GREENLANDS IMPORTANCE TO THE US. IS IT PROJECT 51?

Alfred Wegener embarked on four Greenland expeditions between 1906 and 1931, a time when the conquest of the North and South Pole began to enjoy enormous international public attention. Within this so-called “heroic phase” of polar exploration, Wegener embodied a new type of polar explorer in that he was mainly interested in basic geoscientific and meteorological questions and that he introduced new scientific methods and instruments in the field of polar science. Aside from investigating unresolved geographic and cartographic questions with the intention of filling the last blank spots on Greenland’s map, Wegener’s work focused on gaining detailed knowledge about the origins of Greenland’s weather and climate conditions, the dynamics of its ice sheet, and the atmosphere above the Greenland ice sheet.

The exploration of Greenland during this period was also marked by the prospect of future transatlantic flights between North America and Europe. For meteorological phenomena such as the low-pressure zone in the North Atlantic and Johannes Georgi’s discovery of the jet stream over Iceland in 1926–1927 made it clear that Greenland had a significant influence on the development of weather patterns. Some of Wegener’s approaches, especially the exploration of the climatic and glaciological conditions as well as the use of seismological methodology to analyze the ice sheet, were continued after 1945.