Ghost islands of the Arctic: The world’s ‘northern-most island’ isn’t the first to vanish

Sep 14, 2022

These elusive islands in the Arctic are actually large icebergs grounded at the sea bottom. Image: Unsplash/ Willian Justen de Vasconcellos

Kevin Hamilton

Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hawaii

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Arctic is affecting economies, industries and global issues

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Arctic

The notion of using the Graf Zeppelin to conduct geographic and scientific investigations of the high Arctic was taken up by an international polar science committee. Image: The Conversation.

Polarfahrt Franz Josef Land Arctic ghost islands

The Polarfahrt confirmed the existence of Franz Josef Land in the Arctic. Image: The Conversation.

Pavel Molchanov Ludwig Weickmann weather balloon Arctic ghost islands

Pavel Molchanov and Ludwig Weickmann prepare to launch a weather balloon. Image: The Conversation.

Molchanov hydrogen-filled weather balloons first observations stratospheric temperatures Arctic pole

Molchanov’s hydrogen-filled weather balloons provided the first observations of the stratospheric temperatures near the Arctic pole. Image: The Conversation.

Discover

What's the World Economic Forum doing about the ocean?

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.