we can work together as allied nations to achieve the Greenland National Research Strategy goals.”
Signatories of our statement pledged to honor Greenland’s National Research Strategy, which outlines the Government of Greenland’s research objectives for 2022-2030. High priorities include strengthening Greenland’s science institutions, promoting ethical practices in international collaborations, and ensuring that research conducted in Greenland benefits its communities. Our January statement actually follows a Letter from US Researchers in Support of Greenland’s Self-Governance and Autonomy, signed by 350 scientists in January 2025 and penned by concerned doctoral students who also helped craft the new statement. The earlier letter condemned Trump’s statements about purchasing Greenland and focused on outlining strategies for respectful engagement with Greenlanders by the United States and its scientists, in accordance with Greenland’s National Research Strategy.
In the scheme of history, the tendrils of trust and collaboration that Greenlanders and some American scientists have been nurturing together are tender spring shoots. American science in Greenland has its earliest roots in military and colonial endeavors that sometimes brought devastation for Greenland’s Inuit people, something we still must reckon with today. The culture of American science has improved in myriad ways since the days of Robert Peary or the Cold War, but in most of those ways it still has far to go. Meanwhile, Trump seems to want to undo decades, if not centuries, of progress. Scientists and all Americans must stand strong against that. In the coming days, we must demand that if a “framework” for Greenland’s future emerges from international discussions—as Trump foreshadowed from Davos—it must be the framework that Greenland’s people want.
Read also: defenddemocracy.press/greenland-a-strategic-location-for-a-war-against-russia-and-or-china/
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